PA won't ban rBGH-free label after all

From a Center for Food Safety press release:

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) has backed down from a controversial ban on the use of labels on milk products. The agency had issued new rules in October (blogged here), set to go into effect February 1st that would have barred dairy companies or milk producers from labeling their products as from cows not treated with rBGH. PDA argued that a misleading impression might be conveyed by identifying milk as coming from cows not treated with synthetic hormones. Pennsylvania would have been the first state to implement such a labeling ban.

Yesterday the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture released revised regulations.  The revised regulations, in response to consumer outcry, do not ban the "not treated with rBST" information:   

(B) Permitted Claims. The following claims are permitted:

i. RBST. If the product is represented as, or intended to be represented to consumers as, containing or produced from milk from cows not treated with rBST:

1. “From cows not treated with rBST. No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST-treated cows” or a substantial equivalent. Hereinafter, the first sentence shall be referred to as the “Claim,” and the second sentence shall be referred to as the “Disclaimer.”

a. A substantial equivalent Claim would include, for example: “Produced without the use of rBST” instead of “From cows not treated with rBST.”

b. The phrase “Farmer’s Pledge” may precede any such Claim, provided that what follows clearly articulates a difference in farming practices or dairy herd management methods and does not state or imply a compositional difference between milk from rBST-treated and non-rBST treated cows. An example of a permissible pledge would be “Our farmers pledge not to use rBST.”

c. Wherever used in 7(B), the term rBST shall also include the terms rBGH, artificial bovine growth hormone, artificial growth hormone, synthetic bovine growth hormone, synthetic growth hormone, and their plurals.