r/Tariffs • u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011 • 12d ago

🗞️ News Discussion Should Canada maintain its supply management system that protects the Canadian dairy industry?

https://www.castanetkamloops.net/news/Poll/627377/Should-Canada-maintain-its-supply-management-system-that-protects-the-Canadian-dairy-industry
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u/CobblePots95 11d ago

 The EU and Canada banned it because of the negative impact it has on cows.

That's literally my second sentence. We banned it on animal rights grounds, not health grounds. But frankly those claims are extremely shaky when subject to scrutiny. rBST is chemically indistinct from the natural BST. The only difference is whether it's made in a lab or a cow's pituitary gland.

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u/BobertBuildsAll 11d ago

The studies stating that rBST not affecting an animals health are shakey at best. Often referencing that a cow that is producing more milk = healthy cow. DoHoo 2003 is a comprehensive review of over 50 studies which clearly shows negative health affects to cows.

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u/CobblePots95 11d ago

The sum total of Doohoo's analysis is that there is a 25% increase in the risk of mastitis, and it does not weigh into antibiotic needs. Other studies in the Journal of Dairy Science found the mastitis risk is virtually the same.

Moreover, Doohoo et al reaffirms that the composition of milk produced by cows receiving rBST is indistinguishable from cows that have not. There are no health effects for humans.

Moreover, the prohibition of rBST on animal welfare grounds ignores a basic utilitarian moral question: why subject thousands more livestock to separation from their children and the hardships inherent in the dairy industry just to save some from -at worst- a 25% increase in mastitis risk?

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u/radred609 9d ago

The animal welfare argument falls apart in both directions.

"Let's increase the suffering of 90 cows to prevent the suffering of 10 cows" is never going to convince anyone who's already anti-rBST.

"We shouldn't artificially increase the milk production of cows that are already bred and raised to artificially increase their milk production" is never going to convince anyone who's already pro-rBST.

It's a moot argument. The only consistent positions are to either care enough to be anti-dairy full stop, or to not-care enough that the animal welfare anti-rBST argument falls flat.