- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The
U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday told four companies which make
milk and ice cream to stop labeling their products as free of hormones.
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- No milk product can truthfully be labeled hormone free,
the agency said, because all milk contains naturally occurring hormones.
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- "FDA is committed to assuring that consumers are
provided with truthful information on product labels," FDA Commissioner
Dr. Mark McClellan said in a statement.
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- "FDA will continue to take strong action to protect
American consumers from products with labeling that is false or misleading."
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- The agency said the makers may have wanted to say their
products were free of an engineered hormone called recombinant bovine somatotropin
or rbST, which is used to increase milk production.
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- "Before the 1993 approval of rbST, FDA determined
that the recombinant, or genetically engineered form of bST is virtually
identical to a cow's natural somatotropin, a hormone produced in the pituitary
gland that stimulates the production of milk," the agency said.
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- Because the products are virtually identical, the FDA
said there was no need to label milk that contains the genetically engineered
form.
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- "Producers have no basis for claiming that milk
from cows not treated with rbST is safer than milk from rbST-treated cows,"
the FDA added.
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