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 Pennsylvania had also jumped on the Monsanto special interest bandwagon, but last month “rescinded a controversial law banning rBGH-free labels following a massive backlash from dairy companies and consumer advocates.”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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On the one hand, this feels dirty dirty dirty. On the other, though, I feel like the difference between “rbST-free” and “from cows not supplemented with rbST” is trivial. Except for those people who assume that “____-free” is always a good thing, even if they don’t know what it is. (E.g., DHMO-free.)
I agree with the first commenter. The whole “compositional labeling” thing is part of why our food supply is in such a mess. Picking on one ingredient, be it sodium, saturated fat, trans-fats, or whatever, to demonize gives the misleading impression that if you create a food lacking that substance, it’s necessarily healthier.
As anyone who remembers the Olestra debacle understands, that ain’t necessarily so. In fact, removing sugar from foods to create “diet” versions is what led to higher levels of trans-fats.
You gotta focus on eating fresh, whole, minimally-processed food. Everything else is marketing.
This bill is also being debated in Utah with the plan to require labels that advertise no growth hormones to put a disclaimer that they are not superior. It makes no sense to legislate this. If people care enough to spend the extra money on hormone free milk, let them.
If dairy people want to put a rambling story from a 3 year old on their labels they should be able to.
The law should only prevent them from adding false information and omitting required information.
I sleep better at night not knowing how my food is made. Next they will actually start telling me what specific parts are in my hot dogs. Ignorance is bliss.
/sarcasm
I don’t see how states can be limiting the free expression of a marketing department. If indeed hormones don’t show up in milk, than all milk could truthfully be labeled as hormone free. Its rather like saying milk is a white colored liquid, and putting it on the label.
As long as I can still tell what milk has been produced sans Monsanto growth hormones I will still by milk.
I won’t drink hormone treated milk. Drinking it over a period of days starts to make my allergies flare up. Milk should not make you a snotty wheezing mess.
It’s the slippery slope of reality! While I prefer the taste of organic milk over the taste of non-organic. My understanding is that ALL milk contains hormones as ALL cow’s naturally produce a hormone called somatotropin — a hormone produced in the cow’s pituitary gland. The chemical people (the bad people in this article) have always claimed that THEY can make the same exact hormone in their lab. The FDA agreed & made the “hormone-free” label ruling in 2003. (see link below)
At the end of the day — I think consumers have a right to know WHAT they are consuming and how food products are produced. For example, at this point in time I am not ready to eat cloned cows even if the FDA says it’s ok. I advocate more information on all labels so that consumers can have a choice.
[69.20.19.211]
Why is Kansas such fertile ground for ‘alternative’ theories about everything– segregation, evolution, milk composition, tornado-induced time/space travel?
Of course, some of these theories are wonderful (see Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al.), but most are just crazy.
@Rectilinear Propagation:
And in a rational world, that’s about all anyone needs to say on the subject.
I used to raise chickens, and I can’t bear the thought of how battery chickens are treated. I will gladly pay double for free range eggs, though you can usually get free range eggs for about a dollar a dozen from 4-H kids raising hens.
It’s amazing the heaps of hostility (some) companies have to a simple notion: make it how you like, let us know honestly, then let the market decide.
Freaken communists.
For me, it’s a proxy: any factory cramming antibiotics and hormones down the throat of Else is a horrorshow. I like feeding kids on milk made from happy cows.
Industry experts try to confuse the issue by blurring science as to whether Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) milk is superior or not. That’s not the issue.
I have the right to know what I am ingesting and make my own choices. Without labelilng information, I am unable to do so.
80% of all corn grown in the country is genetically modified (GM) to produce its own pesticides. This goes into virtually all prepared foods, often as high fructose corn syrup. GM ingredients are banned in Europe, yet in the USA, we don’t even require to have it on the label.
This is the same FDA that is trying to ban purchasing (cheaper) drugs overseas, despite the major drug companies all having offshore manufacturing plants.
This is the same FDA that doesn’t require food or drug companies to publish negative research studies. Companies can submit positive studies, win approval, and not disclose other studies that have had negative results. People die as a result (Vioxx anyone).
