St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 10

10A ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH SUNDAY, MAY 2, 1993 Bosnia FDA Hearings On Cow Hormone Put Monsanto In A Sour Mood Ay- jT V- NAVY. By Bill Lambrecht Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau WASHINGTON How much should people know about how their milk is made? Just when manufacturers saw smooth sailing toward federal approval of a new dairy hormone, the issue of putting labels on milk cartons is roiling the waters. The Food and Drug Administration's decision to hold hearings this week on labeling products from hormone-treated cows raises another hurdle that Monsanto Co. and other manufacturers had hoped to avoid.

Lynn A. Larsen, the FDA of icia' in charge of the two-day hearings, said the hearings are part of a final push to make a decision on the hormone. A panel will recommend at the end of the hearings whether milk from hormone-treated cows should be so labeled. "If the agency decides to approve the hormone, we feel that there is going to be a lot of pressure to move rapidly in some aspect of labeling," Larsen said. "We want to be able to address these questions." For Monsanto, the hearings present another delay in icing the champagne and yet another opening for adversaries.

"If you were in my place, you would know the frustration we feel," said Dr. Virginia Weldon, Monsanto's vice president for public policy. She noted that the FDA ruled in 1985 that milk and meat from hormone-treated cows could be sold. "Now, all of a sudden, eight years later, after we've jumped through every hoop that they could conjure up, they want to find out if what they did in 1985 was OK." Sen. Russell D.

Feingold, said in an interview that people had a right to know about the use of hormones in their food, even if they posed no health threat. He is sponsoring a bill to require labeling. He pushed for the FDA hearings this week. "I think it's a very undemocratic notion that Monsanto can put hundreds of millions of dollars behind this product and say that the public must accept it no matter what the consequences," Feingold said. The review is the newest chapter in a saga for Monsanto, of St.

Louis. Monsanto is one of several manufacturers that have worked since the mid-1980s to win FDA approval for a hormone that induces cows to give up to 25 percent more milk. Monsanto already sells its genetically engineered hormone in Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Jamaica, the Czech Republic and former Soviet republics. FDA approval could open up markets worth of hundreds -of millions of dollars, experts have said. The FDA go-ahead seemed imminent and still might be after a panel headed by veterinarians put together by the FDA concluded March 31 that animal health problems "i from the hormone aren't severe.

JL'X After that, Monsanto and the FDA went so farHW to negotiate the wording of instructions to appear oa-the carton of syringes used to inject the hormone'. Monsanto', has told farmers that they might be able to get their M-day doses by fast mail after ordering from a toll-free number. Now, with its hastily called hearings, the FDA has added another chapter to the process. Packets of materials on what will be considered were still being mailed Friday to the 25 experts who will advise the FDA. The FDA has given no indication that it will demand labeling, and most people familiar with the issue believe that such a requirement would be unlikely.

Indeed, the hearings could simply be an attempt by the FDA to satisfy critics in the Senate and to cover all the bases before approving the dairy hormone, experts believe. Nonetheless, the hearings raise an issue that manufacturers clearly want buried. Why? Because surveys show that products labeled with the word 'hormone' could be difficult to sell. A poll sponsored by Johanna Dairies Inc. of New Jersey turned up some of the more dramatic findings.

Nearly two-thirds of 400 women interviewed in December had an unfavorable reaction to FDA approval of the hormone? More than half of them said milk consumption in their household would decrease, and nearly all of the 400 said they wanted milk from hormone-treated cows labeled. Those responses warn of a public relations challenge for Monsanto if the hormone wins approval. That challenge could become a nightmare if proponents of labeling win out. Manufacturers contend that labeling is unnecessary. because milk from hormone-treated cows essentially isiiin- changed and does not threaten humans.

The company; will argue further in the hearings that putting unneeded information on milk cartons would compromise the integrity of the labeling system. "It's a slippery slope," said Monsanto spokesman Tom McDermott, "that could undo a generation's worth of highly focused activity aimed at returning meaning to food labeling." Frpm page one supply lines to the rebel Bosnian Serbs and damage military installations of the Yugoslav federal army, which has supplied arms to the rebels. Defense officials had said earlier that the United States would, have about 200 planes available for any military action in Bosnia 160 from U.S.' bases in the United States and Europe and about 40 from the carriers Nimitz and Theodore Roosevelt. Pentagon officials emphasized that no U.S. forces had been placed on alert as of late Saturday and that there wej-e no plans to issue such orders in the next several days.i Christopher would not say when the U.S.

military operation might begin, leaving open the possibility that Clinton could be dissuaded from action by Serbian compliance with U.N. mandates or rigid European opposition to the plan. The White House decided to take action despite the Serbs' return to the bargaining table with Bosnian and Croatian leaders in Greece this week-end Christopher said that simply signing the peace pact that the Muslims and Croats have already initialed would not be enough to forestall U.S. military action. He also said Clinton did not plan to tell the American people about his plans until after consultations with European leaders, beginning Sunday.

