At the supermarket you'll find eggs from vegetarian-fed hens and apples grown without the use of pesticides. Or you can buy regular old eggs and apples. But you get the information you need to make your choice.

If agribusiness giant Monsanto has its way, though, you'll have less information at the supermarket. You'll be denied the option of choosing milk from cows that haven't been given an artificially engineered growth hormone.

Earlier this month, Monsanto filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. The claim: that the no-growth-hormone labels some dairies attach to their milk are misleading and "result in higher milk prices for consumers and less choice for dairy farmers."

Monsanto wants those labels removed.

If only the key issues here were milk prices and farmers' choice. The bigger issue, it seems, is the protection of Monsanto's profits.

Since its approval by the federal Food and Drug Administration in 1993, artificially engineered growth hormone, known as rBGH, rBST or Posilac, has been used by farmers to increase milk production by about 10 percent. Monsanto, as the primary producer of this hormone, has profited from this use. But in recent years, more and more dairies have begun asking their farmers to refrain from using the hormone and adding labels to their products to reflect the shift.

These labels, Monsanto claims, imply that milk produced with the aid of its hormone products is unsafe. It says the FDA has found no difference between milk produced by cows treated with growth hormone and milk produced by those left untreated. And in fact, the Illinois Department of Public Health requires dairy products that claim to be produced without rBGH to also include the FDA's exculpatory information about growth hormone. As if to say: Our cows didn't get growth hormone, but it wouldn't matter if they did.

That message should suffice. The dairies' labels should be allowed to stay.

The use of artificial growth hormone in dairy cows may not have any deleterious effects on human health. But milk produced with the help of artificial hormones contains elevated amounts of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which some studies have shown to raise the risk of various cancers. That said, no direct link has been established between the IGF-1 found in milk produced with the help of an artificial hormone and increased cancer rates.

It's worth noting that the perceived safety of a drug or chemical compound can change over time. Example: Some people now choose to avoid plastics manufactured with bisphenol-A, which has been in wide use for decades, because some studies have linked it to cancer, obesity and diabetes. The products remain on the market and are generally viewed as safe even for use in the manufacture of baby bottles and breast pumps. To buy or not to buy? That choice remains where it should be, with the buying public.

Consumers deserve the same level of choice when it comes to milk purchases.

Monsanto has every right to protect its profits. But not at the expense of consumers' right to know.

— Chicago Tribune

While Congress keeps dithering on meaningful steps to promote cleaner, more secure energy supplies and confront the looming disaster of global warming, states have seized the initiative. It's past time for Congress to take it back.Many states have set ambitious goals for generating electricity and running vehicles from renewable energy sources. They have created public-private partnerships to develop clean coal and other environmentally friendly power projects. They have made plans to curb their emissions of carbon dioxide, the main culprit behind global warming.By contrast, Congress has done little on energy policy in recent years beyond shovel billions of taxpayer dollars to powerful special interests.Last week, the bipartisan National Governors Association called on Congress to supplement state efforts on energy policy. The group's sensible recommendations include raising fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks; adding or extending tax incentives and funding to develop alternative-fuel vehicles, renewable energy projects, and technologies to trap carbon; and providing more support for conservation programs.A national energy policy is better suited than dozens of different state plans to achieve such national imperatives as reducing America's oil addiction and making the transition to cleaner power sources. And the federal government has more resources to draw on to provide the incentives.Here's hoping the governors will give a jolt to Congress' listless and laggard energy policy.8212;The Orlando Sentinel</I></B>