This is the same FDA that doesn’t have enough inspectors to insure safe domestic food supply, (want some tainted beef?) and inspects only a few percent of the imported food we eat.
This is a big deal. Freedom of information is a central tenet of Democracy. Protecting citizenry is a central function of government. The FDA is proof that our government is willing to sacrifice lives to continue to pander to coporate interest.
From healthranger.org: “”The top two positions at the FDA are now headed by Big Pharma representatives”
Kinda makes having your receipt checked seem kinda trivial huh?
This legislation is utter nonsense.
This is like Roger Clemens pointing to a lack of detectable steroids in the baseballs he hit as “proof” that he did not use steroids himself!
If one looks at the entire USDA Organic certification process, one finds that all stages in the production of an organic food are inspected and certified.
One would use exactly the same approach to certify the the dairy herd was free of farmer-added hormones, and hence, the milk was produced by rBGH-free/rbST-free cows.
Certification of the health of dairy herds is old hat.
Reliance on those certifications as a factor in assuring the safety of milk is also old hat.
Consumers want country-of-origin labels, and they want a complete run-down on issues like GMOs, hormones, and other modern tricks. This is a consumer preference issue, just like “shade-grown coffee”. There need not be a specific lab test or a specific tangible health issue to justify the claims, just as there is no specific advantage to “shade-grown coffee”.
@SkokieGuy: While I agree with your argument, GMOs are actually NOT banned in the EU but they are strictly labeled as GMO.
@kittenfoo: Ooh, thanks for reminding me that I need to buy eggs!
I think the difference between “rBST-free” and “from cowns not injected with rBST” is pretty big. The first is making a blind promise about chemistry that cannot be tested. The second is akin to saying “free range” or “corn fed” or any other marketing promise about how the animal that provides that food is treated.
If we can’t test for it, I’d rather not regulate whether or not its there. I’m far more comfort with verifying treatment of animals with affidavits and pledges than chemistry.
@SkokieGuy: I still haven’t seen any studies that have conclusively shown that genetically modified or hormonally treated is in any way unhealthy.
While it is true that it does reduce genetic diversity in the face of an unknown disease that could wipe out the crop, there really isn’t anything to show that it is bad for people.
This question is kind of related: Are you against irradiating food as well?
Milk is made for calves so I don’t understand why humans would consume it in the first place. Lots of natural growth hormones in milk because calves need to grow fast to reach maturity. I wouldn’t be surprised if milk is one of the reasons for the high cancer rates in milk consuming countries. rbST can’t be helping the situation as it may not increase rbST but it does produce more IGF even according to a corporate scientific study.
@jfischer: “There need not be a specific lab test or a specific tangible health issue to justify the claims, just as there is no specific advantage to “shade-grown coffee”.”
Isn’t the advantage knowing that no forest was clear-cut to grow the coffee. If you want to support the enviro-ethical stance of the company you should be able to.
The same goes for the milk; Even if there are no ill-affects ( for the sake of the argument ) from ingesting hormone laden milk shouldn’t we be able to make the choice as to who’s milk producing philosophy we want to support.
This is the land of the free or at least it was.
ancientsociety: Thank you for the correction!
[From genet.iskra.net]
GMO-free regions in Europe
At least 174 regions, over 4500 municipalities and other local entities and tens of thousands of farmers and food producers in Europe have declared themselves “GMO-free” expressing their commitment not to allow the use of genetically modified organisms in the agriculture and food in their territories.
A further point of interest, because pollen is disbursed through the air, the ability for organic farmer in the US is being diminished. An organic farmer cannot be located within miles of a GMO farm, as there is no way to prevent cross-contamination.
There have even been cases of organic crops being showing evidence of GM contamination and BEING SUED by Monsanto for growing ‘their’ product without proper licensing.
Sweet, another rBST post! I’ll keep my involvement minimal this time, but read the thread of comments from the last Monsanto post to find out why you’re an idiot if you think rBST is going to hurt you.
That said, this is about legal and scientific standards, even if the motive is economic. If there is no test for rBST, you cannot label something as “rBST-free”. If I say “prove it”, you can’t, end of story. “Growth hormone-free” is a gross misrepresentation, because all mammals have endogenous growth hormones, and to say they don’t is just plain wrong an ignorant. The correct phrase is that they don’t contain exogenous growth hormone, or recombinant hormone, or whatever. But again, if you can’t test for it, you can’t make that claim.
