Ben & Jerry's in food-safety fight

[BridgeTheGap]

The ice-cream maker wants customers to know its products are free of a synthetic hormone. But the hormone's marketer and some dairy farmers resent the implication that the hormone is unsafe. AP

Ben & Jerry's Homemade, one of the first companies to label its ice cream as free of a synthetic hormone, is protesting a move by some states to restrict such labeling.

The South Burlington, Vt., ice-cream maker has joined a national campaign to block what critics say is an effort driven by Monsanto (MON, news, msgs), which markets recombinant bovine somatotropin, or rBST, also known as recombinant bovine growth hormone, or rBGH.

"We're very concerned about, from a primary standpoint, the freedom of speech to be able to put what we believe is truthful and appropriate messaging on our packaging," said Rob Michalak, a spokesman for Ben & Jerry's, which has mounted a campaign to get consumers on its side.

But a newly formed farmers' group, backed by Monsanto, is pushing for labeling changes, saying the hormone-free labels imply that the milk is safer than other milk, when they say it's not.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/BenAndJerrysInFoodSafetyFight.aspx

[leftchick]

1. Monsanto tried this about 12 years ago

and they lost. I hope they lose again. Fuckers.

[unpossibles]

2. regardless of safety (and frankly we've been wrong/lied to before)

as a consumer, I'd want to know.

I noticed a commercial the other night for a dairy product which said it used no "artificial growth hormones" and my wife and I instantly wondered if they were just being tricky, and to what extent BGH was considered "natural."

[groovedaddy]

3. There was an announcement here last summer that Kroger (grocery)

would no longer sell products that contain this shit. Makes me feel better about shopping there.

[Demeter]

4. Can't Help the Implications--Truth Is NOT a Crime

Just goes to prove that Monsanto isn't paying enough taxes.

[Skinner]

5. This is outrageous.

The idea that consumers should not have access to information that we want, and that the producer of a product wants to give us, goes against everything this country is supposed to stand for.

What ever happened to the free market? It just goes to show that big corporations are not interested in a free market. They want a market that is biased in their favor.

[MH1]

6. "Democratic" administration - Ed Rendell - is doing this in PA

Guess who Fast Eddie is supporting for prez?

Not that it means anything except you know, birds of a feather and all that.

(in case you don't know, Rendell is supporting Hillary.)