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Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture claiming that USDA dietary recommendations ignore the special health needs of minorities. The USDA is currently revising its recommendations, which are used by federally funded welfare and school lunch programs.
PCRM alleges that the committee revising the USDA guidelines is unduly influenced by the agriculture industry, although some of the ties are a bit tenuous. PCRM attorney Mindy Kursban complains, for example, that the chair of the USDA guidelines panel, Cutberto Garza, has served as a scientific advisor to the Dannon Research Institute. The Dannon Research Institute, in turn, receives funding from Dannon, the yogurt maker.
The real problem PCRM has with the board can be see in the reply from a USDA spokesperson about the lawsuit. The spokesperson told Reuters:
The advisory committee appointments are solicited through a Federal Register notice and are made to reflect a balance of technical expertise in medicine, nutrition and epidemiology.
Of course any impartial appointment regimen that requires a solid scientific background automatically excludes PCRM (which as been cited by the American Medical Association and others for consistently ignoring and distorting sound, peer reviewed medical science).
PCRM keeps hitting the lactose intolerant button as if people who are lactose intolerant cannot safely ingest milk, but this only applies to a small percentage of extremely lactose intolerant people. Besides, the USDA already has the lactose intolerance problem covered -- federally subsidized school lunch programs already provide for giving lactose-free milk to those children whose systems can't tolerate milk.
Source:USDA sued for too much dairy in diet guidelines, Reuters, December 16, 1999