The school board in Hartland is considering a ban in town schools on dairy products made with milk from cows treated with the synthetic growth hormone known as rBGH or rBST.
If Hartland carries through with the proposal, it would be the second Vermont district to ban the substance.
The Hartland board modeled its proposed ban after the one adopted in Newbury in August.
"I think the product is unsafe. Given the availability of safe alternatives it would be irresponsible" not to adopt such a ban, said board chairman Mark McElroy, who first proposed the ban.
BST is injected into cows and it boosts milk production by up to 15 percent. The artificially produced hormone is identical to the substance produced by the cows themselves.
BST has been approved by virtually all major health organizations, but many people remain suspicious of the substance and fear it could have some unintended health consequence.
The rBST prohibition didn't pass easily in Newbury, where residents either loved it or hated it, said Newbury School Board Chairman Paul Jewett. "On that issue there wasn't anybody in the middle of the road," he said.
Gary Barton, a spokesman for Monsanto, the company that produces the substance, criticized the Hartland proposal, saying that there was "no question" the hormone is safe. "Schools ... should be basing their decisions on science and education" rather than "on emotion," Barton said.
In a position paper that McElroy prepared on the issue, he wrote that "scientific studies have linked rBGH to human cancers, including increased risk of breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer in men, and gastrointestinal cancer."
The growth hormone has been deemed safe by Vermont's agriculture department, said Byron Moyer, chief of the department's dairy division. "The drug is safe and milk from the animals and edible tissues from the animals is safe for consumption," he said.
In his position paper, McElroy wrote that because the board has the power "to err on the side of caution," the dairy ban "seems like the responsible thing to do."
The board will consider the ban at a meeting next month.
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