U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog: Free speech vs. Frankenfood-- Monsanto fights "hormone-free" milk labels

The chemical and bio-engineering industry is fond of claiming that American consumers are different from European consumers. We've supposedly embraced genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in our food. While the industry had some early success in pushing the use of bio-engineered crops (and the genetic drift from those fields into natural crops will be hard to slow, let alone reverse), the notion that Americans like their food to come from factories and test tubes, not nature, is belied by the battle the agri-chemical behemoth Monsanto is having to fight over GMO-growth hormones in milk. Today's New York Times has a story by Andrew Martin called Fighting on a Battlefield the Size of a Milk Label.

The story reports on the latest battle in the long-running campaign between Monsanto and consumers who want to drink natural milk from un-engineered cows sold by farmers who, incredibly, simply want the right to describe their milk as hormone-free. Monsanto markets Posilac, a genetically-modified, artificial version of a natural hormone. Some, usually bigger, farmers like the product because it dramatically increases milk production and profits.

The story reports that Monsanto has created a new front group in response to growing consumer demand for untreated milk (even WalMart is selling the real thing):

The group, called American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology, or Afact, says it is a grass-roots organization that came together to defend members' right to use recombinant bovine somatotropin, also known as rBST or rBGH [...] Afact has embarked on a counteroffensive that includes meeting with retailers and pushing efforts by state legislators and state agriculture commissioners to pass laws to ban or restrict labels that indicate milk comes from untreated cows.

The U.S. FDA has declared rBGH safe, but Canada and the European Union prohibit it, according to Consumers Union. But, in response to a proposed Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture rule banning "hormone-free" labels, Consumers Union and farmers quoted a letter from FTC (false or deceptive advertising cops) to Monsanto:

"The FTC staff agrees with FDA that food companies may inform consumers in advertising, as in labeling, that they do not use rBST [rGBH]."

The proposed rule was reversed.

"This is a victory for free speech, free markets, sustainable farming, and the consumer's right to know," stated Michael Hansen, Ph.D., a senior scientist with Consumers Union. "Consumers increasingly want to know more about how their food is produced, and particularly whether it is produced in natural and sustainable manner. There is no justification for prohibiting information about rbGH use on a milk label. Pennsylvania deserves credit for realizing that its initial regulation prohibiting such labeling was flawed, and for reversing its position."

When American consumers have full information, they will choose what's better for their families. In too many cases, but not this one, they just don't have the facts.