Consumer Demand, Not Safety, Led General Mills to Ditch rBGH

(MoneyWatch)  General Mills announced Monday that all Yoplait yogurt products will be entirely free of artificial bovine growth hormones (rBGH or rBST) by August, 2009. GM is not the first company to go this route -- to name just a few others, Starbucks, Chipotle and even Wal-Mart's Great Value brand have all eliminated dairy products produced with artificial hormones.

But General Mills was very careful not to take sides on the rBGH controversy itself. The debate about whether these hormones are safe or not is ongoing, and their use is banned in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Yet according to GM's press release, "the safety of milk from cows treated with rBST is not at issue." The decision to go rBGH-free, the company said, was simply a response to consumer demand.

That pressure is significant; one survey showed that almost 60 percent would be willing to pay premium prices for milk without artificial hormones. And, since 70 percent of Yoplait products were already rBGH-free, it was only logical to push that to 100 percent and advertise the fact.

Not everyone has taken that approach, however. Some have instead tried to ban rBGH-free labeling, or to require that such labels be accompanied by disclaimers like "No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbST-treated and non-rbST-treated cows."

Are artificial hormones actually unsafe? I won't pretend to be qualified to answer that question. There are studies and scientists supporting both sides of the issue (though when it comes to possible but unproven cancer links, my personal instinct is to err on the side of caution).

However, regardless of whether or not the artificial hormones are potentially risky for humans, there is a general agreement that they're bad for cows. Cows taking the hormones get more udder infections -- and when cows get sick, farmers give them antibiotics, "the residues of which also may end up in milk and dairy products," as the Center for Food Safety explains.

These residues can cause allergic reactions in sensitive individuals and contribute to the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria, further undermining the efficacy of some antibiotics in fighting human infections.

To me, the whole thing sounds like a pretty bad idea. But it also seems pretty unlikely that the FDA will change its rules on rBGH any time soon. Instead, I predict we'll see more even more companies deciding, like GM, to cater to the common consumer perception that injecting cows with artificial hormones is, at the very least, kind of creepy.