Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery

Apparently we have some of the fear profiteers and panic mongers worried. Anti-(insert cause du jour, in this case “safe, affordable milk”) activists Samuel Epstein and Ronnie Cummins don’t care for the content of our Milk is Milk Blog. They have gone so far as to issue a scathing press release claiming our information is a danger to public health. Both Epstein and Cummins rely on the fact that their outrageous claims and food safety attacks are rarely challenged and that their conflicts of interest are largely left un-exposed. Like the life-sucking vampires they are, exposure to sunlight makes them shrivel and die; ergo, anyone who risks disagreeing with them must be unscrupulously and viciously attacked. So be it. We can stand the heat and are happy to get the exposure. We like sunlight. What about Epstein and Cummins?

Samuel Epstein also claims everything from Ritalin to dog flea collars, and of course anything non-organic, causes cancer. The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR.org) has ranked Epstein as “the least credible scientist on issues of environmental cancer” joining with groups like the American Cancer Society, U.S. Food & Drug Administration and the American Medical Association in debunking Epstein’s false and misleading claims. If you were to follow the discredited advice of Doc Sammy Epstein to avoid cancer you should never use or consume hot dogs, non-organic shampoo, flea collars, talcum powder, soap, cosmetics, irradiated food, any non-organic fruit or vegetable, red meat, birth control pills or breast-cancer-detecting mammograms. Oh, and Sam also believes that IBM (yes, that’s International Business Machines) was the “puppet master” for the Holocaust, apparently pulling Hitler’s strings to facilitate the genocide of the Jewish people. Allrighty then. Clearly, following this guy’s advice will start to make Howard Hughes’ phobias and paranoia look like common sense.

Simply put, Samuel Epstein is a dangerous nut job who profits from promoting fears to anyone willing and gullible enough to listen. Putting the Milk is Milk Blog in the same category of “dangerous to the public health” as he places life-saving mammograms, well I can live with that. Reviewing the publicly available tax returns for Epstein’s organization the Cancer Prevention Coalition, his priorities come into clear view. In 2002 Epstein reports spending a whopping total of $425 on research while spending a corresponding $6,337 issuing “press releases.” In fact, Epstein spent 20 times more on “tolls and parking” in 2002 than he did on research and of course all that pales in comparison with his “travel expenses” to help spread the word.

Sunshine and facts are what people should look for when the likes of Epstein make claims that milk or animal productivity supplements somehow cause cancer. His press releases are replete with claims that evil IGF-1 levels in milk are a deadly link to cancer, while he and his animal-rights buddies suggest alternatives such as soy juice to avoid this risk. What you don’t see is any actual research validating his claims, or references to the fact that the American Cancer Society, American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, World Health Organization, etc… (We can go on and on here) say his claims are false. You certainly won’t see the peer-reviewed research published in the Journal Cancer Epidemiology which stated: “Increasing dairy milk intake was not significantly associated with increasing serum IGF-1 concentration in meat-eaters or vegetarians or among both groups combined. However, vegan women who consumed 3/4 pint or more of soya milk/day had a significant 28% higher IGF-1 concentration than vegan women who did not drink soya milk.” And why do you not see these facts? Because Epstein and Cummins get their money from people with vested commercial interests in generating these fears in order to sell alternative products - like soy milk.

The Horst Rechelbacher Foundation is the largest single donor to Epstein’s coalition. Horst M. Rechelbacher, who founded the natural products company Aveda in 1978, is an extreme environmentalist who makes his fortune from Intelligent Nutrients, a biodynamic and organic food and nutraceutical corporation. Biodynamic is a form of extreme organic agriculture, and of course, these high-priced products are bought by people who believe that non-organic products cause cancer and other ills. Rechelbacher, in addition to providing most of Epstein’s budget also pays Epstein for his services as a “medical advisor” to Mr. Rechelbacher’s company - Epstein also conveniently sits on the medical advisory board for the company. In addition to the $212,500 funneled into Epstein’s coffers which are used to spread fear about his competitors’ non-organic products, Mr. Rechelbacher also has given tens of thousands of dollars to other food fear mongers like Greenpeace and to Ronnie Cummin’s Organic Consumers Association. Lest we forget, Mr. Cummins was the co-author of the press release calling our Blog a threat to public health. (By the way, the Rechelbacher Foundation tax returns are filed care of a Dennis Ritchie - apparently related to Neil Ritchie and Mark Ritchie who run the Institute for Agriculture Trade Policy, another group of fear mongers attacking the safety of non-organic food. The Ritchies also run a for-profit organic coffee company which benefits from these food scares.)

Question: at what point will someone - perhaps the IRS - start to scrutinize these “organic” and “natural” product millionaires taking charitable tax deductions for what would be marketing expenses for anyone else. Of course, if it were exposed that they were marketing their products by falsely claiming their competitors’ products caused cancer, there could be some legal problems as well. Hmm, and these are the folks held up as “socially responsible” companies?

As for Ronnie Cummins, well, let’s tackle him later in the week. His antics are worthy of a dedicated column unto himself. Milk is Milk, and don’t let the likes of Samuel Epstein or Ronnie Cummins tell you otherwise.

Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery

Consumer demand is frequently cited by grocers and food companies who seek to force restrictions on how their supplying dairy farmers run their operations. The most frequent restrictions are on the use of safe, tested animal health or productivity products like antibiotics used to treat mastitis or supplemental somatotropin (rbST) to help boost productivity and conserve resources.

