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Monday, March 23, 2009

News

Got artificial-hormone milk? Kansas sure does

Posted by Owen Morris on Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 4:32 PM

click to enlarge diarycowLaura.jpg

Ever since recombinant bovine-growth hormone was approved by the FDA, there's been so much backlash that the nation's top retail stores -- Wal-Mart, Costco, Kroger's, Safeway -- refuse to carry milk from cows on rBGH.

The public has spoken -- people don't like the idea of steroid cows -- and normally the public gets its way.

Just not in Kansas. Last Friday, the Kansas House approved bill 2295 (PDF) which includes the following:

Each milk, milk product or dairy product label that has a statement regarding the composition of milk with respect to hormones, including ''No Hormone,'' ''Hormone Free,'' ''rBST Free,'' ''rBGH Free,'' and ''BST Free,'' shall be deemed false and misleading.

Instead of simply being able to say a product is "hormone free," its label must state specifically which hormones a product does not have -- for example, "this milk is from cows not supplemented with rBSTAs." And after each statement the following must be included: "The FDA has determined that no significant difference has been shown

between milk derived from rBST-supplemented and non-rBST-supplemented

cows."

Kansas lawmakers and rBGH's producer, Monsanto, don't want to make consumers afraid of milk they believe is safe. But farmers who never use rBGH and simply want their customers to know that are now on the defensive.

Local farmers like Shatto Dairy may be forced to change their labels.

Currently, Shatto proudly advertises, "The milk sold by Shatto Milk

Company comes from cows not treated with rbST [recombinant bovine

somatotropin] or recombinant bovine growth hormone." Under the new law, unless Shatto adds the part about the FDA finding no difference between the hormone-supplemented or non-hormone-supplemented milk, those claims would be labeled false and misleading.

And since the FDA has found no dangers in milk

treated with rBGT, it must be safe, right? But the FDA has made blunders galore. Add rBGH to the list of

products originally thought to be safe but

turned ant (asbestos, Fen-phen) and it's clear the

Kansas government should be helping citizens make more informed

choices, not the opposite.

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This issue is currently being battled out in Ohio.

http://www.clevescene.com/clev...

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Posted by William on September 16, 2009 at 8:36 AM

People who think Monsanto and their ilk have the best interests of the American/World Wide consumer at heart are sadly mistaken. The list of things that Monsanto has done to monopolize the world food supply goes on and on. Get educated folks! Your health and your children's health is on the line and believe me, Monsanto is bad news!!

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Posted by Sharon Laverentz on March 30, 2009 at 3:34 PM

J-School 101 is right on. This "article," which is really nothing more than left-wing vitriol excreted by people who use laxatives to loosen their wit, is utterly devoid of research, fairness, accuracy or facts.

It's hilarious how anti-farming wackos snivel that global warming is being caused by man (patently false, folks, we're still in an ICE AGE, one that's merely coming to a resolution that any 4th grade science teacher could tell you about) or by cow flatulence, but then they whine about rGBH, a technology that allows American farmers to produce more milk -- and just as nutritious and safe -- with MUCH FEWER GAS EMITTING COWS -- than with so-called "organic" milk.

In fact, the people behind the "organic" phenomenon are patently racist and classist -- to use the same arguments that lefties use -- in that they radically increase the price of milk for poor, inner-city children, many of whom are minorities.

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Posted by Sick of Fearmongers on March 29, 2009 at 6:35 PM

Thank you for the strong and passionate defense Dave. I wasn't aware of Monsanto's sale of rGBH in the past year and can't imagine a reason they'd sell it. Unless that is they knew defending rGBH was a losing battle.

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Posted by Owen on March 24, 2009 at 4:18 PM

I drink/use Silk. So I'm good, no matter what. :)

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Posted by Faith on March 24, 2009 at 8:10 AM

We've fought too hard to let this go on... Read between the lines, 101. Here's the real deal: rBST/rBGH is just the food input du jour. The FACT IS that Monsanto's money (after failing to influence the FDA) is still behind a lot of this state-to-state, anti-consumer food labeling legislation. Factoids like "Lilly owns it now" are distracting and irrelevant when the real thrust is (GENERALLY and INSIDIOUSLY) to remove the informative food labels (AND THE PRODUCTS) that health-conscious consumers really want.

If you still want to look under the rBST/rBGH microscope: Even if the hormone never passes on to us through milk ingestion, we *REALLY DO* want milk from cows that are not stressed by artificial hormones - the injections induce production of an extra gallon of milk (on average) per cow per day, and it literally wears out the cow, putting Bossy in line for hamburger processing long before her time. The overproduction of milk, per cow, means that mastitis (teat infections of various kinds) are much more likely, prompting dairies to add antibiotics to the list of daily inputs, resulting in resistant strains of bacteria (ever heard of *this* before?) which can threaten human health, too. Along with milk we can't fully trust, we get worn out, infection-prone beef in our food supply.

Not mentioned above is the production and distribution of GMO/GE feed supplements that Monsanto promotes incessantly, no matter what the possible outcome.

... see Milk Makes Monsanto Mad

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Posted by Dave Lawrence on March 23, 2009 at 10:06 PM

Monsanto sold rBGH to Eli Lilly a year ago. See http://newsroom.lilly.com/rele... If a fact this basic is wrong, what else did the reporter miss?

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Posted by J-School 101 on March 23, 2009 at 7:25 PM
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