Monsanto continues its attempts to hide the basic facts of food production from consumers, this time in Kansas. The Kansas Dairy Association, along with a suspicious “grassroots” dairy group that has the same public relations firm as Monsanto, has helped introduce a bill to the state Senate that would ban “growth hormone-free” milk labels. The bill’s supporters argue that growth hormone can’t be found in lab tests, and if a lab can’t verify it, consumers don’t need to be told about it.
An editorial in the Kansas City Star describes the absurd bill:
For two days this week, a Kansas Senate committee heard testimony on a bill that would make it illegal to label food “as having a compositional claim that cannot be confirmed through laboratory analysis or to state a compositional or production-related claim that is supported solely by sworn statements, affidavits, or testimonials.”Translation:
Because milk can’t be tested for the presence of growth hormone, dairies like Shatto’s couldn’t represent their products as hormone-free in Kansas, even if they had mountains of proof that their cows weren’t injected with growth hormone.
A similar challenge would face the farmer who sells grass-fed beef, or raises chickens the old-fashioned way, rather than in a huge warehouse.
Monsanto is trying this in other states, too. According to the Environmental News Network, when the FDA refused Monsanto’s request to ban hormone labeling on a national level, Monsanto decided to start going after individual states:
Language in all the bills is very similar. For example, the Indiana bill states that a label is misleading if it contains “a compositional claim that cannot be confirmed through laboratory analysis; or compositional or production-related claim that is supported solely by sworn statements, affidavits, or testimonials.” Language in the Kansas bill was nearly identical, word for word.
ENN says Ohio just banned any compositional claims on labels, which means dairies can no longer print “rBGH-free” or “rbST-free,” but they can still print production claims such as “from cows not supplemented with rbST.” Pennsylvania had also jumped on the Monsanto special interest bandwagon, but last month “rescinded a controversial law banning rBGH-free labels following a massive backlash from dairy companies and consumer advocates.” In Indiana, a politician introduced a similar bill in January, but ultimately decided not to bring it to the floor for a vote because it didn’t have enough support.
In Kansas, several newspapers are speaking out against the bill, and pointing out that consumers have the right to know what steps go into making the milk they buy. From the Lawrence Journal-World:
The label on the bottle states, in part: “We do not use injectable hormones (BGH) and our product is completely free of antibiotics.”That is important information for customers, says Nancy O’Connor, the Merc’s education director.
O’Connor said people “want to know how their food was grown or produced and who grew or produced it.
“This type of labeling is their right to know.”
And from the Topeka Capital-Journal:
Tim Iwig says he doesn’t know whether milk from cows that haven’t been given recombinant bovine growth hormone, also known as rBGH, is healthier or not. He just knows he should have the right to tell people he doesn’t use it on his dairy cows to induce them to produce more milk. He has the support of the secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture and the president of the Kansas Farmers Union.Iwig knows people who think milk from dairy herds given rBGH is just as safe as other milk. He also knows people who prefer what he produces. He says he isn’t taking sides in the health debate.
“People can believe what they want,” he says. “I don’t care. I’m just saying I don’t use it.”
We don’t know why that isn’t fair to everyone. We do know our legislators have a lot of more important issues they should be dealing with before the gavel falls on their 2008 session.
Free-range chicken producers haven’t driven Tyson out of business, and Ted Turner’s lean buffalo meat, available at his Ted’s Montana Grill restaurants, hasn’t closed down any burger joints or steak houses. And it’s unlikely the Iwig Family Farm and its cows pose any threat to the huge dairies churning out most of the milk we see on the grocery shelves.
You can read even more articles about Monsanto’s new strategy on this forum from the Salina Journal.
Monsanto may be footing the bill for all this legislative nonsense, but we want to take a moment to give the middle finger to all the dairy farmers in these states who use Monsanto’s hormones to increase profits, but who are so afraid of competition from non-Monsanto dairies that they’re actually trying to create laws to manipulate the market. Does Monsanto cut you a deal on more hormones if you hand your souls over to them completey?
(Thanks to Ashley!)
“Food labeling law isn’t for our protection” [KansasCity.com]
RELATED
“Battle over rBGH-free labeling continues in US states” [ENN]
“Milk bottle battle emerges” [Lawrence World-Journal]
“Milk Labeling — Hardly a threat” [Topeka Capital-Journal]
Kansas Chatter Forum [Salina Journal]
AFACT, the “independent” Monsanto-supported special interest group
(Photo: jonmclean)
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@sporks: Amen. If you know enough about what rbst is, you’re probably buying organic or milk alternatives. If you’re concerned about the people that “don’t know any better”, well, the twinkie and KFC they’re eating is probably a bigger health issue.
Monsanto is dumb for bringing up the semantics of it. They’re just drawing more mainstream attention to themselves and all the “wonderful” things the ag business does. Conventional milk will always be sold, because there will always be a significant portion of the population that can’t pay 6 dollars a gallon for organic soy milk.
