Physicians Group Sues Dairy Industry Over Weight Loss Claims

This week, a nonprofit health group filed two lawsuits in Alexandria Circuit Court in Virginia against the dairy industry, alleging false advertising claims that milk helps in weight loss. In the first suit, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is demanding that the multimillion-dollar advertising campaign which claims that milk facilitates weight loss be stopped. A second suit seeks to recover $236 for a Virginia woman who claims to have gained weight after following the industry's consumption guidelines.

The International Dairy Foods Association, National Dairy Council, and Dairy Management Inc., Kraft Foods, General Mills, and Dannon have been cited by PCRM as misleading consumers with deceptive advertising making scientifically unsubstantiated claims that the consumption of dairy products promotes weight loss.

Also named as defendants are McNeill Nutritionals, the maker of Lactaid, and LifeWay Foods, the manufacturer of kefir. PCRM filed the suits on behalf of Virginia resident Catherine Holmes who relied on these false claims and actually gained weight while following recommendations contained in a series of dairy weight-loss ads.

PCRM said the dairy industry's weight-loss campaign is based solely on two small-scale studies conducted by Michael Zemel, Ph.D., an industry-funded researcher at the University of Tennessee using questionable methodology. Dr. Zemel has accepted nearly $1.7 million in research grants from the National Dairy Council (NDC) and $275,000 from General Mills since 1998. Additionally, Zemel has patented his weight-loss program and licensed it to the International Dairy Foods Association. Advertisers pay Zemel in excess of $50,000 a year for the use of his "calcium key" weight-loss program.

"The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence confirms that dairy products either cause weight gain or, at best, have no effect on weight whatsoever," said Amy Lanou, Ph.D., PCRM senior nutrition scientist. "Since 1989, there have been 35 clinical trials that have explored the relationship between dairy products and/or calcium supplements and body weight. Thirty-one found no relation; two indicated that milk and other dairy products actually contributed to weight gain. Only the two studies led by Zemel have found that dairy contributes to both weight and fat loss when individuals are also restricting calories to lose weight," said Lanou.

Earlier this year, PCRM filed petitions with both the Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission that called for a halt to the dairy weight-loss campaign. PCRM's legal staff has uncovered documents from an April 2003 dairy marketing meeting in which industry representatives concluded that a weight-loss claim is likely to withstand scrutiny due to newly relaxed FDA standards.