Christopher left Washington Saturday night, to discuss the U.S. proposal with leaders in London; Paris; Moscow; Bon'h, Germany; and Brussels, Belgium. Christopher said he hoped to win allied assent to the U.S. plan of action but that the Europeans would "by no means" have veto power over it. He indicated that the United States was prepared to act unilaterally.

"We're proceeding on our own track. We're not going to be diverted from that track." U.S. allies have expressed reluctance to pursue tougher measures, fearing a backlash against British, French and Canadian U.N. soldiers on the ground in the Balkans. Navy A-6E Intruders parked on the deck of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt Friday in the Adriatic Sea.

The Roosevelt is helping enforce the no-fly zone over Bosnia. crete action" on the ground to prove Serbian good faith. Those actions include the immediate cessation of bombardment of civilian areas, an end to the harassment of humanitarian aid convoys and a halt to atrocities against civilians, Christopher said. But Christopher refused to set a deadline, saying that the timing of U.S. action would be set after he returned from Europe to discuss with Clinton how the allies reacted to the plan and whether they would take part in any military operation.

A White House aide said congressional leaders would be consulted on the planned military operation "at some point." But the aide refused to say whether Clinton would seek a formal congressional authorization for the anticipated action. Saturday's White House announcement was clearly part of the campaign of pressure on the Serbs. The nature and timing of any U.S. military action were left unspecified. Christopher said the United States wanted to see "deeds, immediate con Killing Evans Cooray, had left the president's side moments before the blast to answer a telephone call.

"I looked around and saw some people thrown in the air," he said. "Others were ly 43 Are Killed In Upsurge Of Fighting In Bosnia Premadasa state has cost more than 17,000 lives. Another revolt, by right-wing Sinhalese, the ethnic majority on the island, was violently suppressed by the army, the police and death squads. A Tamil suicide bomber killed former Indian Prime Minister Gandhi in 1991 in southern India. Opposition leader Lalith Athulath-mudali was slain by an unidentified gunman at a political rally on April 23.

Government officials blamed the1 rebels, but many people in Athulathmu-dali's party accused the government of the killing. Athulathmudali had quit the governing United National Party after sponsoring an unsuccessful impeach-, ment motion against the president in 1991. During Athulathmudali's funeral and cremation Wednesday, thousands of mourners attacked police, vehicles and government buildings. From page one crashed his bicycle into Premadasa before detonating the bomb, state-run television reported. The president had been talking to his.

governing party activists when the bomb went off. The explosion blew off the bomber's heard and splattered the street with blood and flesh. Police said that in addition to the president and the assassin, at least 1 1 people were killed. Among the victims were two top police officials escorting the 68-year-old president and a presidential aide. Several Cabinet ministers escaped unharmed as thousands of panicked people fled, leaving the street littered with shoes.

One of Premadasa's top aides, former Yugoslav republic into 10 semi-autonomous ethnic cantons. Fighting has increased in central, northeastern and northern Bosnia since the Bosnian Serbs refused to endorse the plan and harsher U.N. sanctions were imposed on Serbia-led Yugoslavia last week. The Bosnian Serb army high command protested to U.N. peacekeepers that three Serb soldiers had been killed since April 29 around the besieged Muslim town of Srebrenica, which is under U.N.

protection. and 60 wounded in Sarajevo alone. A spokesman for the U.N. forces said about 145 shells hit Sarajevo between Friday afternoon and early Saturday. The renewed fighting erupted as leaders of Bosnia's warring Muslims, Croats and Serbs gathered in Athens, Greece, for talks with U.N.

negotiators Lord Owen and Cyrus Vance. Vance and Lord Owen hoped to persuade the Bosnian Serbs to join the Muslims and Croats in signing a U.N.-sponsored peace plan to divide the Compiled From News Services SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina Shelling killed eight people in Saraje-vo(Saturday, and scores of people died elsewhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina in a sharp upsurge of fighting. Sarajevo radio said four people had been killed and 10 wounded when a shgll landed near the city's cathedral. Another shell exploded close to the open air market in the old town. The Bosnian crisis center said 43 had been killed and 218 wounded in Bosnia in 24 hours.

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