The federal health department was able last week to put the dairy growth hormone controversy behind it in more ways than one.
On Thursday, it announced a final decision to ban for sale in Canada bovine somatotropin hormone product, after nine years of review and growing controversy.
Two days earlier, the department had been cleared of illegally destroying BST-related documents to hide improper corporate pressure on the bureaucrats making the decision.
For months, federal information commissioner John Reid had been investigating a complaint from Barbara Robson, assistant to Winnipeg Conservative senator Mira Spivak, that Health Canada bureaucrats inappropriately concealed information and had shredded BST-related documents in October as Senate hearings were held.
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“I find your complaint about wrongful destruction of records to be not substantiated,” Reid wrote last week to Robson.
Deputy health minister David Dodge was quick to express relief.
“I am pleased that the information commissioner has found that this serious allegation has no merit and has cleared officials of any wrongdoing,” Dodge said in a Jan. 12 statement. “I believe that employees of the department have been, and remain, conscientious about their responsibilities with respect to information and records maintained by Health Canada.”
The allegation about document destruction came in November as a half dozen departmental scientists appeared at the Senate agriculture committee to swear, some under oath, that pressure from Monsanto had led their supervisors to disregard their scientific concerns about the effects of BST, an artificial hormone that increases milk production in dairy cattle.
Reid concluded documents shredded Oct. 23-27 were either available elsewhere or were not sensitive.
“No official of Health Canada, at any level, has taken any deliberate step to interfere with your right of access to rBST records,” Reid wrote to Robson.
She said she was happy the department had been cleared of misdeeds.