@youbastid: The Monsanto hormone, to the best of my knowledge, does not cause cows to produce milk that is better or worse than non-treated cows. They just make more of it. It is theoretically better for the farmers, since they can produce more milk with fewer cows, reducing their production costs.
From there it boils down to the same arguments as “Walmart vs Mom&Pop Shops”, though I’m not even sure that really applies since I don’t buy milk at a local shop; I buy it from a grocery store that gets it from multiple large distributors.
Oddly enough, just about every brand of milk I’ve seen lately is labelled “not from cows treated with rBST”, but I don’t buy it unless I see that label. It’s not because I think the milk is inherently better. It’s because I don’t think there is a need to overproduce milk, since there is no shortage of either cows or milk. For me the tradeoff of having even more surplus milk is not worth the risk of some long-term (say 10, 20, or 30 years down the road) health problem that simply hasn’t showed up yet because rBST hasn’t been in the food supply long enough.
For example, once you ingest mad-cow infected meat, you’re hosed. You can’t be tested for it, but symptoms (and death) won’t happen until 10 years after infection. Anyone who ate some of that 145million lb beef recall (which included meat going back as far as 2006, and an estimated 30% of it was consumed) is totally screwed, but not for another decade. When the US eventually has a Mad Cow epidemic, it will be impossible to say which hamburgers people ate in 2006 and 2007 ultimately killed them.
This corporate double-speak has always pissed me off. If these large milk companies think there is absolutely nothing harmful with rBGH, then they should not fear labels identifying the milk as such. It’s the same crap when chemical
companies want to build a new plant and state there is nothing harmful for the surrounding homes and people. The CEO should put his money where his mouth is and build his 3 million dollar mansion just outside the plant perimeter fence. Then I will finally believe his bs.
@terekkincaid:
You may think I’m an idiot when I don’t want milk with rBST in it but I think I have the right to know where my food is from. I want to be able to know milk or dairy products are from cows who weren’t given hormones. I should have the right to the information so that I can make the choice I want.
That being said, rules like this make an even stronger case for finding a local source for food where you can actually talk to the person producing it and find out how your food was raised, grown, produced, etc.
All science aside – no consumer should ever take the side of Monsanto. Ever.
Don’t let the baseball players find out that rBGH is undetectable, or they might start taking it along with their undetectable HGH. Undetectable, except that they’ll probably express a little milk when they swing hard for those home runs.
This is a simple fix. You don’t claim the milk is hormone free, you claim the milk comes from “cows raised without hormones.”
For me, this is not a food safety issue. I really don’t believe Monsanto is trying to poison me with anything, and believe their executives and scientists drink the same milk the rest of us do.
For me, this is an animal welfare issue. Hormones like these really push dairy cows past what nature intended for them to do, and I believe it hurts them physically in some way.
So, if you want to indicate to consumers that your cows were not given hormones, then say that. Don’t talk about the milk, because I believe Monsanto when they say milk that comes from cows treated with their hormone doesn’t itself contain hormones. It’s about the cows.
Monsanto has the second most evil-sounding name of any corporation (behind Blackwater, of course). Which Bond movie was he the villian in again?
@sleze69: This question is kind of related: Are you against irradiating food as well?
I don’t believe irradiating food is dangerous for me. In fact, I think it would make food safer. However, my objections are not about what radiation does to the food, but what radiation as a final process allows food manufactures to do on their production lines.
In regards to meat production, irradiation covers up the effects of sloppiness, inhumane treatment of animals and ill-treatment of food processing employees.
I think the primary reason our beef gets contaminated with e coli is the mistakes made by food workers who have to keep up with rigorous production requirements. Food companies would like to produce even faster, but that increase in speed leads to mistakes by production employees that ultimately lead to food recalls and lawsuits. That increase in production speed also leads to unsafe conditions for workers and less than humane treatment of livestock, but that doesn’t affect profit.
If companies that pack meat had a catch-all mechanism to eliminate biological contaminates from entering their product — something that happens at the end and eliminates any lawsuit inducing mistakes — then they could increase their production speed and profit. Irradiation would negate the issues involving contamination of food. But as long as Americans aren’t getting sick, they don’t care how many illegal immigrants lost their arms in food production equipment, or how many cows were dehided while they were still alive and kicking.
I don’t believe irradiation is dangerous, but I do believe it forgives sloppiness in food production creates an environment where worker safety and animal welfare concerns can be safely ignored.
Somehow the fact that Monsanto is behind this clues me in on how I’d vote. Is rBHG-free milk ‘healthier’ my understanding is there is really no difference but it goes to how the milk is produced. Do you want your milk to come from happy cows or cows injected with stuff that Monsanto manufactures? I want my milk to come from happy cows and I’m happy to pay more. My husband on the other hand doesn’t care and he buys what we call in our house ‘regular’ milk and he buys me ‘happy cow’ milk and all is right with the world.
go to hell monsanto. go to hell.
