Not Milk: The USDA, Monsanto, and the U.S. Dairy Industry

By Ché Green, LiP Magazine. Posted July 9, 2002.

Milk, they say, is an important source of calcium that helps kids grow up big and strong. Milk is said to contain vital nutrients and to help prevent osteoporosis. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, through its food dietary guidelines, says that everyone should get 2-3 servings of dairy every day. Milk is advocated by various agencies of the U.S. government, legions of physicians, and the $180 million annual advertising budget of the dairy industry itself. Britney Spears, Carson Daly, Neve Campbell, Spike Lee, and other fine celebrities have endorsed milk, decorating thousands of billboards with their mustachioed mugs.

And, indeed, America has a love affair with milk. The average person living in the United States consumes over 600 pounds of dairy products every year, including about 420 pounds of fluid milk and cream, 70 pounds of various milk-based fats and oils, 30 pounds of cheese, and 17 pounds of ice cream. In aggregate, U.S. dairy farmers produce 163 billion pounds of milk and milk products a year.

But what if Britney and Spike were lying to us? What if milk doesn't do a body good? Instead, what if milk is a major contributor to breast cancer, heart disease, asthma, diabetes, and more? What if the U.S. government and the dairy industry are colluding to hide the ill effects of dairy consumption?

According to Amy Lanou, Ph.D., the nutrition director of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), "Besides prostate cancer, milk has been linked to asthma, anemia, allergies, juvenile-onset diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and ovarian and breast cancer."

Why then, is milk still widely regarded as wholesome?

The USDA's Food Pyramid Scheme

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to its mission statement, is charged with "enhancing the quality of life for the American people by supporting the production of agriculture." Created by the pro-business Lincoln administration in 1862, today's USDA has the dual responsibility of assisting dairy farmers while promoting healthy dietary choices for Americans. Not surprisingly, this creates a conflict of interest that puts at risk the objectivity of government farm policy and the health of all dairy-consuming Americans.

In December 1999, the PCRM filed suit against the USDA, claiming the department unfairly promotes the special interests of the meat and dairy industries through its official dietary guidelines and the Food Pyramid. Six of the eleven members assigned to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee were demonstrated to have financial ties to meat, dairy, and egg interests. Prior to the suit, which the PCRM won in December 2000, the USDA had refused to disclose such conflicts of interest to the general public.

The USDA's advisory committees have been dominated by the agriculture industry since the early 1950s, when the department devised the Four Food Groups, including milk, meat, fruits and vegetables, and breads and cereals. Over the years, these dietary guidelines have consistently reflected the industry's push for greater consumption of both meat and dairy, despite the testimony of numerous physicians' groups and watchdog organizations criticizing the Food Pyramid as biased and unhealthful.

The USDA's counter-argument? The food dietary guidelines must be reality-based, says the USDA, arguing that what people should really be eating is moot because it doesn't fit with the American lifestyle. Apparently, the USDA thinks it's unrealistic to promote healthy dietary guidelines to the increasingly obese American public, despite the fact that such guidelines are understood by just about everyone to be goals, not de facto rules. In other words, the USDA doesn't even think it's reasonable to aspire to what constitutes a healthy diet.

Government Cheese

With the recent passage of the Farm Bill on May 13, 2002, dairy farmers and processors will receive $2 billion more in subsidies over the next three and a half years, largely realized through price supports that inflate costs for consumers. Dairy subsidies are a carryover from the Depression era, when survival of small dairy farmers was considered essential to maintaining a national food supply.

Today, a large chunk of that additional $2 billion in subsidies is going to large dairy farms in twelve northeastern states. Further, as consolidation continues to occur in the dairy industry, federal subsidies are going to an increasingly small number of highly concentrated dairy operations, hanging small farmers out to dry and encouraging the demise of family farms. This increase in large industrial farms bodes ill for both cows and humans.

Lactose Intolerance and Ethnic Discrimination

Another assertion of the suit brought by the PCRM against the USDA is that the status of milk as a staple in school lunch programs unfairly discriminates against non-whites who have a high incidence of lactose intolerance. In total, there are an estimated 50 million lactose intolerant adults in the U.S., including 15 percent of the white population, 70 percent of the black population, and 80 to 97 percent of Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Jews of European descent. These 50 million people suffer from a variety of digestive symptoms that result from consuming milk and other dairy products, including gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, and indigestion.

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