No, Bovaer won’t give you cancer

Were I given to conspiracy theories I would conclude that there must be a shady animal rights group conducting the online campaign against Bovaer, an additive being fed to cattle in an effort to cut methane emissions from their burping and farting. They are certainly playing into the hands of extremist vegans who want to stop the world consuming meat and other animal products.      

Bovaer, according to the people who have been filming themselves pouring milk down the toilet, is going to give us all cancer. They cite out-of-context advice from the US Food and Drink Administration (FDA) which warns that 3-nitrooxypropanol – one of the ingredients of Bovaer – should be handled with gloves because it can irritate the skin and eyes and harm the male reproductive organs at higher doses.

You could equally well quote advice on the handling of citric acid – a common food additive and natural ingredient of citrus fruits but which can also cause serious irritation to the hands and eyes if mishandled in food factories – and use it as a pretext for chucking half the contents of your fridge into the skip, along with emptying your fruit bowl of oranges and grapefruit.