Yes, members of the Kansas Legislature have joined the esteemed lawmakers or regulators in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio who want to spare their citizens the challenge of too much information. Specifically, they want to keep consumers ignorant of whether the milk they’re drinking comes from cows not dosed with recombinant bovine growth hormone, rBGH, which is also known as bovine somatotropin, or rBST. These are artificially derived hormones given to cows to increase their milk production.
Controversy over the hormones isn’t new. Opponents of the labeling, primarily some dairy farmers and Monsanto, which sells the hormone, contend that the milk and cows are the same, with or without the rGBH. They add that the labels imply there’s something wrong with milk from rBGH cows.
The Pennsylvanians, after much controversy, decided that it was OK to state that milk was produced from cows without rGBH/rBST. That decision came after much public outcry.
I can’t claim to know that the cows and the milk are the same or different with or without rGBH. As someone who likes to know where my food comes from, though—and last year’s recalls have given me lots of company, I think—I like to know that kind of information.
If you agree and you’re a Kansan, you can let your lawmakers know through the Center for Food Safety’s action page.
That is really disappointing. I guess they must have buckled under the pressure of the conventional dairy lobbyists who say that there isn’t any difference in milk from treated and untreated cows.
There may not be a difference in the milk (I’ll leave it up to the scientists to debate that one), but I, for one, would certainly prefer to get my milk from cows who haven’t been turned into milk machines pumped to the gills with hormones. I’ll never forget the site of the champion dairy cows at the Sonoma County state fair with their massive, bulging, roid-rage udders.
Janet Majure // Feb 16, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Yep. And if you subscribe to the slippery-slope school of politics, you have to wonder whether the next rule would be to ban market vendors from using signs that say “Grown without artificial pesticides,” since, of course, the USDA (or EPA or somebody) has declared currently marketed pesticides as safe.
Bill to ban rBGH-free milk labeling in Kansas seems to be off the table | foodperson.com // Mar 6, 2008 at 10:34 am
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