The only true claim you can make is that you didn’t treat your cows with rBST or rBGH. That is a claim you can back up. It’s a matter of fact and logic.
That said, here in Pittsburgh I just bought a gallon of milk. When I opened it at home, I noticed an rBST-free label on the cap. I can get some sweet money from the dairy for false advertising – they can’t prove it
@laserjobs: “Milk is made for calves so I don’t understand why humans would consume it in the first place.”
We choose to drink the milk for the added protein just like the Masai chose to drink the cows blood for protein. It allows us to get the nutrition we need over a longer period of time. It basically is one of the major reason people had been able to survive longer periods without meat.
As for why we drink it now. Well I don’t think you’d be seeing human milk for sale in the near future even though it would probably be the best milk we ( as humans ) could consume.
@savvy999: Some Kansans surprisingly don’t give into the silly ID debate and tornado induced time travel or think our state legislature is great. Some of us even go so far as to go vegetarian or vegan and drink non GMO rice milk instead of hormone riddled milk. Or maybe it’s just me buying all the rice milk in the grocery store.
Knowing the idiocy of the Kansas Legislature and its want to appease big business instead of public opinion (as proven by their attempt to allow two coal plants to be built even though the Governor and KDHE had denied the first ones, but also the fact that 60% of Kansans didn’t want the plants) they may go ahead and pass this.
@ninabi: Hear, hear.
sleze69: We could debate the health issue of milk containing BGH, but that is certainly not a Consumerist issue, neither is my my personal beliefs and choices about what I do or don’t consume.
What I do believe is a Consumerist issue and would frankly expect widespread agreement with is that we ARE entitled to detailed information about the food we consume.
@slapBOXmaster: Why do we naturally stop drinking human milk if it is so good for us? Why are we the only mammals who drink milk after weening? Why are we the only mammals who drink other mammals milk?
It just seems strange to me
If you want to see how totally out of control our food supply is, go look at what some of these ingredients really are. Someone suggested I cut a couple of things out of my diet that could have been potentially making a medical condition worse. They said cut out corn syrup and MSG. I did some research into what had MSG in it and found huge lists of all the things that are actually MSG under another name or a food additive that has massive amounts of MSG in it.
[www.truthinlabeling.org]
I cut both almost completely out of my diet for a month and had a major reduction in symptoms and generally feeling icky. But trying to not eat those two things is extremely hard, they are in everything.
@laserjobs: Well, that’s the PETA party line, but we’re also the only mammals that can talk, cry tears, build cities, have religion, write words, etc. etc. Doesn’t explain why we drink milk, but you’re not going to figure it out until you can answer all those other ones.
As for the whole Monsanto situation – if BGH was sooo safe, why do they have a problem with other companies advertising their non use of it? Why can’t they figure out a way to market their BGH-full milk as BETTER than the other stuff? Ya know, since it’s 100% safe and all, and makes your milk cheaper. Is it maybe because…it’s not so safe?
@laserjobs: “Why do we naturally stop drinking human milk if it is so good for us?”
Would you want to come home after school and have a cookie in one hand and your moms boob ( covered in ice – cause who wants warm milk ) in the other.
Sorry I couldn’t help it.. And eww to me for having to think about that before I wrote it.
I don’t know why we stop . Maybe it has something to do with growing teeth and in more nomadic times that was a sign that you should start eating meat ( and thus reduce the stress on your mother having to produce milk for you ) . We kept it for the various other uses it has. Cheese, ice cream, you know all the stuff that is really tasty and for the most part nutritious. Other animals don’t have minds like ours and are not able to understand that mammals milk is actually a good source of nutrition. Also they do not see the benefit of keeping the cow alive to harvest this resource instead giving in to the instinct to kill and eat meat.
Mammal milk is something that we as a species owe a part of our success to. Without this resource many generations of human would have never survived and we would be in a very different place now without it.
