Tag: Dairy Products

Study: Milk Is Very Good For You

In the latest volley in the debate over milk, a long-running Scottish study contradicts other studies that suggest milk consumption might contribute to coronary problems. In fact, the study found that milk drinkers were significantly healthier than non-milk drinkers.

The study followed 5,700 Scottish men for a period of 25 years. The study found that even among men who drank whole milk, there was no increase in the risk of heart disease compared to those who didn’t drink milk. In fact, heart disease among regular milk drinkers was found to be lower than among non-milk drinkers.

The researchers were quick to emphasize that this applies to moderate milk drinking. Dr. Andy Ness told the BBC, “We are not talking about people who are drinking pints and pints of milk, but a moderate consumption of about a third of a pint a day. Our study does seem to show that a bit of what you like does seem to do you good.”

Reading between the lines of the study, however, the clearest implication is that whatever health effects milk has on the body, it is minor compared to other behaviors. For example, their study found that deaths from cancer and strokes were 10 percent lower in the men who were regular milk drinkers than those who weren’t. But, this was almost certainly attributable to the fact that those who didn’t drink milk at all were more likely to smoke than those who drank milk regularly.

Also, as is the case with a lot of the studies that show meat consumption or some combination of meat consumption is unhealthy, when people see studies saying a certain food causes an increase or decrease in death rates of 10 percent, they should be extremely skeptical since it is all but impossible to accurately detect such small risk factors in epidemiological studies.

Source:

Milk drinking protects health. The BBC, May 9, 2001.

PCRM vs. Noah Wyle: Will the Real Physician Please Stand Up?

In a bit of humorous hypocrisy, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is upset about a new “Got Milk” ad featuring Noah Wyle — the actor who plays Dr. John Carter on TV’s “ER.” The ad shows Wyle with a milk mustache and the tag line, “Noah Wyle, M.D. (Milk Drinker)” and suggests readers should drink milk under “doctor’s orders.”

The ad prompted PCRM to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission that the ad is misleading. “Like many of the ads in the milk-mustache ad campaign,” PCRM president Neal D. Barnard said in a press release, “the Wyle ad violates federal law by disseminating deceptive information. It implies that milk-drinking an stop osteoporosis among men, a claim not proven in medical studies. At the same time, it promotes regular, full-fat milk without warning that the product contributes to heart disease and cancer. The Wyle ad is particularly egregious as it misleads people into thinking a real doctor is prescribing milk.”

Okay, maybe Barnard and his PCRM folks don’t realize that just because Noah Wyle plays a doctor on “ER” doesn’t mean he really is a doctor, I think most Americans are able to make that distinction. On the other hand it’s a bit amusing for Barnard to complain that the ad passes Wyle off as a doctor, because despite PCRM’s name, it actually consists of very few physicians — in fact the last time I checked only about 10 percent of PCRM’s members were in fact physicians. In addition the leading physician’s group in the United States, the American Medical Association, has in the past censured PCRM for spreading unfounded health claims (the claims that milk contributes to cancer and heart disease, for example, are very misleading).

This seems a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Source:

Physicians lodge complaint over misleading ad starring “ER” actor Noah Wyle. Press release, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, October 24, 2000.

Call Him the NotHungerstrike Man

    The other day while satirizing the folks at Animal Rights 2000, I mentioned that Robert Cohen (who likes to call himself the NotMilk Man), promised to build a 17-foot turkey, fill it with red-colored Karo syrup, and slit the artificial turkey’s throat in front of the White House to protest Thanksgiving. Aside from the sheer nuttiness of such a venture, I was intrigued after finishing that piece about how Cohen would manage to still be alive come Thanksgiving 2000.

    See, back in November 1999 Cohen made a big deal of going on a hunger strike to protest the U.S. government’s approval of rBGH, a hormone given to cows which many activists thinks causes cancer and other maladies. The evidence isn’t on their side, but Cohen filed with the FDA to have rBGH banned because of new evidence he claims proves the hormone is dangerous. In fact, Cohen promised that he would continue his hunger strike until the FDA removed rBGH.

    In online diary Cohen kept of his plans for the hunger strike, he wrote:

Next Sunday, November 7th, I will begin a hunger strike.

I will not end that protest until POSILAC is taken off of the market.

    And only a few days into the hunger strike,

My pledge, I will not eat until Monsanto’s poison is taken out of our food.

    The FDA completely squashed his attempts to get rBGH banned, so reading his promise for Thanksgiving, I was curious how we was going to survive more than a year on a hunger strike and still be healthy enough to carry out his plan. Silly me, Cohen went off his hunger strike at the end of May, even though Monsanto is still putting “poison” in our food. What happened?

    Lets parse the message Cohen wrote on his web site on May 29, 2000, announcing the end of the hunger strike:

I have accomplished all that I am capable of.

    Translation: Cohen never got nearly the amount of publicity he anticipated. Maybe in a different country he might get more coverage, but when you’ve got PETA running around threatening to hand out dismembered animal toys to children, you’ve got to do a lot more than just stop eating to get attention. The unique nature of his hunger strike, where he was not necessarily eating but was, by his own account, consuming liquids that would have provided a substantial number of calories probably didn’t help either. Add to that the exhaustive number of studies on the safety of rBGH and there simply was never much news coverage of Cohen’s plight (which, I’m sure, he’ll ascribe to a conspiracy by Monsanto), despite his attempts to make it look like he was willing to starve himself to death to make a point.

