posted 12-10-2001 04:10 PM         

By Shanti Rangwani

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 recommend 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.

posted 12-10-2001 07:28 PM         

I figured I would cover my bases with Rich becuase every time I put up stuff like this, Rich knows the real answer...

If this stuff has any validity, then I don't know how I'm going to pry my kids off of milk and what would be the healthier substitute ??

posted 12-10-2001 09:14 PM         

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posted 12-18-2001 12:34 PM         

I was wondering when you would reply to this post..

posted 12-18-2001 05:21 PM         

Just got back from my weekly sabatical at the Wash. St. Mental Health Facility, but I'm afraid you'r too late as I happened to notice that our buddies Scot & Ed have their pictures up on the wall in the entrance way of the facility --- they are listed as "Distinguished Alumni" ()
As soon as we can acquire a "suitable photo" of you, the administrators say they will place it in a "place of honor
right between Ed & Scot.