Ben & Jerry's in food-safety fight [View All]

[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.

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