The most logical argument for banning the “hormone free” labeling on dairy products is that it is so hard to differentiate the milk of a cow who has received hormone injections from the cow who has not received them. Some unethical farmers could conceivably label their milk “rBST free” all the while pumping their cows full of hormone. The label, for all intents and purposes, could end up being a crock anyways.
However, IMO I think the FDA/Dept. Agriculture needs to develop some kind of standard/test/oversight that would allow the possibility of a “hormone free” label. While there probably isn’t a huge difference in the end product of genetically modified foods I do believe that consumers have the right to know how their food was prepared and what may be in it. We won’t really know the effects of genetically modified foods until we can look at multiple generations of “users” to measure them against a control. Mice and short studies don’t always cut it. Hell even a few years ago people were blaming the chemicals in shampoo for causing young women to go through puberty at younger ages.
@laserjobs: Milk and milk products taste very good. And they supply us with calcium. I don’t care if you have some sort of ethical problem with milk and you want to bring that up, but it seems disingenuous to couch it in these “me no understand” terms. Milk and cheese and cream and butter and ice cream all taste very, very good. What’s to understand?
@bohemian: They are in very little if you don’t eat processed foods.
The thing is to stay away from factory farmed products if you care about whether they have hormones, antibiotics, or were killed for consumption after showing signs of illness. You pay so little for a gallon of milk because it was factory farmed, with all the cost-cutting measures that may or may not be good for our health, and all the ethical problems with inflicting pain and suffering on an animal that most of us couldn’t stomach if we had to watch it happen. I pay more – much more – for local organic humanely raised meat, eggs, and dairy products. I care about the quality of the food supply and all the genetic modifications going into our food supply in order to grow more to feed the factory-farmed animals. And there’s no reason why they can’t label this stuff “GMO” or “this cow was give rBST or antibiotics” except that they know sales would automatically decrease just from people having to read that label.
Did anyone see “The Corporation”? Interesting section on how Monsanto managed to completely kill an investigative report showing links between rBST and cancer.
Yes this was a rant, sorry. My most passionate cause I think.
@teapartys_over: Yeah, here’s the video from the corporation you’re looking for.
I want to know whether my dairy products come from cows that were fed extra hormones because the “cows not treated with rBGH” label is a shortcut for “likelier to be free of infectious agents”. Cows fed on hormones produce more milk, but they also get sick more often. I don’t trust the USDA to monitor the milk I buy (see last month’s Humane Society video of downer cows being shoved around so they could be slaughtered), so I use “rBGH-free” as a proxy for “less likely to make me sick”.
That’s not to mention the fact that the pressure on farmers to increase their yields by using rBGH makes farming that much more capital-intensive and makes it that much harder for small-scale farmers to compete.
If all you care about is getting the most hookers and blow for your money, fine, but if I want to buy dairy products that I think are higher quality, then it’s my right to know which ones those are.
I’ll have to pass on buying human milk…I’ll stick to LactAid@slapBOXmaster:
“but who are so afraid of competition from non-Monsanto dairies that they’re actually trying to create laws to manipulate the market.”
Dairy is like a RICO-level racket to keep little guys and alternative methods — and even big guys with different corporate structures! — from competing with the already-established winners. This is small potatoes compared to some of the shit the dairy industry does to manipulate the market through legislation. (Although it’s still obnoxious.)
I know alot of the people involved in both sides of this battle.
Nancy O’Conner was my old boss at the Merc and is dead on with her statement about the consumer having a right to know.
I also happen to know the account execs involved at Osborn and Barr, the P.R. firm involved with Monsanto and the grass roots campaign and can tell you that more than likely, the reason that the grass roots campaign’s work is “pro bono” through the agency is merely to skirt legal issues (conflict of interest, etc.)
I’m disappointed that my friends at Osborn and Barr would intentionally try to block a consumers’ right to know what’s in their food, just because a client paid them to.
@SkokieGuy: Seriously ?
Does knowing the extent of the genetic modification really alter your perception of the product ?
If the packages where labeled as you suggest would you read it ?
I suspect more people simply read: homogenized milk 1% $3.39 good before _this_date__; or 1.54 lb 97% lean $2.89 packaged on _this_date__
That’s it.
If Monsanto can genetically alter their seeds to produce a more robust seed strain, why not ? If some farmer can get more ounces of milk from the same cow by using steroids, why not ?
