Is it Ethical to Use Growth Hormones on Cattle?

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A growing issue in the world today is the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in animal production industry. However, for over sixty years Americans have been exposed to hormones on a regular basic when they consume beef. (1) On average eighty percent of all feedlot cattle are given hormones to help them grow at an increased rate. (2) “In 1988 the European Union banned the use of all hormone growth promoters.” (1)
Today farmers use six anabolic steroids in various combinations. “Those anabolic steroids are osetradiol, progesterone, testosterone, zeranol, trenbolone, and melengestrol.” (2) There are three natural steroids that are used as well. The natural steroids are estradiol, testosterone, and progesterone. Also used are three synthetic hormones which include estrogen compound zeranol, andgrogen trenbolone acetate, and progestin melengestrol acetate. (1) However, when hormones are given to cattle some of the naturally occurring hormone levels could go up seven to twenty times the normal level. Scientists have growing concerns about the use of the hormones.
The scientists are concerned with the hormones use and their impact of the environment. The scientists are concerned with the hormones being excreted in the manure. The scientists say, that the hormones that are going into the can be found in the soil and the water supply. The scientists also say that the hormones being used are affecting human development through the human reproductive system.
“High levels of hormones can cause problems in the human body, but can hormones we ingest really alter our hormone levels.” (3) There are studies that show mothers that consumed meat while pregnant have sons with affected sperm counts. The sperm concentration of sons born to mo...

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...re that animal and be slaughter for human consumption. If the meat is test in a slaughter house and the amount of hormone in the meat is above the slaughter limited then the animal is discarding and not produced for human consumption. The protein content in the carcass of an animal that was hormone implanted is usually raised by ten percent or more.
People say that the synthetic hormones could cause many human health risks, ranging from early puberty to cancer which causes two0thirds of Americans to worry about the use of the synthetic growth hormones in cattle operations. There are also many people that are worried that the use of antibiotics for treating bacteria on farms could cause the drugs to become resistant to the bacteria, which also infect humans. It is said that hormones are used more in the beef cattle operations than in dairy cattle operations.

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