Animal
Rights Group Lawsuit Milks Media Coverage
Associated Press ignores
groups anti-food industry bias and calls them physicians
committee.
by Todd
Drenth
June 29, 2005
The latest lawsuit by a perennial opponent of the food industry has
already had some of its desired impact good media coverage. A June
28, 2005, Associated Press article left out several facts and skewed
the story to benefit the Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine (PCRM).
Only five percent of the members of the group are
actually doctors, a key fact left out by the AP story, but included
in a June 29, 2005, Washington Post article. The AP story, by
Frederic J. Frommer, referred to the group as a physicians
committee and provided no background other than that it advocates
a vegan diet. PCRM has an extensive history of opposing the milk
industry and milk consumption. A 2001 press release from the group
urged D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams to drop the idea of doing a Got
Milk ad and to consider his constituents' best interests and not
promote milk, a product that makes so many of them sick.
Frommer also left out the fact that PCRM has links with
the radical animal rights extremist group People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA), and that suing the dairy industry has
been a focus of PCRM.
One of the lawsuits Frommer reported, seeks an
injunction from a district court in Alexandria, Va. banning
advertisements funded by the dairy industry that the PCRM claimed in
its press release June 28 are misleading consumers with deceptive
advertising that makes scientifically unsubstantiated claims about
the effects of dairy products on weight-loss.
Deception is something PCRM and its president Neal
Barnard have been criticized for in the past. Barnard, long time
president of PCRM, was also president of the Foundation to Support
Animal Protection in 2000. The Web site Animal People reported, in
December 2000, a connection between PCRM and PETA.
Animal People charged, "the major purpose of (FSAP)
appears to be to enable PETA and PCRM to evade public recognition of
their relationship and the real extent of their direct mail
expenditures."
The AP story, as well as the article in the Post and
one in The Washington Times, all ignored the fact that this lawsuit
came shortly after PCRM launched an ad campaign on the public
transit system in Washington, D.C., to find plaintiffs for a class
action lawsuit against the milk industry, as reported by Jim Lovel
of Adweek.com on June 17, 2005.
The other lawsuit PCRM filed Tuesday seeks monetary
damages for plaintiff and PCRM member Catherine Holmes of Arlington
Va., who Frommer reported went from 162 pounds to 164 pounds while
increasing her dairy consumption with products such as yogurt and
cottage cheese.
The court papers stated that Ms. Holmes, who has been a
member of PCRM for two years, significantly added dairy products
into her diet according to a June 29, 2005 article by Marguerite
Higgins of The Washington Times. Higgins noted that Ms. Holmes
would not say whether she changed her caloric intake or exercise
level.
Frommer pointed out that the PCRM views studies
conducted by Professor Michael B. Zemel who runs the Nutrition
Institute at the University of Tennessee as suspect because his
research has been largely funded by grants from the dairy industry.
However none of the three articles mentioned that research conducted
by the PCRM is lined to PETA or asked if that compromised its own
research.