Word: stilbestrolized
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Such confinement and automation of animals is possible and profitable because of a raft of new chemical discoveries. In 1948 Purdue's Dr. Andrews discovered how to put tiny pellets of stilbestrol, a synthetic female sex hormone, under the skins of cattle and sheep to make them gain weight 15% faster. Today 80% of the nation's beef cattle get stilbestrol. This helps farmers produce an estimated billion pounds more meat than they could have got for the same amount of feed without stilbestrol...
Cause of the panic was the allegation that men had been feminized by eating beef of steers fattened with the aid of a female hormonal substance, stilbestrol. The Tribuna do Povo reported that husky Sebastiao de Lima Serra of Aragatuba, 500 miles north of Rio, had suffered a "veritable metamorphosis, turning into a docile, falsetto-voiced creature of strange customs." Serra blamed his plight on the hormone-treated beef. Rio's state government proclaimed: "The necessary measures will be taken to end this evil...
...there anything to it ? Probably not, because only a minute proportion of Brazil's beeves have been fattened with the aid of hormones. And when the job is done right, by adding stilbestrol (or a related synthetic, hormone-like substance) in doses of ten milligrams daily to each animal's feed, nearly all the hormone is metabolized or passes through the digestive tract. Virtually none can ever be found in the meat if the hormone feeding is stopped (as required under U.S. regulations) 48 hours before slaughter...
...fetus. Often such couples rate high on the Kinsey scale of sexual activity: Dr. Javert holds that orgasm predisposes to uterine contractions and premature labor, therefore forbids intercourse during pregnancy. Granting that much remains co be learned about the workings of sex hormones, he is dead set against using stilbestrol, a synthetic drug on which many obstetricians rely heavily...
...Depending on weather and range, he may feed the beef a daily ration of two pounds of soy or cottonseed cake, fortified by molasses for energy, bonemeal for calcium, plus iodized salt and vitamins A and D. Antibiotics are added to increase the rate of gain and disease resistance; Stilbestrol, a female hormone preparation, helps to make the animal gentler and beefier...