Ask AP: Miranda rights, artificial growth hormone

Any cop in the U.S. who makes an arrest must also read the suspect his Miranda rights, those famous few lines beginning: “You have the right to remain silent.” How about overseas? When U.S. authorities arrest a terror suspect, must that person also be read his rights?

Curiosity about the boundaries of American judicial principles inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

Can you tell me the difference in designation among the American troops deployed throughout the world — i.e., NATO, coalition, UN peacekeepers, etc.?

Kimberly Bush

Springfield, Ill.

The United States has more than 500,000 forces stationed overseas. They serve under three broad headings. By far the largest is the combatant command system, a geographic designation. U.S. Central Command, for example, covers countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan fall under Centcom’s jurisdiction. The other broad headings are NATO missions and United Nations missions. In both cases, U.S. forces serve alongside those of other nations. Sometimes that means U.S. forces serve in the same place but under different jurisdictions. In Afghanistan, about 31,000 of the current 65,000 U.S. forces serve under the NATO banner.

Anne Gearan

AP National Security Writer

Washington, D.C.

What is the current U.S. policy regarding the reading of Miranda rights to captured terrorist suspects? Are Miranda rights reserved for U.S. citizens, or are these warnings given to anyone who might be tried in U.S. courts or U.S. military tribunals? Did our policy change when the administrations changed?

Rowland Driskell

Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

The Obama administration insists there has been no policy change whatsoever regarding the use of Miranda warnings to terror suspects overseas. The policy is this: there is no need to give Miranda warnings to the vast majority of terror suspects overseas because in most cases there is no expectation such a suspect will be brought to the United States for trial. In those relatively few cases where career agents and prosecutors believe they may want to bring that person to trial in the U.S., then Miranda warnings are to be read.

The administration says that of the thousands of terror suspect detainees interviewed in Afghanistan, only a handful have been Mirandized, and most of those warnings were given during the previous Bush administration. The issue became a political argument after conservatives accused the Obama administration of fostering a new policy that favors criminal prosecution of terror suspects, which could, in theory, lead to more suspects overseas getting Miranda warnings.

Devlin Barrett

AP Justice Department Writer

Washington, D.C.

In the Oct. 4 edition of Boston Globe Magazine, an article on breast cancer stated that numerous studies have shown a link between the artificial growth hormone rBGH and breast cancer. If this is true, why do products that claim they do not contain rBGH need to display the disclaimer, “FDA states: No significant difference in milk from cows treated with the artificial growth hormone (rBGH)”?

Joanne Quirk

Westfield, Mass.

Both humans and cows naturally produce growth hormone. The artificial hormone rBGH is a synthetic version of the bovine, or cow, growth hormone that some farmers use to stimulate milk production.

The concern about a possible breast cancer link arose because this first hormone increases the cows’ production of a second natural hormone — IGF-1 — that at very high levels is thought to play a role in certain tumors.

How big a role IGF-1 plays remains a scientific question. But the government concluded that any increase in a person’s body from drinking milk from an rBGH-treated cow would be too small to matter. The Food and Drug Administration required the disclaimer, contending that labeling something “rBGH-free” wrongly implied that it was better.

The American Cancer Society reviewed the controversy earlier this year. The organization took no formal position on the use of rBGH and encouraged more research, but concluded: “To date, there is no evidence that drinking milk produced using rBGH adds substantively to circulating IGF-1 levels in humans or to the risk of developing cancer.”

But the Cancer Society also pointed out a different concern: Cows are given antibiotics to treat rBGH-linked infections, and it’s unclear if that contributes to antibiotic-resistant germs in people.

Lauran Neergaard

AP Medical Writer

Washington, D.C.

Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.