FW: [ColorLines] White Poison

[Guest guest]

This article, which ran in an American anti-racist magazine but was written

by a Times of India columnist, is of potential interest to those concerned

about the expansion of factory farming in Asia.

 

----------

Below is an article entitled, " White Poison " by Shanti Rangwani which

appears in our Winter 2001-2002 Issue, Food Fights. This special report

examines the politics of race and food. In, " Good Food, Cheap Labor "

Annelise tells the story of Latino workers in the restaurant industry.

Another report from the south describes the intricacies of Cajun and Creole

Cuisine. Please feel free to forward it along to your friends and

associates. Anyone can join our mailing list by sending a blank message to

colorlines-

 

*****

 

White Poison

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.

 

 

ColorLines is a national magazine about race, culture, and action. You can

find us on the web at http://www.colorlines.com.

 

*******

[Guest guest]

Regarding the posting of the " White Poison " article by pattrice le-muire

jones <pattrice, Africa has about 13.38% of the current

world population,

i.e. 823 490 269 people.

 

The Maasai, Samburu and similar cattle-keeping tribes in Kenya, Tanzania and

I think Uganda, draw blood traditionally from a neck vein in cattle, usually

using a " stopped " arrow with a short head, so it does not penetrate too

deeply or do too much damage to the animal. The custom goes way back - for

how long, who can say. The neck has a cord tied round it to distend the

vein, as with current practise in giving intravenous injections, and the

head is turned well away from the bowman. Afterwards, the cord is untied and

the wound dressed with cattle dung. The animals do not seem to suffer much

lasting damage, although they do bellow with pain. They use a gourd to catch

the blood, perhaps a litre, if that. This is normally mixed with milk and

drunk. It is still widely done but is more likely, I think, among the young

" warriors " who take nothing much else to eat when they are away in the bush,

pregnant and nursing mothers, the seriously ill etc. I have to admit I am

not in close touch with their customs these days, but I think this is not

far from the truth and certainly has been done for many years; it is a

" normal " , current practise, on a daily basis even now. Anyone who watches

the current Survivor III TV show will have seen the Americans drinking the

raw blood and milk mixture.

 

Very many Africans in Africa have existed for centuries on cattle and milk.

I have never heard of milk being a " health problem " here, as described in

the article. The " African Americans " who are supposedly at risk from milk,

all came from this continent - it not only amazing they all survived

centuries of milk consumption, but continue to do so.

 

May I suggest that that the article in question has no value in addressing

whatever concerns may exist in Asia or elsewhere about the expansion of

factory farming. At the end of the day it is up to any individual to choose

to drink milk or eat cheese, and not blame others for something they didn't

enforce in the first place : long before the " whites " came to Africa,

Africans were drinking milk.

And so has just about every other " coloured " race under the sun.

 

Thanks

 

Roger

South Africa