|
Got milk? If not, then thank your lucky
stars. Because if you do, medical
research shows that you are likely to be
plagued by anemia, migraine, bloating,
gas, indigestion, asthma, prostate
cancer, and a host of potentially fatal
allergies -- especially if you are a
person of color.
Ignoring this, the government declares
that milk is essential to good health,
subsidizes the milk industry to the tune
of billions of dollars, and requires
milk in its public school lunch
programs. And celebrity shills sporting
milk mustaches tell us that milk is rich
in proteins, calcium, and vitamins --
and very cool to boot.
They forget to tell you about the
dangers lurking in that
innocuous-looking glass of white. Once
criticized only by naturopaths and
vegans, now the health effects of milk
are being decried by many mainstream
doctors. The supposedly hip milk
mustache is actually a creamy layer of
mucus, live bacteria, and pus.
Former Chairman of Pediatrics at Johns
Hopkins University, Frank Oski, M.D.
even has a book called Don't Drink Your
Milk which blames every second health
problem kids suffer on hormone-ridden
commercial milk. Sixty percent of ear
infections in kids under six years of
age are milk-induced, and milk
consumption is the number one cause of
iron-deficiency anemia in infants today
according to the American Association of
Pediatrics.
But milk is also a racial issue. Almost
90 percent of African Americans and most
Latinos, Asians, and Southern Europeans
lack the genes necessary to digest
lactose, the primary sugar in milk. The
milk industry's response is classic:
they have launched new campaigns arguing
that non-whites can digest milk if they
take in small sips during the day. There
is a burgeoning industry worth $450
million a year churning out products
designed to minimize lactose
intolerance.
Lactose intolerance is the most common
"food allergy," but to call it an
allergy is to take a white-centric view
that trivializes the fact that most of
the world's people are not biologically
designed to digest milk.
Milk does no body good, but for the vast
majority of the world's people -- people
of color -- it is a public health
disaster.
No other animal drinks cow's milk, not
even calves once they are weaned. The
late Dr. Benjamin Spock, the U.S.'s
leading authority on child care, spoke
out against feeding "cow's glue" to
children, saying it can cause anemia,
allergies, and diabetes and in the long
term, will set kids up for obesity and
heart disease, the number one cause of
death in this country.
Most of milk's much-vaunted protein is
contained in casein -- which is also a
raw material for commercial glue.
Undigested, it simply sticks to the
intestinal walls and blocks nutrient
absorption.
The mainstream media and the government
ignore the medical studies showing that
milk is a serious health threat, in part
because people of color are the main
victims. The institutionalization of
racism is highlighted by U.S. Department
of Agriculture spokesperson Eilene
Kennedy's statement on milk, that the
government's recommended food pyramid is
intended for "the majority of Americans.
It doesn't communicate to all
Americans."
The USDA continues to require that
school lunch programs include milk with
every meal, and recommends that we glug
milk for calcium, even though Harvard
studies show an increase in osteoporosis
and bone-breakage in people who consume
milk. It says we should drink milk to
prevent heart disease (and is echoed by
Larry King) even though saturated fat
constitutes 55 percent of milk solids.
|
The dairy lobby perpetrates lies to
ensure its profits. It benefits
directly from the exaggerated
support prices the government shells
out for this "health food." The
government pays over a billion
dollars a year for surplus butter. A
General Accounting Office (GAO)
study concluded that a reduction in
the government price support system
would have netted consumers savings
of $10.4 billion from 1986 to 2001.
And the USDA pays inflated prices to
purchase dairy products for both the
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
and federal school lunch programs --
milking the taxpayers and actually
getting them to pay for poisoning 26
million school kids.
The milk lobby has whipsawed its way
into the highest echelons of power.
Staffers under Richard Nixon were
indicted for accepting $300,000 from
the dairy lobby for making milk part
of the school lunch program.
Dr. Robert Cohen of the Dairy
Education Board, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to exposing
the milk lobby, contends that the
dramatic 52 percent rise in asthma
deaths among minority kids in New
York coincided with the surplus
milk, cheese, and butter pumped into
them under the USDA's free school
lunch and breakfast giveaway
programs. The incidence of asthma
deaths may be even higher since
asthma is not a reportable disease,
and asthma deaths are sometimes
certified as cardiovascular disease.
There is also a direct link between
milk consumption and prostate cancer
among African Americans, who have
the highest incidence of this
disease in the world. A study in
Cancer has shown that men who
reported drinking three or more
glasses of whole milk daily had a
higher risk for prostate cancer than
men who reported never drinking
whole milk.
The controversial Bovine Growth
Hormone (BGH) -- banned in most
countries -- is pumped into U.S.
milch cows to increase annual yield
(50,000 pounds of milk per cow today
compared to 2,000 pounds in 1959).
Milk from cows treated with BGH is
likely to contain pus from their
udders since the hormone leads to
mastitis, or udder infection. BGH
use results in a tumor-promoting
chemical (IGF-I) that has been
implicated in an explosive increase
of cancer of the colon, smooth
muscle, and breast.
The antibiotics dairy farmers use to
treat BGH-caused infections in cows
appear in their milk and greatly
hasten human tolerance to most
antibiotics, a potentially
life-threatening state of affairs.
The Center for Science in the Public
Interest reports that 38 percent of
milk samples in 10 cities were
contaminated with sulfa drugs and
other antibiotics.
A fightback is beginning. Protesters
picketed New York City Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani's planned milk promotion
campaign with a photo of the mayor
wearing a milk mustache over the
caption, "Got Prostate Cancer?"
Giuliani (who, like his father, has
prostate cancer) dropped the
campaign. And doctors from the
Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine (PCRM) persuaded
Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony
Williams not to declare May 11 as
"Drink Chocolate Milk Day" by
presenting evidence that milk is
harmful, especially to people of
color.
The PCRM -- composed of some of the
leading doctors in the U.S. -- has
campaigned extensively in the health
and consumer press and led a
successful legal effort in 1999 to
make dairy products optional in the
federal food guidelines. The
campaign was supported by a number
of prominent civil rights
organizations and leaders, including
the Congressional Black Caucus, the
NAACP, Martin Luther King, III,
Jesse Jackson, Jr., the National
Hispanic Medical Association, and
former Surgeon General Joycelyn
Elders.
The dairy lobby remains cozy with
most medical practitioners to
perpetrate its "drink milk"
propaganda. However, not one of the
1,500 papers listed in Medicine that
deal with milk points to its
goodness -- only to the pus, blood,
antibiotics, and carcinogens in
milk, and the chronic fatigue,
anemia, asthma, and autoimmune
disorders milk consumption causes.
The time has come for the milk
industry to face the kind of
scrutiny that the tobacco companies
face today. Meanwhile, discard the
moo juice.
Shanti Rangwani is an allopathic
doctor and a columnist for the Times
of India.
ent of milk solids.
|
The World's Greatest $77
Water Filter"
Pure Water Products'
Lifetime Guaranteed Model 77
"Outside of a dog, a good
countertop water filter is
man's best friend. Inside of
a dog, it's too dark to
drink water."--Groucho Marx.
|
|