Abstract
The advent of recombinant DNA techniques provided a means of obtaining protein hormones in sufficient quantities to allow their potential use in food animals. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is developing alternative testing requirements for determining the human food safety of protein products and has used these guidelines to assess the safety of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) in lactating dairy cattle. Much controversy has surrounded this decision and, although the studies were scientifically well-founded, the human safety of rBST has been called into question. This paper briefly discusses the proposed testing requirements for protein products and describes how they were applied to rBST.
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