Shame! Shame on the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture!

The following is an excerpt from the Lancaster Farming newspaper of November 17, 2007:

Effective Jan 1, dairies selling milk in Pennsylvania, the nation’s fifth-largest dairy state, will be banned from advertising on milk containers that their product comes from cows that have never been treated with rbST, or recombinant bovine somatotropin.

The product, sold by St Louis-based Monsanto Company under the brand name Posilac, is the country’s largest-selling dairy pharmaceutical. It is also known as recombinant bovine growth hormone, or rBGH.

It has been approved for use in the US since 1994, although safety concerns have spurred an increase in rBST-free product sales. The hormone is banned in the European Union, Canada, Australia, and Japan, largely out of concern that it may be harmful to heard health.

Monsanto spokesman Michael Doane said the hormone-free label “implies to consumers, who may or may not be informed on these issues, that there’s a health-and-safety difference between these two milks, that there’s ‘good’ milk and ‘bad’ milk, and we know that’s not the case.”

Rick North of the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, a leading critic of the artificial growth hormone, said the Pennsylvania rules amounted to censorship.“This is a clear example of Monsanto’s influence,” he said. “They’re getting clobbered in the marketplace by consumers everywhere wanting rBGH-free products.

Monsanto spokesman, Michael Doane, is wrong. Milk from cows injected with his company’s Genetically Modified growth hormone is Bad Milk and milk from rBGH-free cows is Good Milk. The rest of the world knows this. They don't want rBGH milk. The people of America don't want rGBH milk. But Monsanto wants Americans to have rBGH milk.

Consumers have a right to know what is in their food, where the food came from, and how any animals that produced the food are treated. But BigAg (of which Monsanto is a major player), do not want people to know. And as this ruling in Pennsylvania shows, Mosanto will use its considerable political clout to protect its profits. It's all about money to them.

The Lancaster Farming article states that, in banning rBGH labeling, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture “is acting on a recommendation of an advisory panel.” Oh? Really? Who are the people on this panel? What are their ties to BigAg? How much money has BigAg pumped into the campaigns of politicians who have helped to influence this Department of Agriculture ruling? We will never know. But you can bet these things are happening behind the scenes. Anyone who has been involved in the poilitical process or worked for government knows this is how it works.

According to the article, Pennsylvania is the first state in the country to ban rBGH-free labeling on milk sold to consumers. Other states may shortly follow the lead.

If you would like to know more about rBGH, it’s human health effects, and the grassroots battle against this corporate-ag wickedness, CHECK OUT THIS WEB SITE