I’ve got two words for you, PETA, and they ain’t Merry Christmas. Scaremongering tactics linking autism and milk are criminal. Score one for malnutrition. PETA’s recent press release deduces from a flawed study from 2002 to say babies and children shouldn’t drink milk. It’s flawed because the study looked at a whopping 20 children cross section. It’s flawed because the study failed to take into account the effects of allergens (some babies are allergic to breast milk and cow milk). It’s also flawed because it’s very inhumane, wrong to suggest PETA’s problems of privilege can be solved if the world’s mothers start giving soy milk to their babies and children.
By sending the anti-milk message that milk contributes to mental health issues, PETA pushes struggling classes into guilt trips where they might make bad decisions to compensate for taking away milk from their children’s diets. If PETA had their way, third-world countries should stop giving milk to babies and children by shopping their local Trader Joe’s for soy milk to give them instead.
Half-baked science is one thing, but leveraging half-truths and anecdotal evidence for their first-world luxury anti-milk movement for the ethical treatment of animals is just stupid. It’s as if an intern wrote the PETA piece for their non-profit website, no doubt stoned on medical marijuana and drinking a Iced, Half Caff, Ristretto, Venti, 4-Pump, Sugar Free, Cinnamon, Dolce Soy Skinny Latte (yes, it’s a real Starbuck’s drink).
PETA’s sources for supporting bold statements in its anti-milk movement go from dubious to downright unfounded:
The Internet contains numerous heart-wrenching stories from parents of kids who had suffered the worst effects of autism for years before dairy foods were eliminated from their children’s diets.
– PETA.COM
We are all aware of the dangers around purging our kids’ diets of valuable microbes and other healthy benefits occurring naturally, both in farmed products or in their play environments. But it’s wrong to force (by fear) a moral high road on families who can ill afford their processed milk substitute lifestyle. PETA’s anti-milk movement encourages malnutrition by suggesting dire consequences may result if not followed.
Some babies can’t drink their own mother’s milk, we all know that. But by promoting PETA’s false claims as some sort of medical discovery, PETA’s activists are transferring their problems of the privileged to those who don’t have that same privilege to choose between animal milk and milk alternatives such as soy or almond milk. It’s why PETA’s Got Autism anti-milk movement encourages malnutrition, and it’s why their moral cause just backfired in the face of selfish idealism.