Hmm, if you think about it, the way that is phrased would ban kosher certification, as there are some requirements that determine if a food is kosher that you could not verify by testing the finished product (for instance, could you analyze a steak to determine the exact method of how the cow was slaughtered?
Monsanto = Evil
This company is responsible for large scale environmental catastrophes. They brought us Agent Orange and PCBs. They are scheming to introduce improperly tested or un-tested, potentially harmful (to humans, the environment, or vital parts of the ecosystem) genetically engineered products into the world.
The question is not if, but when Monsanto will inflict another catastrophe on the planet.
Be informed and don’t support Monsanto contaminated products:
[www.geocities.com]
There is a big difference in labeling milk “r-BHG Free” and “milk not produced with r-BHG”. Since the hormone cannot actually be found in any milk. Technically r-BHG cow milk could be labeled “r-BHG free”! If people don’t want to drink milk make from cows injected with r-BHG then that is their right. Whether Monsanto is right or wrong, labeling should be as correct as possible. The real reason behind the labeling fight is that farmers are trying to charge a premium price for “organic milk” by jumping on the organic bandwagon. There is no evil corporation. Such a comment is for conspiracy theoriests. People here are just trying to make money trying by convicing others that their milk is better and healthier than their competitors. I recommend that before people start spending their money by what is “better and healthier” they should do some research and not rely on what a label tells them.
@shane123: Brought to you by Monsanto.
@facework: Well, I’m not “pro Monsanto” exactly, though my dad did work for them for like 40 years and still consults for them. But your link to a Geocities site? Really? Isn’t there something from Greenpeace at least? Some ranting clown on Geocities puts up a site and that’s your source of information about them?
As far as toxicity of RoundUp is concerned, the stuff kills half the rats who eat 5,108 mg of RoundUp per 1 kg of body weight. [www.mindfully.org] [www.monsanto.com] Translated to a 150 pound person, you’d need to eat more than 3/4 of a pound of the stuff to have half a chance of dying.
“practically non-toxic”
Granted, that’s from a Monsanto-produced MSDS, but I doubt OSHA or whatever other federal agencies that require these things to be produced allow verbiage like “practically non-toxic” unless it is backed up with some reproducible science.
But why trust OSHA or science when you can trust some conspiracy theorist on Geocities that also produced this enviro-friendly gem:
“The fact of the matter is that global warming is a lie propagated by the communist inspired, anti-God, feminist, socialist cabal that controls everything through both major political parties, and their unacknowledged partner in crime: the Korporate Media.” — North Star Zone [www.geocities.com]
Good thing you don’t work for CNN.
Hormones + Cows= Cows with udders of pus.
The argument in this case isn’t about whether or not rBST/rBGH is evil and bad, but whether consumers have the right to know that the milk they are purchasing was or was not produced by cattle that were treated with it.
Even the rBST-lovers on this board can agree that the only consumerist choice is to have that information available to the consumer through clear labeling. Then we can all decide for ourselves whether or not we think it is safe for our own consumption, instead of relying on an all-to fallible FDA and Monsanto to make that decision for us. If you love rBST, great, and if you hate it, great, you’ll get what you want if it’s labeled accordingly.
The issue here is that some companies are trying to market their milk as healthier because it doesn’t have rBST, when in fact there’s no data showing that that’s true.
They’re making an untrue health claim by implication, and that’s something that labeling laws prohibit.
Should I be able to label my milk as Ebola-free?
I hate teh evil megacorp as much as the next guy, but come on…
@Mr. Gunn: That’s a straw man argument — after all, aren’t MSG-free foods labeled as such? By your argument, that should be illegal since it is an FDA-approved additive. If that’s not making an implicit health claim, I don’t know what is, and clearly it sets a precedent for informational labels.
I’m all for you guys getting your rBST, I just think each consumer should have the information they need to make their own choices, based on their own judgment (and not the daddy-state judgment of the FDA or Monsanto).
@Mr. Gunn: yes, label your milk as Ebola free. If we start feeling we should be concerned about Ebola in our milk, yours will be the milk of choice.
We don’t have to be on Monsanto’s side in order to be suspicious of this bill. We shouldn’t have to choose between “no information” and “bad information.” The label “rBST-free” has no meaning, because rBST doesn’t show up in milk even if the cow was treated with it. The label creates a false impression that milk without the label DOES contain rBST, which is not true. It also implies that rBST is necessarily bad, which, Monsanto’s tomfoolery aside, has not yet been proven.
“No rBST Used”, or “Not from cows treated with rBST” should be an adequate label (and is not illegal under this law). Anyone who wants more than that should simply pick an Organic Certifier they trust, and look for that label.