AUDIO: Is milk good for you? Or bad? Web site explores pros and cons

SANTA MONICA
October 1, 2007 11:50am

Milk remains one of the most popular beverages in the United States despite the publication of numerous peer-reviewed studies contesting its claims to good health.

But who’s right?

Researchers at Santa Monica-based ProCon.org culled information from over 100 sources to create an in-depth and nonpartisan exploration of the primary question "Is drinking milk healthy for humans?"

The results are posted on a new Web site, posing 43 specific questions in topics ranging from heart disease and diabetes to calcium and vitamin D to milk in schools and milk advertising.

(Kamy Akhavan, managing editor of ProCon.org, talks about his organization’s new Web site as well as other sites his organization has developed in a CVBT Audio Interview. Please click on the link below to listen or to download the audio to your MP3 device or computer.)

"After reading about some peer-reviewed studies that challenged the health benefits of milk, we saw the milk industry defending its product, activist groups going to great lengths to criticize milk, and few people understanding what those complicated scientific studies really said,” Mr. Akhavan says.

“We're not suggesting that anyone stop drinking milk or start drinking more milk,” he says. “We want our readers to better understand the health implications of consuming milk so we invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to explore the issue and present our findings in a simple nonpartisan pro-con format."