The group intends to petition the White House to forbid pictures of the Obamas or other members of the President’s staff eating what PCRM calls “carcinogenic or obesogenic foods.” Meanwhile, media outlets are eating PCRM’s press releases up. More and more, it seems PCRM is adopting the “press slut” philosophy of its comrades at PETA.

What are these evil foods anyway? Given PCRM’s track record, they are any foods with animal products. Whether it is bashing heart-healthy fish, lean chicken, or even milk, PCRM is no stranger to employing junk science to scare Americans to cut animal protein from their diets. The group has ludicrously compared bacon to cigarettes and its president has claimed that giving a kid cheese amounts to child abuse. “Cherry-picking data, a common PCRM practice, does not mesh with the scientific method,” writes McGill University’s Joe Schwarcz.

Why does PCRM push so hard against animal-based foods? Because PCRM is deeply involved in the animal rights movement. PCRM’s president was once a scientific adviser to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and head of the Foundation to Support Animal Protection (a.k.a. the PETA Foundation). PCRM and its affiliated groups get much of their money from a wealthy animal rights activist, and PCRM has received substantial grants from PETA in the past.

That track record drew the justified skepticism of the Los Angeles Times’ health blogger, who noted the real reason PCRM is pushing this petition: PCRM just wants free press to push veganism. What’s the matter, guys, did you have to cut your billboard budget?

In West Virginia, Cabell County schools have put non-fat chocolate milk back on the lunch lines because kids “boycotted the [unflavored] milk,” according to the school district’s Director of Food Services. In Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, North Carolina schools will keep chocolate milk after a parental outcry forced the food cop school superintendent to back off a planned ban.

It’s no surprise that parents would rather see their kids offered the choice of chocolate milk. Milk provides important nutrients, and kids don’t magically move to the unflavored stuff if their options disappear. One study found that elementary school children drank 35 percent less milk after misguided chocolate milk bans.

When the U.S. Department of Agriculture has said that “kids are not drinking enough milk,” any policy that would reduce milk consumption puts kids at risk of not getting enough nutrients. And the bans aren’t even saving that many calories: Fat-free chocolate milk has about the same number of calories as 2-percent unflavored milk.

We’ll leave the last word to Winston-Salem/Forsyth School Board Chairman Donny Lambeth, who nailed the key issues in the chocolate milk debate:

I talked to many folks, including a mom today who gave me many reasons why we should not ban (chocolate) milk. I believe it is not the schools’ responsibility to regulate choices on milk products, and it seems some milk — even if chocolate — is better than no milk. 

In fact, there’s even a term for it: “speciesism.”

Bruce Friedrich, a former PETA Vice President who now holds a senior position with Farm Sanctuary, promoted a film examining this so-called “speciesism” at the Huffington Post this week. He’s not an outlier in his view among animal rights activists: PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk has claimed “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy,” and the head of the Humane Society of the United States (which gives just one percent of its budget to local pet shelters) told an animal rights philosopher that he became vegan after he realized he was being a “speciesist.”

In the real world, the view that “speciesism” is some equivalent to racism or sexism is recognized as bunk. One biologist notes that it is impossible not to put humans before at least some animals:

The vegan militia have forgotten that to get their cruelty free vegetables, the land has already been cleared, all competing species have been killed or driven out, those that remain are poisoned (even by organic farmers – they just use “certified organic” methods of pest control or even other animals like ladybugs). We put humans first every time we clear a field, dig a foundation, fence and spray our crops, and burn diesel to harvest and bring them to market.

This isn’t the first time a scientist has noted that human survival depends necessarily on at least some animal death: One Oregon State University scientist even proposed that if the goal of a food system were to kill the fewest animals, omnivore eating might even be necessary. All those bunnies, voles, and insects you kick out of cropland, even with “organic” pesticides, add up. One Australian expert even thinks eating vegetarian might be “the worst possible thing you can do” if your goal is a “cruelty-free” diet. Hopefully that’ll be some food for thought next time Bruce Friedrich hits the salad bar.

