08/22/2026
Be glad friends, be very glad you don't drink cows milk. I wish this kind of integrity was everywhere. Greed seems to win. Big corporations over individuals. Greed over safety.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1GVfqh9c2k/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Monsanto wanted its growth hormone in Canadian milk.
One government scientist stood in the way.
And for doing that, he spent 14 years fighting the people who were supposed to support him.
His name was Dr. Shiv Chopra.
Born in India in 1934, Chopra moved to Canada in the 1960s. He earned a PhD in microbiology and eventually became a senior scientist at Health Canada's Bureau of Veterinary Drugs.
For 35 years, his responsibility was straightforward.
Review drug applications.
Approve the ones that were safe.
Reject the ones that were not.
Protect the public.
For about two decades, he did that work quietly.
Then Monsanto came along.
The company had a new drug called bovine growth hormone, sold under the brand name Posilac.
The drug was designed to be injected into dairy cows so they would produce 10 to 15 percent more milk.
More milk meant more money for the dairy industry.
And more money for Monsanto.
The United States had approved the drug in 1993, and Monsanto expected Canada to approve it too.
Eventually, the application landed on Chopra's desk.
He started going through the scientific evidence.
The more he read, the more concerned he became.
He believed important safety information was missing.
Long term studies had not been done properly.
The available studies on cows showed problems including lameness, mastitis, reproductive difficulties, and shorter lifespans.
That raised another question for Chopra.
If the drug was causing problems in the cows, what could it mean for the milk they produced?
His recommendation was simple.
Reject the drug.
Demand better safety evidence.
His managers wanted something very different.
The United States had approved it, they argued.
Why was Canada taking so long?
They wanted him to sign the file.
Chopra refused.
That was when the pressure started.
There were closed door meetings.
Attempts were made to remove the file from him and give it to someone who would be easier to manage.
He was ordered not to speak to the media.
Then came suspensions, reprimands, demotions, and reassignments.
But Chopra still refused to sign.
He wasn't alone.
Two other scientists, Dr. Margaret Haydon and Dr. Gérard Lambert, shared his concerns.
They had seen the same evidence.
They reached the same conclusion.
In 1998, the Canadian Senate began investigating what was happening inside Health Canada.
Chopra and his colleagues did something that very few government scientists are willing to do.
They went before the Senate and testified under oath.
They said managers were pressuring scientists to approve drugs they believed were unsafe.
They said industry influence was affecting the regulator.
They said the system was broken.
Their testimony made headlines around the world.
Then, in 1999, Health Canada rejected Monsanto's application.
rBGH would not be approved in Canada.
Europe rejected it as well, and many other developed countries followed.
One immigrant scientist working in Ottawa had stood against one of the world's largest chemical companies.
And he had won.
But the story didn't end there.
His own government eventually fired him.
On July 14, 2004, after 35 years of service, Health Canada dismissed Chopra, Haydon, and Lambert on the same day.
The official reason was insubordination.
Chopra believed the real reason was that their testimony had embarrassed the department publicly.
There was an especially strange detail that same year.
The Prime Minister sent Chopra a gold watch recognizing his “illustrious service.”
He received the watch while being fired.
Chopra called it comedy.
He then spent years fighting to clear his name.
The legal battle lasted 13 years.
He lost appeal after appeal.
The final ruling came in 2017.
Three months later, in January 2018, Shiv Chopra died at the age of 83.
He was never reinstated.
He never recovered his pension.
And he never received the apology he believed he deserved.
But there was something his opponents could never take away from him.
rBGH remains banned in Canada.
His fight helped keep the hormone out of the Canadian dairy supply.
In the United States, however, rBGH was never banned and remains legal.
So the same substance that Chopra fought to keep out of Canada is still permitted just across the border.
He stood against a powerful corporation.
He challenged his own government.
He lost his job.
He spent years in court.
But he refused to sign something he believed was unsafe.
And that leaves a difficult question.
Was Shiv Chopra a hero who protected the public?
Or was he simply a troublemaker who refused to follow orders?
Pick a side.
Because somewhere, in some meeting, there is always a person being told the same thing.
Just sign off.
