MILK-DRINKING TEENS AT RISK FOR EATING DISORDERS

At least, that would be as fair an inference from this story as the bogus correlation some attempt to draw between vegetarianism and same. "Out of 'sensitivity to their current situation,' the 'got milk?' magazine ads featuring twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have been retracted. Mary-Kate recently entered a treatment program for what her publicist called a 'health-related issue.' People and Us Weekly magazines have reported the 18-year-old actress has an eating disorder." Note that when the ad was launched, Mary-Kate said "We wanted to appear in this ad because we love the campaign and we want to help make sure our fans are healthy like us." No thanks, Mary-Kate.

YET ANOTHER PLANT-FOOD BENEFIT

A study on 3,000 Greek men and women in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology shows that "some of the benefits of a Mediterranean-type diet -- rich in vegetables, fruits, legumes and olive oil and light on red meat -- may stem from the diet's effect on inflammation." Reuters spells out that "a Mediterranean-style diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, grains and nuts. It includes few saturated fats like the ones in red meat but plenty of healthier fatty acids like ones found in olive oil," and that inflammation is a prime suspect in a number of health problems, including heart disease. More impressively, to make sure that the low levels inflammation "were truly related to diet and were not a reflection of better overall health, the researchers accounted for many other factors, including physical activity, smoking, age, gender, socioeconomic status and several health conditions. Even after taking into account the other factors, the Mediterranean diet was still associated with lower levels of inflammation and blood-clotting markers."

MAD COW: SMOOTH SURFACE, ROILING BELOW

As expected (or, at least, predicted), both BSE tests from last week turned out to be false alarms. So the talking point now is that everything's fine on the Mad Cow front, and the only danger is in scaring the public with news of initial tests. But there are just a few other factors to take into consideration.

For one thing, it has just emerged that France had a Mad Cow epidemic for over a decade that went unnoticed due to arrogance and bad policy. UPI reports that "more than 300,000 cows" contracted BSE, with "almost 50,000 severely infected animals entering the food chain." The report by French researchers shows that "while French politicians blamed Britain for the emergence of the disease — and attempted to create a cordon by banning imports of British beef — they failed to adopt measures to prevent a hidden epidemic at home."

Boy, those goofy French, huh? Banning imports, but not adopting their own safety measures. Huh. Oh, by the way, while the USDA selectively bans imports of Canadian beef, our country's own anti-BSE measures, announced on Jan. 26 by the FDA, have still not been adopted. So "brains, spinal cords and other tissues known to harbor the highest concentrations of brain-destroying agents" are still going into foods, dietary supplements and cosmetics, as is material from downers; poultry litter collected in hen houses -- "typically comprising feces and contaminated feed" -- is still being eaten by cows; and cow blood is still being fed to calves. But that's all irrelevant, 'cause there's no more Mad Cow here to be spread around...

Or is there? According to Robert LaBudde, president a food industry consultancy in Virginia Beach, we'll probably see around 100 more cases of Mad Cow here - and half of those "will go undetected and passed on for human consumption." Only about half the cases will be detected because many animals will not show any symptoms, LaBudde said. This is based on the experience in Europe, where half the animals that test positive have no outward symptoms of infection, he added. Oh, please. Since when do we give any credence to anything coming out of Old Europe?

MORE ANIMAL PROTEIN = MORE STROKE

In addition to heart disease, diabetes, some cancers and obesity, the meat-heavy Western diet raises the risk of stroke, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in the current issue of Stroke. Their study of more than 71,000 nurses found those who cut their meat consumption way down and focused on fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains were less likely to have strokes than nurses eating a more typical American diet.

FRIDAY RECALL NEWS

Technically this seems to be a Thursday recall, though of course it's before a big holiday weekend, so who's gonna notice this? After all it's only 200 tons of chicken recalled for Listeria contamination, not a testament to the all-American spirit of our nation's heartland. Oh wait, actually it's that too.

