Jim Hightower

Got milk? This advertising slogan has taken on a new meaning these days, because biotech profiteers are not only messing with the very nature of milk, they're also trying to mess with our minds.

At a time when consumers are demanding milk that's organic, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, and derived from cows that are treated humanely, bioengineering industrialists are attempting to fill our glasses and cereal bowls with milk from cloned cows. Wait, that's only the start – they want to be able to label the cloned stuff as "organic milk!" Excuse me, but "organic clone" is an Orwellian, oxymoronic, tortuous perversion of both nature and language.

Yet, believe it or not, the agribusiness toadies at the U.S. department of agriculture are actually thinking of allowing this labeling fraud. A USDA advisory panel is reviewing the agency's definition of organic to determine if cloned milk fits.

The answer would seem obvious – in fact, the definition clearly states that no genetically-engineered food can use the label. It's hard to think of an animal that's more engineered than a cow that's conceived in a laboratory dish and has only one parent. The very essence of "organic" is that it is a natural product born of nature, not manufactured by man.

The good news is that several purveyors of organic milk products – including Organic Valley, Ben & Jerry's, Land O'Lakes, and Horizon – say they will not use milk from cloned animals, citing the obvious fact that consumers don't want it. And, when consumers learn that there have been very few food safety studies done on the consumption of cloned foods, they'll want it even less.

This is Jim Hightower saying... Cloned animals suffer major levels of genetic abnormalities, so they should not be put into our food supply at all, much less be branded "organic." To learn what you can do, call the Center for Food Safety: 202-547-9359.