Milk's good friends in high places
Milk, always presented as the healthiest of beverages, has suffered from two trends, one long-term and the other short-term. The long-term one is the trend for kids to drink soft drinks in place of milk (American consume twice as much soda as milk). The second, short-term is the impact of low-carb dieting among adults, where milk is strongly discouraged. People are generally drinking milk a lot less than ever before.
But the US government wants that to change. Its Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recently endorsed that each adult consume three servings of dairy products a day, a 50% increase from current intake. The committee reports to the US Department of Health and Human Services and to the Agriculture department. It is likely that the committee's advice will finds its way into a revision of the notorious "Food Pyramid," which helps set government nutrition policy.
Most independent scientists are skeptical, believing that, in the words of one pubic health professor, "There is no nutritional requirement for dairy at all… Huge parts of the world do not even consume dairy." (Wall Street Journal, "How Milk Got A Major Boost By Food Panel", 8/30/2984).
As that WSJ article points out, the new mandate can be closely linked to the dairy industry and its allies. The dairy industry, through its National Dairy Council, has just "coincidentally" started a new "3-a-Day" ad program. There of 13 committee members have received funding from the group in recent years, one of whom was the chief drafter of dairy section. Much of the scientific evidence cited was from studies financed by the dairy industry.
In fact, as the article points out, "On the dietary committee, 10 members have received funding from food-industry groups, served on corporate boards or participated in other industry-related activities." The nutritional-industrial complex supports much of the nutrition research at universities.
Any increase in dairy consumption will be a major plus for companies like Danone, Nestle, Kraft (Altria), and Dean Foods that own major dairy assets. Their tactic is to make sure the scientific research favors that aim, by compromising the motives of research apparatus. Then they help populate the policy groups with exactly those researchers that owe them a debt of gratitude. There's no suggestion that the researchers are bribed to lie, but the influence on what research gets done and what evidence gets the spotlight is clear.
11:40:24 AM 
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