GRASSROOTS
SUCCESS STORY OF THE WEEK:
MONSANTO’S BOVINE GROWTH HORMONE BEING DRIVEN OFF THE MARKET
The Organic Consumers Association has been working to educate
and mobilize consumers and retailers (for example Starbucks) to
boycott milk and dairy products derived from Monsanto’s recombinant
(genetically engineered) Bovine Growth Hormone since our founding
in 1998. The synthetic hormone is banned in most of the world,
due to its links to prostate and breast cancer. Although it is
still being injected into thousands of dairy herds in the U.S.,
grassroots pressure from health-minded consumers and public interest
groups, like the OCA, have caused Starbucks, Chipotle, and many
supermarket chains to put pressure on their dairy suppliers to
stop using the drug. Monsanto is furious that OCA and our allies
have educated consumers about the dangers of rBGH, but with recent
polls showing 80% of consumers concerned about artificial hormones
in their food, there’s little that the biotech giant can do to
stop rBGH from being driven off the market. Here are some recent
marketplace developments:
- California
Dairies, which produces 8% of the milk supply in the US, has
banned the use of rBGH. - Food
retail giant Kroger recently announced they will be banning
rBGH in all of their stores by February 2008. - All
milk produced in Oregon is now rBST-free. - In
May, Publix Super Markets, with 900 stores in the South, went
rBST-free in its branded milk products.
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more: /old_articles/rbghlink.cfm