Kleinpeter Press Release

Kleinpeter Farms featured in new Vanity Fair Issue

(Baton Rouge, LA, April 10,2008) , (FTC) Monsanto Corporation,  and the controversy over the use of human growth hormones in cows. Kleinpeter Farms does not artificial bovine growth hormone (rBGH) and makes a point of saying so in its advertising and packaging.

“Our customers don’t want it so we don’t use it. And we don’t want to give the cows an injection every fourteen days to speed up their metabolism to make them give more milk. We just don’t believe that’s the right thing to do for our cows or our customers,” said Jeff Kleinpeter, President, Kleinpeter Farms.

rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) is a genetically engineered hormone that is injected into cows to increase milk production by speeding up the metabolism of cows. Studies are unclear about how rBGH affects humans, but many cows injected with rBGH have chronic cases of mastitis, the inflammation of the udder. Also, levels of saturated fatty acids associated with heart disease have been shown to increase in cows injected with rBGH.      

Monsanto, the developer of rBGH, filed a complaint with the FTC accusing Kleinpeter of “falsely claiming there are health and safety risks associated with milk from (rBGH)-supplemented cows.”

“I got an email and a phone call one day from an FTC lawyer saying that they did not like some of the things that were on our website because our website is a form of advertising and you have to follow certain procedures on what you say on your website,” Kleinpeter said.

Kleinpeter says the FTC made Kleinpeter remove from its website a report about rBGH written by a local high school student.

“Her report was based on fact and she received an A+ on it, but the FTC deemed it was not factual enough to meet their standards,” Kleinpeter said.

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Kleinpeter Farms Dairy, L.L.C.

14444 Airline Highway
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70817
(225) 753-2121