Gov. Rendell and his agriculture secretary ought to side with consumers in a dispute over milk labeling.
Unless Agriculture Secretary Dennis C. Wolff wakes up and smells the cream in his coffee, Pennsylvania will ban dairies from labeling milk cartons as "hormone-free" on Feb. 1. That would be the wrong move for consumers, who have a right to know how their food is produced.
Wolff is kowtowing to dairy farmers who inject their herds with a hormone, which boosts milk production. The hormone-using farmers argue that a "hormone-free" label on competitors' milk wrongly implies the milk produced with hormones is unsafe.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the growth hormone for dairy herds 14 years ago.
There's no scientific evidence that milk from injected cows is unsafe. But some health experts say the matter isn't quite settled, either.
Research has focused on a protein found in milk called insulin-like growth factor 1. At high levels, IGF-1 has been associated with cancer in humans.
Milk from cows treated with synthetic hormones can have higher levels of IGF-1. But scientists disagree whether drinking this milk can cause higher IGF-1 levels in the bloodstream. Whether or not consumers know all the details of this debate, it is an open question that state officials have no right to ignore.
There's no dispute that injecting cows with hormones can cause health problems for the cows themselves. That's one reason Europe and Canada have banned the practice.
After Wolff announced his milk-label decision in October, a debate ensued, prompting him to delay the Jan. 1 start date by one month. He should shelve this idea permanently.
Pennsylvania would be the first state in the nation to deny consumers information about how their milk is produced. Wolff argues that some "hormone-free" labels are inaccurate.
If so, correct the labeling procedures. But don't use that as an excuse to keep consumers in the dark about how their food is produced.
The Keystone State was fifth in the nation last year in the amount of milk produced - more than 10.7 million pounds. It's an important industry. But the job of the state - and Rendell and his ag secretary - is to give consumers more information and not to protect a special-interest group.