Got hormone-free milk?

The Kansas Dairy Association is teaming up with a company that promotes hormones in milk to get rid of some milk bottle labels that state the milk does not contain hormone additives.

The Monsanto Corporation is the leading force behind Senate bill 595.The company said there is not a health difference between the milk that has hormones and others without. But consumers are choosing the milk without the hormones, which is upsetting larger dairies.

Jeanie Wells, general manager at The Merc, argued before the state congress that the labels should stay on.

"Absolutely consumers have the right to know just like we teach consumers to read labels and care where their food is coming from and paying attention," Wells said. "Consumers want to know what is going into their bodies."

In October 2007, Pennsylvania became the first state to ban the practice of labeling milk as free from Monsanto’s artificial growth hormone, rBST also known as recombinant bovine somatotropin. But since this decision, the state has reversed the policy twice due to public and state agency outcries.

Recently, Pennsylvania Gov. Ted Strickland issued an emergency rule banning unverified milk labels that claim the milk comes from cows that were not given an artificial hormone.