The FDA, for example, has been sitting on draft of non-binding voluntary labeling guidelines since 2001.
But David Preisler, the executive director of the Minnesota Pork Producers, said he did not like the labeling guidelines much either.
Britain's move to study tougher labeling guidelines took many by surprise.
Mr. Rutter's dairy began labeling its milk as having "no artificial growth hormones" on Oct. 1, using labeling guidelines from the F.D.A.
Dr. McClellan said the new food labeling guidelines would help consumers get more information about possible health benefits of certain products even though the science was not settled.
Under the F.T.C's labeling guidelines, anything made of animal hide -- including, say, gopher hide or rat hide -- can be labeled "genuine leather," according to Susan Arthur, a staff lawyer who headed up the last review of the guidelines in 1996.
Mr. Bodkin acknowledged the importance of having labeling guidelines coordinated with The Times online, but he said the push in the printed paper was too vital to wait for a broader solution.
The News/Opinion Divide Committee left a worrisome gap in recommending that the new labeling guidelines be imposed only in the sections of the paper published daily, like Metro and Business Day.
The weekly sections "have their own distinctive style," Craig Whitney, an assistant managing editor and The Times's standards editor, said of the decision not to establish labeling guidelines for them.
There are other important factors, among them an increase in meat consumption in the third world, easing of government labeling guidelines, and the wholesale movement of leather clothing manufacturing into the Far East, where the highly labor-intensive industry can buy workers' time for pennies on the dollar.
