Oops. The "American Dairy Board" Doesn't Exist

The anti-milk forces seem to be everywhere. Looks may be deceiving. What if it's really one small set of people who keep repeating the same set of lies and nonsense over and over again?

I began to suspect that this might be the case when I came across this standard diatribe about milk, "Don't Drink Milk, by Barbara Bonsignore, credited originally to the Concord Monitor. (Which makes it sound like a newspaper article. It isn't. It was a letter to the editor, with exactly as much credence as those deserve.) She wrote:

Milk is a natural and is good for a body - if you are a calf. Although the American Dairy Board is paid millions to tell people that they must drink milk and eat dairy products, humans do very well on a dairy-free diet. Even the late Dr. Spock, the famous pediatrician, advised that children be raised without dairy products.

That reference to the "American Dairy Board" stopped me for a moment. There is no American Dairy Board, of course. There is an American Dairy Association, however. A small point, except that it seemed to me that I've seen that mistake before.

So I started Googling and the results were fascinating.

Start here, on Oct. 26, 2006 on SteadyHealth.com, credited to JSun, a yoga instructor:

Yes, the American Dairy Board has done a very effective job of marketing this product. Most people believe they need to consume large, daily quantities of milk to achieve good health. NOTHING could be further from the truth.

Compare that to this post on Mercola.com, credited to Dr. Joseph Mercola, who probably originated it since several other sites cite him:

Yes, the American Dairy Board has done a very effective job of marketing this product. Most people believe they need to consume large, daily quantities of milk to achieve good health. NOTHING could be further from the truth.

You find the name in an English language post on a Polish site called The Myth of Protein Supplements, made on June 26, 2006:

However, the American Dairy Board has done a very effective job of marketing milk.

Oddly enough, that same article appears, dated July 11, 2007, as by Kevin Richardson, on ArticleAlley.com, except that it was titled The Myth Behind Protein Supplements.

Dr. Linda Posh, in a post titled "Got Milk? Hope Not." dated Feb. 1, 2008 on a blog called Specialty Sites 24-7 cleverly rewrote the sentence slightly:

The American Dairy Board has done a bang up wonderful job of promoting this atrocious food as a must have in the American diet. The majority believe that milk is a must have for a complete wholesome diet. Nothing is further from the truth.

Are all these coincidences? Somehow, I can't bring myself to believe it. Are they all the same person? Blatant plagiarists? Fronts for a organization? I don't know.

I do know that as soon as you see "American Dairy Board" mentioned on an anti-milk site, you can stop reading. I suppose I appreciate the shortcut that keeps me from wasting my time with them, but that doesn't make up for the disinformation that they (he? she? it?) are spreading across the Internet. Fie on them.