I possess the secret study in which laboratory animals got cancer from Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone. That study was authored by Richard, Odaglia, and Deslex, and if I release the study I will go to jail. … Is going to jail worth revealing the horrors of what happened to lab animals?

    I wonder if he mentioned this at AR 2000. It would have been amusing to watch Cohen get up and tell a bunch of animal rights activists that no, really, animal tests can tell whether or not a given compound might cause cancer in human beings. If there was anything incriminating in this study, Cohen would have arranged for its publication a long time ago.

Today I end my hunger strike, and will continue to spread the word of truth.

    I’m certainly glad Cohen decided not to kill himself over his silly position on rBGH, but I doubt we’ll be hearing much truth from him anytime soon. In a recent update to his web site, Cohen announced he was going on a speaking tour “including a nighttime appearance in a comedy club.” Sounds like the perfect venue for his message.

PCRM Sues USDA Over Dietary Guidelines

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture claiming that USDA
dietary recommendations ignore the special health needs of minorities.
The USDA is currently revising its recommendations, which are used by
federally funded welfare and school lunch programs.

PCRM alleges that the committee
revising the USDA guidelines is unduly influenced by the agriculture industry,
although some of the ties are a bit tenuous. PCRM attorney Mindy Kursban
complains, for example, that the chair of the USDA guidelines panel, Cutberto
Garza, has served as a scientific advisor to the Dannon Research Institute.
The Dannon Research Institute, in turn, receives funding from Dannon,
the yogurt maker.

The real problem PCRM has
with the board can be see in the reply from a USDA spokesperson about
the lawsuit. The spokesperson told Reuters:

The advisory committee appointments are solicited through a
Federal Register notice and are made to reflect a balance of technical
expertise in medicine, nutrition and epidemiology.

Of course any impartial appointment
regimen that requires a solid scientific background automatically excludes
PCRM (which as been cited by the American Medical Association and others
for consistently ignoring and distorting sound, peer reviewed medical
science).

PCRM keeps hitting the lactose
intolerant button as if people who are lactose intolerant cannot safely
ingest milk, but this only applies to a small percentage of extremely
lactose intolerant people. Besides, the USDA already has the lactose intolerance
problem covered — federally subsidized school lunch programs already
provide for giving lactose-free milk to those children whose systems can’t
tolerate milk.

Source:

USDA
sued for too much dairy in diet guidelines, Reuters, December 16,
1999

PCRM Claims Food Pyramid Is Racially Intolerant

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is asking the federal government to remove the dairy
requirement from the food pyramid because large numbers of minorities
are lactose intolerant. PCRM is getting support for its efforts from Rev.
Jesse Jackson, former surgeon general Jocelyn Elders, and the Congressional
Black Caucus Health Braintrust.

The food pyramid recommends
two to three daily servings of dairy products. The PCRM recommendations
claims are a bit bizarre. First, although minorities are disproportionately
lactose intolerant, there are plenty of white folks that suffer from lactose
intolerance as well. I personally know about half a dozen people who are
not minorities and severely lactose intolerant – the kid next door vomits
rather violently if he eats cheese. One of my family members cannot drink
milk without getting sick and as a child I had similar, though milder,
problems with dairy products (even today although I can tolerate it, I
cannot stand milk). The food pyramid guidelines were never meant to be
universally applicable to everyone.

Second, most people suffering
from lactose intolerance generally have milder symptoms and often only
intermittently; only a small percentage suffer from the severe symptoms
PCRM is complaining about. But this doesn’t seem to phase PCRM’s |Neal
Barnard| who told the Sacramento Bee, “Milk shouldn’t be required.
It should be optional. It has health risks and takes a particular toll
on certain people.”

But that is also true of almost
any food. I cannot drink orange juice without experiencing stomach discomfort.
A friend of mine has to avoid sulfates or risk potentially fatal consequences.
Other people can’t eat peanuts. The list goes on and on. If the goal is
a food pyramid that takes into account any food that “takes a particular
toll on certain people” it is going to have to be as big as the real
pyramids in Egypt.

Besides as many dieticians
point out, PCRM’s recommendations aren’t likely to be all that more appealing
to people than dairy. Certainly people can get their recommended daily
allowance of calcium from broccoli or beans or even sardines, but as UC
Davis Medical Center dietitian Craig Petersen puts it, “very few
people will consume enough vegetables to get the calcium they need.”

Source:

Calling food pyramid biased, group fights dairy requirement. Stephanie McKinnon McDade, Sacramento Bee, March 17, 1999.

National Dairy Council Rips Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

In response to Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s claims that milk consumption doesn’t
help prevent osteoporosis, the National Dairy Council issued a press release
pointing out PCRM’s long running difficulties in giving accurate information.

As the NDC points out, “the
claim the group is making does not represent the total body of available
science. It is an erroneous conclusion based on a single study limited
to a narrowly defined population. The study, by its authors’ design, was
not constructed to show cause and effect as this group would want you
to believe. Rather, it was constructed as an epidemiological study intended
to generate observations and hypotheses that may lead to further study.”

PCRM misrepresented a study?
No, you don’t say.