PCRM’s name makes it sound like a legitimate group, but it lacks the credentials to back it up. Only 10 percent of PCRM’s members graduated from medical school, and not all of those that did graduate have degrees relevant to nutrition. As the Associated Press points out, the organization has a vegan agenda, but that’s due to the group’s stealth animal-rights agenda: PCRM has links to PETA (in more ways than stupid billboards), and its largest donor is a wealthy animal-rights activist. PCRM President Neal Barnard is a former science advisor for PETA and used to run The PETA Foundation (now the so-called Foundation to Support Animal Protection).

It’s pretty hard to take seriously an organization that suggests eating meat is “tantamount to suicide.” It is even harder not to laugh at a group whose president called cheese “dairy crack.” When even Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with John Stewart can’t resist mocking PCRM, perhaps it’s about time Barnard and company quit the charade and merged with PETA.

Facebook’s guidelines state that no promotions are permitted if the “objective is to promote any of the following product categories: gambling, tobacco, dairy, firearms, prescription drugs, or gasoline.” An additional policy also prohibits awarding promotional prizes that include dairy products.

“It’s dumbfounding, and just plain dumb,” said CCF Research Director David Martosko. “Why would anyone lump milk with cigarettes and prescription painkillers? Does Facebook believe cottage cheese and yogurt should be controlled substances?”

CCF has left several messages for Facebook staff via phone and e-mail, but the social networking company has not responded. Facebook’s “Promotions Guidelines” web page provides no explanation for why dairy foods are considered contraband. It was last revised November 4, 2009.

“Ice cream isn’t combustible, flammable, or addictive, and it doesn’t shoot projectiles,” Martosko added. “This sends the wrong kind of message, especially to Facebook’s enormous youth market. Facebook should explain itself—or better yet, cancel this cheesy ban entirely.”

Facebook’s promotion guidelines can be seen at http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php.

“PCRM’s reckless campaign against milk and dairy foods is just a desperate animal-rights ploy, which is typical of a movement that believes a cow should have the same rights as a human being,” said David Martosko, director of research with the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom. “This is a group that runs TV ads claiming milk causes cancer. In 2003 PCRM president Neal Barnard told the FDA that cheese is ‘morphine on a cracker’ and ‘dairy crack.’”

In 2004 Newsweek exposed PCRM as an animal-rights front group with ties to both People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and an FBI-designated “domestic terrorist threat” group called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC).

Contradicting PCRM’s claim that lactose intolerance merits warning labels on milk cartons, research published in 1997 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that lactose-intolerant persons “tolerate two cups of milk per day without appreciable symptoms” The same research team, based at the Minneapolis VA Hospital, reported the following year that “symptoms resulting from lactose maldigestion are not a major impediment to the ingestion of a dairy-rich diet.”

And the National Institutes of Health’s Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse writes: “Recent research shows that yogurt with active cultures may be a good source of calcium for many people with lactose intolerance, even though it is fairly high in lactose. Evidence shows that the bacterial cultures used to make yogurt produce some of the lactase enzyme required for proper digestion.”

In 2002 Harvard University’s Dr. Daniel Cramer accused PCRM of misrepresenting his work in order to fabricate a link between milk consumption and cancer. “I think that particular group has their own sort of agenda,” Dr. Cramer told reporters, “of not wanting milk production around, and cows to be utilized. They want everybody to be vegetarians.”

In 2003 Creighton University medical professor Robert Heaney testified before Congress that “the arguments raised against the healthfulness of milk are scientifically groundless … I think it is useful to recognize the origin of the anti-milk campaign—and it is literally a campaign. If one checks carefully, one finds that behind most of the stories is an organization called the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and its sister organization, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). These are animal rights organizations that oppose the use of any animal product—leather, fur, meat, or milk.”

“The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology estimates that two million U.S. children have food allergies,” added Martosko. “If PCRM’s vegetarian zealots were consistent, they’d also want warning labels on soy foods, peanut butter, wheat bread, and strawberries. But that would be ridiculous—and so is a demand for warnings on milk cartons.”