If the genetic markers don’t show in the end product sitting on my table, why not ?
Monsanto is the most evil company on the planet. It belongs in the survey.
Everything they do is evil.
You have the right to know what is in your food. The government does not care about you. It only cares about the companies that put money in the politician’s pockets.
@laserjobs: Humans have evolved to have adult lactose tolerance, coinciding with the domestication of the cow. [en.wikipedia.org]
Our species’ default is intolerance, but a recent gene mutation enables most us to enjoy the creamy rGBH goodness well after infancy.
1) I don’t agree with corporate interests taking up this cause as I
doubt that their interests match a practical result of what this sort
of legislation would change.
2) Overall, I support the legislation. Why? Because all it does is
change the wording of the labelling based in the example; the wording
is changed in a way so that the point that the farmers are trying to
make is still being made and is being made in a clearer way (ie:
hormone free vs. produced from cows that were not given the
hormone…the “hormone free” statement does seem to be a bit more all
encompassing than what they actually want to say and could be construed
as misleading.)
@SkokieGuy: re: FDA, Government, et al
Meanwhile this is the same government that has mentioned that they
are concerned about terrorist cell contamination threats to food and
drug supplies. The FDA and other consumer protection agencies would be
a first line of defense against a “terrorist” attack in this manner.
And yet with all this money being spent on “anti terrorist” activities,
we can’t even properly fund or run such valuable agencies.
Meanwhile the increase of domestic companies relying upon
outsourcing also increases the risk of this source of issue. But big
business wants to outsource because it’s “cheaper” and what big
business wants, the government wants to give it right? There’s a
pharmeceutical company that has(d) three plants in New England that is
shutting all three of those plants down and moving operations to India
right. So this will benefit the country and economy right? The
government thinks that if it benefits the business then it will benefit
everyone? Nevermind how since it’s pharmeceuticals, the cost savings
will NEVER be passed along to the consumers purchasing the products and
X number of employees that have been/will be laid off.
Sorry, this isn’t really necessarily direct AT you, but your comment, and the comment that you were replying to, brought it out.
@DevPts: If it’s OK, then labeling it shouldn’t be a problem. They can do what they want, but I want to know what I’m buying.
All things being equal I’d rather not drink something with some weird chemicals added to it. My usual milk of choice one day just had an rbst free label added to it one day. It still tastes, and looks just like it did before, and it’s just as cheap, and that’s what I want. This garbage is made for producers of milk, not consumers. I really can’t imagine anyone clamoring for extra chemicals added to their foodstuffs.
And I don’t trust those fuckers from Monsanto one bit.
@suburbancowboy: Well said.
And for the others who are definitely going to bother bringing up the “well, would you rather people starve?” argument… In my eyes, tampering with food for human consumption is equally as bad as starving. Yes, I’d rather starve than eat “mutilated beyond all hell” food.
@teapartys_over: Perhaps I didn’t make my point clear. Should it be a law one way or the other, I doubt. That’s the great thing about free markets. But, much like health care, without adequate information how do you make an informed decision even if you do actually read the label. Somewhere there has to be a limit to what IS on the packaging.
If the manufacturer wants to label the product as being hormone free, let them.
I wonder, though, how many folks actively read the labels (esp: @loueloui)
It’s a tough one for sure. I would have to side, overall, with the producers though. If they want the label, let them.
I swear it seems that *nothing*, absolutely nothing, Monsanto has their fingers in is either completely unethical or immoral in any definition or interpretation of the two concepts. The leaders, and the apparently sheep scientists who work there, are unethical and immoral people to their very cores. I say this as someone who as worked in biotech/pharma!
If it’s not hiding relevant health and safety information like rBGH, it’s contaminating non-GMO crops and suing the contaminees for IP violations, or polluting entire watersheds and rivers in the Philippines with herbicides to facilitate illegal clear-cut logging and dispose of hazardous waste on the cheap.
The Europeans have declined the use of rBGH as the effects are unknown. Why are legislatures trying to decrease consumer awareness of the additives in food?
I don’t know which is worse: companies thinking for us, or government thinking for us. But I know that when they both think for us, we’re screwed.