However, the evidence suggests that the so-called consumer demand for these changes: 1. Is rarely real; 2. Doesn’t translate into increasing or even maintaining sales; and 3. Ends up harming farm economics by driving competitors to take the same steps while simultaneously damaging consumer confidence in milk and dairy foods.

Limiting the tools farmers have to safely produce more milk using fewer resources and using those restrictions as a marketing scheme creates a downward spiral in the market place, with increased production costs and reduced demand for the product. In the case of rbST, it also hurts the environment. What brain surgeons thought up the scenario that currently plagues the dairy industry? Would it surprise you to learn that it is animal rights activists who want to end all human consumption of animal products - including milk?

Let’s take a look at one example: Starbucks. In 2001 the self-proclaimed Organic Consumers Association (OCA), an organic activist front group, launched a campaign against Starbucks demanding they serve organic-only dairy products in their stores and specifically milk from cows not supplemented with rbST - commonly known as bovine growth hormone. OCA’s leader, Ronnie Cummins admitted that Starbucks was targeted because it was successful, rather than because actual Starbuck’s customers were demanding organic milk. Cummins stated, “We are targeting Starbucks because they are a high-profile market leader and because they promote themselves as socially responsible.” (Now this whole corporate social responsibility and socially responsible investing shakedown issue is another story, but you might want to consider reading a recent expose in the Economist Magazine and other reports found at the watch dog group http://www.csrwatch.com/).

What you need to know about Cummins and his cabal is that they use food scare campaigns and threats to damage organizations’ reputations as a way to achieve their extreme social, economic and political views. One of these views happens to be a strict vegetarian desire to eliminate all forms of animal agriculture. Cummins, you see, got his start working for anti-capitalist activist Jeremy Rifkin, where he helped run campaigns against beef. The Houston Chronicle reported in 1992, “In the America Rifkin envisions, beef cattle and capitalism are banished, the buffalo roam, the deer and the antelope play and Americans eat peas and corn bread in poverty but in solidarity with their Third World brothers.”

Since people actually like and demand animal products, such as dairy foods, the likes of Rifkin and Cummins have to scare people and threaten companies’ reputations in order to get them to implement their social/political agenda. As noted, their campaigns end up hurting family farmers while driving consumers away from safe and healthy foods.

But back to our Starbucks example. When Cummins’ campaign reached Starbucks executives, they jumped at the chance to engage in dialogue with people who they thought were progressive and reasonable. Reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain’s cowardly and ill-informed dealings with Nazi Germany, Starbucks failed to grasp the end-goals and tactics of this extremist group. The result? OCA immediately rejected Starbucks’ overtures to engage in a productive dialogue until the company first met all of the activist’s demands. You might think this would have been the point at which Starbucks simply told Mr. Cummins, “You know, we didn’t have any customer complaints before you guys came along and we’re pretty sure we won’t once you leave and turn your attention to somebody else… so take a hike.”

After seeing the light, Starbucks management (apparently at the direction of their board of directors) took a different route. After learning from responsible consumer and farming groups that there really wasn’t any responsible or economic way to serve only milk from cows not receiving supplemental rbST, they chose to offer the customers a choice. Starbucks would start to carry an organic milk alternative (organic producers don’t use rbST) to customers willing to pay a small premium of 40 cents - which was less than Starbuck’s actual costs. This was the first smart thing Starbucks did in dealing with the OCA extremists - they offered their customers a choice while not forcing the costs of that choice on everybody else. Starbucks’ Web site proclaimed this bold move through press statements and prominent display on their menu boards.

Did Cummins and OCA see this as a victory and move on? Of course not. They were outraged at being outwitted at their own game. They didn’t really want consumer choice; they wanted to impose their choice. Their campaign attacking Starbucks with harassment and fear tactics continues today.

As for Starbucks, a funny thing happened. Today, the organic milk option appears to be gone from most of their stores and there is no longer any mention of it on their Web sites. Ask the barista behind the coffee counter next time you’re at your neighborhood Starbucks why. We did this at numerous stores around the country and found virtually the same response: “We were throwing it all away.” In 2001 Starbucks consumer hotline operators were well armed with talking points about this decision; today they respond that they simply “don’t have any information” about that issue. It appears that very, very few customers actually were demanding this product and just about none were willing to pay for it - even when Starbucks was subsidizing the cost. Today, if you are a vegan or lactose intolerant, Starbucks will offer you an organic soy juice alternative and they eagerly promote this online.

Responsible consumer research experts will tell you that actual consumer demand and accompanying consumer purchasing is often much different than what is suggested by the polls conducted by activists or marketers who stand to profit from promoting a certain result. Activists may try to temporarily flood consumer lines and mailboxes with their complaints-du-jour; however, they rarely represent the views of a significant number of actual consumers. Forcing consumers and farmers to bear the costs and burdens of these activist campaigns is irresponsible on the part of companies - and is unethical, bordering on illegal, when those companies use false or misleading marketing to try and benefit from those restrictions. In the case of Starbucks, I wonder if their shareholders will demand an accounting of the costs they undertook to respond to the activists?

For dairy farmers and their coops who today are being asked to jump through these types of hoops, they should be asking for the real reasons why - and then asking how their interests will be protected in the future as milk production becomes less and less economical, and more consumers are scared away by the accompanying black marketing. Today it might be rbST or antibiotics - but that won’t send the activists away. What will their demands be tomorrow: oxytocin, prostaglanidin, or vaccines that protect cows against disease? Once you’ve started down the path of appeasement and concessions with extremists, it’s even less likely that they will quietly go away–just ask Neville Chamberlain or Starbucks. Milk is milk, and don’t let anybody scare you into thinking otherwise.