To read “Seven things you didn’t know about PCRM,” visit www.PhysicianScam.com.

The organization is heavily funded by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the same activists who believe dairy cows are equal to human beings in every way. PCRM’s president also runs the PETA Foundation.

Promoting a diet devoid of milk is a deceptive animal-rights ploy, not a public health service.

When animal activists wear the sheep’s clothing of the medical profession, it’s difficult to honestly judge their credibility.

When Americans start holding up convenience stores to get their next cocoa “fix,” Dr. Barnard’s crazy addiction theories about dairy foods might merit a second look. Until then, they’re just the rantings of an animal-rights activist.

Today the Center for Consumer Freedom called on PCRM’s leaders to stop misleading Americans and their doctors, and come clean about their animal-rights motives for attacking milk and other dairy foods. PCRM has previously run television ads recklessly claiming that milk consumption leads to prostate cancer.

In 2002 PCRM issued a series of statements claiming that Harvard University research documented a connection between milk consumption and cancer. But Dr. Daniel Cramer, whose research PCRM cited, later told reporters that the group misrepresented his work. “I think that particular group has their own sort of agenda, of not wanting milk production around, and cows to be utilized,” Dr. Cramer said. “They want everybody to be vegetarians.”

PCRM has well-documented ties to the animal rights movement, including over $1.3 million in financing from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). PCRM president Neal Barnard, a non-practicing psychiatrist, also serves as president of the PETA Foundation and PETA’s “medical advisor.” During a Food and Drug Administration hearing in 2003, Barnard derisively called cheese “morphine on a cracker” and “dairy crack.”

“Despite its name, the ‘Physicians Committee’ is not a legitimate health charity,” said David Martosko, director of research at the Center for Consumer Freedom. “PCRM is made up of virulent animal rights activists, intent on abusing Americans’ good will toward pediatricians in the pursuit of ‘animal liberation.’ PCRM’s constant demands for a dairy-free America are rooted in an animal-rights philosophy, not a concern for children’s health.”

“PCRM’s goal is the same as PETA’s,” Martosko added: “to remove milk, yogurt, and cheese from children’s diets — regardless of what good science has to say on the subject. In this latest bit of junk science, PCRM cherry-picked which studies it would look at — guaranteeing an animal-rights-friendly conclusion.”

To read the “Seven things you didn’t know about PCRM,” visit www.ConsumerFreedom.com.

“Anyone who would suggest that milk is unhealthy for kids is out to lunch,” said Richard Berman, executive director of the Center for Consumer Freedom. “CSPI once boasted that it was ‘proud about finding something wrong with practically everything.’ Now it’s proven it.”

The report concludes that school districts and local, state and federal governments should banish beverages and snacks that CSPI claims are contributing to the nation’s obesity. But evidence linking childhood obesity to sodas and snacks is utterly lacking.

Suggesting a causal link between soda consumption and childhood obesity, the CSPI/NANA report relies solely on a flawed study by Harvard University researcher and “fat tax” advocate David Ludwig. Ludwig admitted in his own conclusion that, “there is no clear evidence that consumption of sugar per se … causes obesity.” The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention echoed Ludwig’s conclusion: “There are no data from the Harvard study that allow us to make an estimate of what proportion of obesity might be accounted for by changes in soft drink consumption.”

This is not the first time the anti-soda movement has relied on faulty science to make their case. In 1998 CSPI issued a report titled “Liquid Candy,” which claimed that some teenagers get up to 25 percent of their calories from soda. Just one week later, following massive media attention, CSPI admitted that it had overstated this figure by a whopping 100 percent. In fact, American boys drink less than half the amount of soft drinks initially claimed by CSPI. While CSPI quietly made a correction (after the media fracas died down), it still heavily promotes its “Liquid Candy” report.

“NANA should rename itself NANNY,” added Mr. Berman. “Nagging Americans with a finger-wagging ‘no no’ won’t shrink anyone’s waistline. This is just another attempt by CSPI’s Puritans to restrict foods they don’t like. And as usual, there’s no science in the public interest to back them up.”

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers, working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.