BIRD FLU GETTING MORE AND MORE DANGEROUS

Remember how dangerous it was last time this came up? Well... this time? More so. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that "A type of bird flu that has killed millions of chickens is becoming more infectious to mammals. Scientists fear it could cause the next worldwide pandemic in humans. Oh, well, you know those scientists. They're afraid of everything.

ELEPHANTS WALK

The elephants being freed from the Detroit Zoo and San Francisco Zoo are getting farewell coverage in their respective towns, and some forceful truths are sneaking out around the cracks. "For its two elephants, the Detroit Zoo doubled the size of their enclosure in 1998 to just over an acre and, in the past two years, had been looking to expand it even further. But the staff came to realize that their expansion would never be enough." For Kagan, even his decision to transfer his elephants came too late. "The problem is that we should have come to this conclusion sooner," he said. In his view, elephants simply don't adapt well to captivity. "While people want to see elephants, I think people don't want to see animals that suffer," he says.

Meanwhile, Lulu and Tinkerbelle from the San Francisco Zoo are moving to a sanctuary in Calaveras County. The director praised the sanctuary's proximity. It's 132 miles from the zoo, a 2 1/2-hour drive. "The lame-duck elephants will have a better trip, and zoo employees can visit more often." It's just like a happy ending to one of those Little Golden Books where a kid somehow acquires a wild animal, but isn't prepared to be able to care for it or house it properly, so it goes to a zoo where the kid will be able to what? "visit it any time." But is it the end? The AZA wanted the elephants sent to another zoo, but San Fran Zoo (with the backing of its Board of Supervisors) bucked the Association's wishes and announced they'd be going to a sanctuary, risking the loss of the zoo's accreditation from the AZA. "That risk hadn't receded Wednesday. 'The decision raises serious ethical and accreditation concerns,' said association executive director Sydney Butler." Ethical concerns. Yeah, that's exactly what it raises, Sydney. Had no idea you were actually paying attention.

Not paying quite enough attention was Carson & Barnes Circus, which trumpeted the arrival in Mendocino County of "Jennie, the baby elephant who performs in the center." Jennie "is very special as she is the first live birth from the breeding program."

That's great. Except that Jennie died in April. I know, I know, how's a busy circus supposed to keep track of which "co-worker" is alive or dead? Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who, after all.

At least some places are paying attention. A town outside of Boston has shut down its annual 4th of July circus, citing "years of low-key animal-rights protests as one of several factors in their decision to forgo the annual event." Interestingly, the story goes on include this tidbit: "The Cole Brothers Circus has stopped using elephants in most of its shows, said spokeswoman Renee Storey, who said the animals were aging and would not be replenished with younger ones." First I've heard of that, thought I don't get over to Circuses.com as often as I'd like. Anyway, it'll be fun to hear Ringling's inspired spin when they're the last corporate institution in America to continue exploiting elephants.

WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH MAD COW

Remember when I pointed out that Veneman had switched her official stance from the Harvard Risk Study spin of "No Mad Cows" to "Oh sure, there'll be more mad cows"? Remember how I said she was softening us up for the next "discovery"? Well now she's putting that to use as planned, while defending the practice of releasing the inconclusive positive without divulging specifics about the animal or its location. "I would anticipate, I think we've said all along, that we'll not only have these inconclusives, but we may find a few more cases of BSE in this country," Veneman said. Wow - is it psychosis or what? To Ann Veneman, "all along" is the period from May 14 to now. Amazing.

Meanwhile, they've announced that the second animal in less than a week preliminarily tested positive for Mad Cow. I still won't conjecture on this, because these are more sensitive tests, and besides, this wasn't released on a Friday (though it was after the stock market closed today, of course). We'll have to see whether the USDA has anything interesting to say at their press briefing tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned.

