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From: DawnWatch - news [at] dawnwatch.com
Date: Sep 25, 2006 8:24 PM
Subject: DawnWatch: Artificial hormones in cows’ milk on Boston Globe front page — 9/25/06

The Monday, September 25 Boston Globe has a front page story headed, “2 Dairies to End Use of Artificial Hormones; Hope to Compete with Organic Milk.”

It opens:

“The region’s biggest dairies are rushing to rid their bottled milk of artificial growth hormones in a bid to draw back customers who have switched to organic milk.

“Dean Foods, which operates the Garelick plant in Franklin, and H.P. Hood, which operates a plant in Agawam, are demanding that regional farmer cooperatives supply them with milk from cows that haven’t been injected with synthetic hormones that boost milk production.

“Over the next few weeks, jugs of Hood and Garelick milk with labels pledging ‘no artificial growth hormones’ should start filling supermarket shelves a strategy the dairies hope will satisfy the chief concern of consumers going organic and do so at less than half the retail price of organic milk.”

Demonstrating that artificial growth hormones are not the only concern of organic milk buyers, we read:

“But Nasser Hussain, a teacher from Boston, said he buys organic milk largely because he opposes industrial farming. ‘Organic to me means they let the cows out of the pen,’ he said.”

(Note: Unfortunately that is somewhat misleading. An August 20 front page story in the Chicago Tribune shared complaints that cows on large organic dairy farms are hardly able to graze. It referred to guidelines being sought by the Organic Standards Board that would organic require dairy cows to get about one-third of their diet from pasture four months out of the year — i.e. one ninth of their diet from pasture. See http://tinyurl.com/mz56s for more on that Tribune story.)

You’ll find today’s front page Globe story online here OR http://tinyurl.com/o6blp

It opens the door for letters about the treatment of cows on dairy farms, and from those who have found happy substitutes for cow’s milk.

A nice source of information is http://www.dumpdairy.com

The Boston Globe takes letters at letter [at] globe.com

Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Shorter letters are more likely to be published.

Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.dawnwatch.com/cgi-bin/dada/dawnwatch_unsubscribe.cgi
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