Protest planned against artificial hormone in milk

Asheville, NC— Local concerned citizens, in coordination with Carolina Partners for Pure Food, will hold a peaceful protest against recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) outside the Federal Building on Patton Ave. in downtown Asheville, 8:30am - 6:30pm, Friday, August 18. The demonstration is open to the public.

Though legal since approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1993, many scientists have expressed strong concerns about a possible link between cancer and the consumption of milk from cows injected with the synthetic hormone. This and other human health concerns have blocked its approval in many countries including Canada, New Zealand, and every member nation of the European Union. Monsanto, which developed and sells the product, has always insisted use of the hormone poses no human health risk of any kind. The FDA, whose veterinary medicine branch approved the animal drug in 1993, agrees.

Consumers have also expressed concern about how use of the drug can lead to high levels of antibiotic drugs in milk. Many farmers are forced to inject their animals with powerful drugs to fight infections and other side effects experienced by cows injected with rBGH. No labeling laws require milk producers to tell consumers when their milk or other dairy products come from cows treated with the controversial hormone. In fact, Monsanto has fought efforts by dairies that do not use the product from saying so on their labels.

Special guests at the protest will be Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, award-winning husband and wife reporters, who were fired from the Tampa, Fla. FOX news affiliate for refusing to slant their investigative report on rBGH after being pressured by Monsanto. The two consequently filed a law suit against the station.

“We are parents ourselves,” Akre said. “It is not right for the station to withhold this important health information and solely as a matter of conscience we will not aid and abet their effort to cover this up any longer,” she said. “Every parent and every consumer has the right to know what they’re pouring on their children’s morning cereal.”

“We set out to tell Florida consumers the truth a giant chemical company and a powerful dairy lobby clearly doesn’t want them to know,” Wilson said. “That used to be something investigative reporters won awards for. As we’ve learned the hard way, it’s something you can be fired for these days whenever a news organization places more value on its bottom line than on delivering the news to its viewers honestly.”

All those who are interested in attending the protest are also invited to hear Akre and Wilson speak at an informal meeting in the Earth Fare Community Room, Westgate Shopping Center, at 6:45pm, Tuesday, August 15. Protesters are encouraged to bring materials to create demonstration posters during the meeting.

Carolina Partners for Pure Food: cppf_news@hotmail.com rBGH info: www.purefood.org/rbghlink.html Fox lawsuit info: www.foxbghsuit.com

Activists, Buddhist monks protest nuclear weapons

By Lola LaFey and David Thundershield

On Saturday, July 29, the Buddhist Peace Pilgrimage visited Asheville’s Quaker Meeting House. That evening, 30 Asheville-area residents gathered to share vegetarian food, view the video “Stop the Bombs,” and hear about the ongoing peace walk to the USA’s last nuclear weapons plant.

On July 16, 1945 the United States tested it’s first nuclear bomb in New Mexico. On July 16, 2000, Br. Utsumi and Sr. Denise Laffan began their 2nd annual Peace Pilgrimage from Atlanta Ga. to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The walk culminated at the front gate of the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge on August 6, 2000, the 56th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Some 200 people marched the last mile and a half with the walkers from Atlanta. Protesters faced 60 armed local, state, and Federal police on the “blue-line” leading into the Y-12 Plant’s Main Gate. The crowd was treated to three hours of music and speeches by Y-12 opponents, including a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic Bomb attack, Masashi Irabu. Later, 22 people — proceeding in waves — crossed the “blue line” and were arrested to the cheers of a roaring crowd. The evening’s events culminated with a Food Not Bombs dinner at the gate and a peace lantern flotilla at Melton Lake Marina.

The Y-12 Plant produced components of a bomb named Little Boy, which destroyed thousands of plant, animal and human lives in the city of Hiroshima. Y-12 is currently involved in Life Extension Upgrades. This extends the life of Nuclear Bombs for 100 years. Each bomb is 20x more potent than Little Boy. Despite the fact that the cold war is over and other countries with nuclear capabilities desperately want to halt all bomb production; the US continues to operate Y-12, maintains its nuclear arsenal on hair-trigger alert status, and is pumping billions of tax dollars into the nuclear proliferation in space.

The walk left Atlanta on July 16, and averaged 15 miles a day. It took place at a slow, meditative pace, accompanied by chanting and drumming. The communities the activists walked through responded very positively to the Peace Pilgrimage. Walkers were greeted with friendly honks, thumbs up, food and monetary donations, places to stay and commitments to join the final rally at Oak Ridge. The sojourn from Tallulah Falls, GA to Cherokee, NC, saw the walk swell in numbers from 6 to 16 walkers. The walkers received a warm welcome in Cherokee. A banner calling for “Peace on Earth,” an end to the bomb-making at Oak Ridge, and the desecration and poisoning of traditional Cherokee (Ani-yun-wiya) lands was written in both the English and Giduwa (Cherokee) dialects.

Those who were unable to attend the August 6th Hirosima day demonstration at Oak Ridge’s Y-12 Plant, can express their commitment to peace by contatcting the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance at 865- 483-8202 or www.stopthebombs.org. You may also contact the Asheville Chapter of the War Resisters League at 828-277-0758.

The local branches of Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom and Physicians for Social Responsibility held an event for Nagasaki Day on Wednesday, August 9, at the Vance Monument in Asheville. Attendees wore white, the color of mourning in Japan., and the Traditional color (u-ne-ga) for peace in the Cherokee (Tsa-la-gi) Nation. The vigil was the target of police surveillance, as protesters were videotaped by Steve Branson of the Asheville Police Department.

Y-12’s budget was $437,000,000 in 1999. Nationally, the US spent $96 million a day on nuclear weapons programs in 1998. The United States is the only country ever to have used a nuclear bomb against another nation in history. There are currently over 11,000 nuclear weapons on active alert in the US arsenal.

Beth Trigg contributed to this report.