LIFE'S A BREEZE, AND THEN YOU DIE HORRIBLY

Awwww... Temple Grandin is so sweet to those poor dumb cows, helping to ensure they're calm and compliant when they get slaughered for her to eat. And her record of improving slaughterhouses - who can argue with that? After all, "One of Grandin’s first projects, Swift’s plant in Greeley, Colo., serves as her showpiece and a laboratory of sorts." Isn't that terrific? Hmm. Greeley, Greeley, why does that sound familiar? Ohhhhh yeah - a little bit after it became Grandin's showpiece/laboratory, it was the site of 2002's fatal E.Coli recall of 19 million pounds of beef and was temporarily shut down months afterward by the USDA because it was still sending out such huge quantities of feces-smeared meat. Hey, great job, Temple! Hope you're eating some of your handiwork there!

ANOTHER MAD COW? ANOTHER FRIDAY

OK, so there's a preliminary test that says there could be another BSE case somewhere in the USA. I'm not going to go crazy about this or anything, because it's certainly very possible it'll wind up being a false positive. What is beyond dispute, however. is that this came out, once again, on a Friday, giving the USDA the maximum lead time to spin this before anyone really gets wind of it. How many Friday afternoon/evening announcements will there be before someone other than me publicly calls the USDA on it?

VEGANS OF THE MONTH

Ayinde Howell and family run the Hillside Quickies Vegan Sandwich Shop, and got a nod in the Seattle Times for all the A-list celebs that stop by for vegan victuals. The story name-checks Erykah Badu, but goes on to show how the lifestyle may be gaining ground among African-Americans as more hip-hop giants like Russell Simmons, Common, and Outkast's Andre 3000 make their preferences clear to the youth of America. Also, I didn't even know there was a web site called Black Vegetarians - did you?

THE DEFINITIVE ATKINS SITE

I could've added this to the last post, but it needs its own banner headline. The indefatiguable Dr. Michael Greger has a new site up that demolishes the supposed "science" of gorging yourself on fat and protein as a "healthy" and/or "long-term" weight-loss strategy, and I gotta say, I think the name of it is a real winner: ATKINS FACTS. Unlike this site, though, everything he says is footnoted for super-duper factuality.

EXPERTS: LOW-CARB FAD IS A DANGEROUS RIP-OFF

A new coalition of health experts - the Partnership for Essential Nutrition - comprising the Alliance for Aging Research, the American Association of Diabetes Educators, the American Institute for Cancer Research and the American Obesity Association among others, has released a broadside slam against the trend of high-protein, low-carb diets. The group says these diets "are leading Americans to poor health and spawning a rip-off industry of 'carb-friendly' products."
The group asserts that credulous dieters are missing out on "healthy carbohydrates such as vegetables, fruits, beans and whole grains," and Jeffrey Prince of the AICR says "low-carb diets that advocate piling on the animal protein and fat are increasing the risk of developing cancer, heart disease, stroke, type-2 diabetes and other chronic diseases." Dr. Atkins would be spinning in his grave if he weren't so bloated, so instead his representatives at Atkins Nutritionals are here, a few paragraphs in, spinning on his behalf.

DOGS KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING

A new study (from last week, actually, but I was busy, remember?) in the journal Science has found that dogs understand human language better than expected, knocking out another brick in the wall between us and "dumb animals." A German border collie named Rico has learned at least 200 words. In a surprising test, Rico, 9 years old, was given the names of 40 toys - once - and correctly retrieved 37 out of 40 toys by name. That's probably as well as, if not better than, most of us could do hearing German words for the first time.

MILK: A NUTRITIONAL FRAUD

This Slate article isn't very remarkable in and of itself, but it's remarkable that they had it on the Slate front page all day today. While it glosses over a lot of important stuff (and seems somewhat reminiscent of a more hard-hitting op-ed in another paper a couple weeks back), it does have some good, fresh stuff. I was unaware that in the 1920s the National Dairy Council flatly stated that, "The people who have achieved, who have become large, strong, vigorous people, who have reduced their infant mortality, who have the best trades in the world, who have an appreciation for art, literature and music, who are progressive in science and every activity of the human intellect are the people who have used liberal amounts of milk and its products." Or that a 1933 (ominous year) history of New York agriculture asserted, "A casual look at the races of people seems to show that those using much milk are the strongest physically and mentally, and the most enduring peoples of the world. Of all races, the Aryans seem have been the heaviest drinkers of milk and the greatest users of butter and cheese, a fact that may in part account for the quick and high development of this division of human beings." The white stuff, indeed.

