Don’t Buy the Intolerance of Some Lactose Intolerants
Plaintiffs with stomach problems sue milk industry; media grant coverage to fringe vegan group.

By R. Warren Anderson
Free Market Project
October 7, 2005

     Grocers and milk producers are the latest targets of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a group that the media describe as an “organization that promotes vegetarian diets,” a “non-profit,” a “public health group that advocates a vegetarian lifestyle,” or simply an organization that “advocates a vegan diet.” News reports about their latest lawsuit didn’t tell the rest of the story about the left-wing activists – only five percent of whom are actually doctors.

     The PCRM filed a lawsuit against dairy retailers “calling for milk carton labeling warning consumers that milk can cause serious digestive illness,” according to the PCRM web Site. But the Associated Press, Washington Post, Washington Times and United Press International didn’t tell audiences about PCRM’s “links with the radical animal rights extremist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and that suing the dairy industry has been a focus of PCRM,” as earlier reported by the Free Market Project.

     Also not reported was that the American Medical Association has called PCRM a “fringe organization” that uses “unethical tactics” and is “interested in perverting medical science,” according to an article on Activistcash.com, a project of the Center for Consumer Freedom. The article continued, “PCRM claims that dairy causes ‘a host of medical problems like cancer, anemia, diabetes, and heart disease.’ The group has compared Christopher Columbus’s introduction of cheese in the New World to the 15th-Century contagions that ravaged Native American populations. It also makes the ridiculous argument that policy makers ‘should think of drinking milk the same way we think of smoking cigars.’”

     In its latest suit, PCRM accused the milk industry and the U.S. Government of a “cover-up” of the negative consequences of milk consumption. “The industry's milk marketing campaign, combined with government support of milk, gives the false impression that cows' milk is a necessary part of a healthy diet,” the lawsuit stated, according to an October 6 UPI report.

     Milton Mills, the lead plaintiff in the case, said that “The health of Americans of color has been sacrificed on the altar of dairy industry profits” in the October 7 Washington Post article “Lactose Intolerant Say Grocers Hide Risks.”
He continued, “Millions of Americans are being misled and made to suffer unnecessary illness by industry marketing campaigns that are masquerading as health information.”

     The 10 plaintiffs, who are lactose intolerant, are seeking pecuniary damages for pain and suffering from vendors and producers of dairy products. News reports did not address the question of personal responsibility, though the individuals who consumed the products did so voluntarily and now demand that the industry take responsibility.

     The articles all pointed out that the defendant companies declined comment, but didn’t mention that it is not wise to discuss a case to the media while being sued.

     The newspapers did include the opposing view, instead of focusing just on the plaintiffs’ arguments:

• The Associated Press interviewed Susan Ruland of the International Dairy Foods Association, which is being sued, on October 6. “It's just another attempt on the part of an animal rights group to attack dairy and milk products. They're trying a new strategy of suing people right and left. It's unfortunate to see that when it has to do with an issue of nutrition.”
   
• The Washington Post on October 7 interviewed Richard J. Grand, a professor at Harvard Medical School. “This is not a health hazard,” said Grand, who has studied lactose for about 30 years. “It's made out to be a health problem, but it isn't.”
   
• UPI’s October 6 report included a dairy-industry official who stated that PCRM is suing to further its “anti-meat, anti-dairy agenda.”
   
• The Washington Times also cited the The International Dairy Foods Association on October 6. Spokeswoman Susan Ruland called the suit a “baseless attack on the dairy and meat industries,” adding that “They have been doing actions like this against the dairy industry for the past 10 years and not one lawsuit has stuck.”