The states of Minnesota and Wisconsin banned the use or sale of bovine somatotropin (bST), a bioengineered pituitary hormone that stimulates lactation in cows, increasing milk production by as much as 25 percent. The ban was engineered by an odd coalition that included environmentalists such as Jeremy Rifkin's Foundation for Economic Trends, which opposes biotechnology, and groups representing small, relatively inefficient farms vulnerable to price decreases.

In 1985 the FDA determined that milk and meat from cows treated with bST was safe for human consumption, and indeed virtually indistinguishable from that of untreated cows, a conclusion echoed in studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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