UPDATE 6/23: As if milk's sordid history isn't bad enough, it now comes packed with toxic rocket fuel, at least in California. The Environmental Working Group's tests, conducted by researchers at Texas Tech University, found perchlorate in 31 of 32 samples from milk purchased at grocery stores in Los Angeles and Orange counties. The EWG had to do a FOIA request to get the state Department of Agriculture to release data showing even more of the chemical in milk than they had already discovered.

MAD COW TESTS: INDUSTRY FIRST, PUBLIC SECOND

Steve Mitchell keeps digging into the particulars of the USDA's testing plan, and has uncovered the fact that they plan "to notify industry officials of positive mad cow test results at least one hour before informing the public." He notes wryly that "The revelation comes as government officials are being investigated for possibly leaking information about the first U.S. case of mad cow in December to commodity traders prior to telling the public."

UPDATE 6/19: Mad Cow testing slow to get started nationally The AP reports that the much-ballyhooed acclerated BSE testing program that was supposed to make us not care how few tests have been done since December has tested less than 3,000 cattle (2,871) in its first two weeks. Calling the program "slow to gear up to the point where it can screen 220,000 animals" in 12 to 18 months, the story quotes Agency spokesman Jim Rogers' spin: "On the first day, it wasn't expected we would be performing at maximum output." OK, well, it's not the first day, pal, it's the first two weeks. And even if you went the full 18 months, at this rate, Mr. Rogers, you'd complete 113,000 tests not even FIFTY FREAKIN' PERCENT OF THE NUMBER "PROMISED." We'll wait and see when the program actually does start to "gear up."

EXERCISE MORE IMPORTANT THAN CALCIUM

"A recent study indicates that exercise is more important than calcium in developing strong bones in girls and young women. Researchers at Penn State University and Johns Hopkins University found that even when girls took in far less calcium than the recommended daily allowance, bone strength was not significantly affected, said Tom Lloyd of Penn State's College of Medicine at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. However, when the girls were asked about their exercise habits, a strong correlation was found between exercise and bone strength."

DYIN' FROM IT - AND NOT GETTIN' INSURANCE

It's not McDonalds' fault - at least not directly - that some nut slammed his car into its Mount Ephraim restaurant and killed two of its workers a couple years back. It is McDonalds' fault that the chain is trying to use a ridiculous technicality to deny life insurance benefits to the family of one of the killed workers. The excuse that Molino had been promoted from her previous position and so was working with no coverage is so patently fraudulent that even regular Joes are now boycotting Mickey D's in response. Once again, is anyone really surprised that an industry predicated on denying the reality of animal suffering doesn't give a rat's ass about the human variety either?

IF YOU DON'T START YOU'LL GO BLIND

A little over-the-top, but the fact is, a huge study (over 100,000 people for more than a decade) says eating fruit protects against an eye disease which causes blindness. "Bananas and oranges were strongly linked with protective benefits." Related: Vitamin C Protects Against Rheumatoid Arthritis. "British researchers report that people with a high daily intake of vitamin C from fruits and vegetables are three times less likely to develop the painful joint illness than those with less healthy diets."

PUNISHMENT FITS THE CRIME

OK, I'm back. Where to start? How about with this story from last week: "A judge has ordered three days of bread and water for a woman convicted of animal cruelty in neglecting two horses. Melissa Dawn Sweeney, 28, was sentenced Monday to 30 days in jail after her Friday conviction on two counts of animal cruelty. Harris County Criminal Court-at-Law Judge Mike Peters sentenced her for neglecting two horses kept outside her Baytown mobile home. 'She's going to get more than her horses got,' Peters said Monday. The judge also ordered that enlarged photographs of her famished horses be kept posted on her jail cell wall, 'so she'll have a reminder of what she did.'" Well, that's fine as far as it goes, but what about all the other animal cruelty that goes on? When are pig slaughterers and chicken slaughterers gonna get their due?