Daily Times

KARACHI: The Supreme Court (SC) on Saturday expressed displeasure over the failure of the authorities concerned to submit complete details of hormone injections being given to cows and buffaloes in the province. CJ Saqib Nisar remarked that use of these injections was linked to increase in breast cancer and other hormonal problems in women across the country.

The Chief Justice demanded that a comprehensive district-wise report on the matter should be submitted to the court by the end of the day.

Use of genetically engineered hormones to enhance milk production in buffaloes and cows is widespread in the province, despite a ban imposed on import and sale of such products.

Medical studies show that use of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) hormone in milk can have serious health risks for animals injected and for humans who consume their milk.

In view of Saturday’s strict directive of the SC, associations of dairy farmers have appealed to the Chief Justice to arrange some alternative means of maintaining milk production, warning that milk production will be cut down by 70 per cent if hormone injections are stopped overnight. Resultantly, they say, the dairy industry in Karachi will collapse.

Talking to Daily Times, Shakir Umar Gujjar, the Dairy and Cattle Farmers Association president, said on Saturday, “We respect the SC order but we will need the alternative because without injections milk production will go down and there will be severe shortage of milk.”

Gujjar said hormonal injections were under use for 15 years, asking why was there a sudden need to ban the practice? “Did no one in the government know about the side effects earlier?” he asked.

“Most dairy farmers in Karachi have been using these hormonal injections for many years. Their current cattle stock is used to these drugs. Our animals are used to getting these injections and it’s impossible to change their behaviour overnight or immediately create natural conditions to increase milk production,” the spokesperson for Karachi Dairy Farmers Association said.

“We are not against the ban but we want a way out that doesn’t ruin our business or the city’s milk supply. Otherwise, this ban will ruin thousands of families associated directly or indirectly with the dairy sector,” the spokesperson said, insisting that farmers were not doing anything illegal as these hormonal drugs were registered with the government.

Livestock Department director general Dr Ali Akbar Soomro said that although it was not within his mandate but the department had still written to the chief secretary to ban the drug in Sindh. The ban could effectively be implemented in coordination with the provincial health department and the Drugs Regulatory Authority of Pakistan.

Dr. Qaiser Sajjad, the Pakistan Medical Association secretary general, said that the PMA appreciated the CJP’s decision even though it acknowledged that it was really the government’s job to decide on such matters. “How long will judges keep doing such things? He said, referring to regulation of the dairy industry. Dr Sajjad said that hormone injections were known to have some dangerous cancer-causing components which were putting the lives of hundreds of people, including children, in danger.

Published in Daily Times, January 14^th 2018.