Lactose Intolerant Doesn’t Mean Stupid

I was rather surprised by the following news bite from the Washington Post:

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that called for milk sold in the District to carry a warning label for people who are lactose intolerant.

The suit, filed by an organization that promotes vegetarian diets, asserted that Giant, Safeway and other local distributors of dairy products had been negligent in not warning consumers of the potential effects of dairy products on people who are lactose intolerant.

The suit was filed in D.C. Superior Court last fall by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and was subsequently transferred to U.S. District Court.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. ruled that federal law on food labeling would preclude the action that the plaintiffs were seeking in the District.

Wait a minute. They failed to label milk so the lactose-intolerant could avoid it? Milk? Um, it’s milk. Even if someone with a sensitivity has no idea what lactose is or what other products it might be in, they know it’s in milk. Am I missing something here? Why should there be a warning on milk? The name of the group is misleading too, because PCRM sure seems to focus a lot on food and animal testing ethics - it’s like a kinder, gentler PETA that’s pretending to be a medical organization. I’m sure they have doctors on staff, and I’m sure their tactics are much more sane than PETA’s methods, but…they’re not really focusing on what they purport to be about. But anyway…milk? We have to tell the lactose-intolerant to avoid milk?

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