Ag-biotech monolith Monsanto appears to be in an unfamiliar position in regards to its growth hormone rBST (Posilac): the losing side. If news last month that grocery chain Kroger has decided to sell only milk guaranteed to be rBST-free wasn’t enough to send a shudder through Monsanto’s wallet, now retail king Wal-Mart has decided to ban the hormone in its store-brand milk. All of this may have started last September, when Starbucks helped kick-start the anti-rBST bandwagon by committing to only using milk without the synthetic hormone.
“It’s reached the tipping point,” Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association, told Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail.
Monsanto is continuing to fight against labels that declare milk rBST-free, arguing that since the FDA has designated the hormone safe, the labeling illegally implies that hormone-free milk is better than milk produced with rBST.
“There is no difference in the milk,” Monsanto spokesperson Lori Hoag told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “There is absolutely no difference in the milk.”
Just repeat after me: No difference … no difference …
Well, no difference except for the conspicuous absence of hormone in one of the choices.
awesome. I was never really sure why rBGH was necessary except to turn cows into machines.
In Canada, rBST is not permitted to be used:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/nr-cp/1999/1999_03_e.html
Does it make me a horrible person to laugh and hope that more and more bad things come Monsanto’s way? There are few companies that I loathe, but Monsanto ranks up right up there near the top.
YAY!
Whether the milk really has “no difference in the milk” anyone who listens to the news knows that the by-products end up in our water etc etc etc. All these drugs in animals are awful and I am thrilled by this news. Citing the FDA as your support organization in your lawsuit is hilarious considering the great job they are doing for us human folks. Morons. Oh, and how’s about fixing the pork and chicken situation?
As for you Vorpal — my kind of person! Rock on.