Washington Insider -- Tuesday

By DTN's Washington Insider

Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.

Obama Administration Preparing for Effects of Severe Weather

In a move almost certain to irritate some congressional Republicans, the Obama administration has released plans developed by federal agencies outlining how they are preparing for floods, rising seas, more intense weather events and other threats posed by climate change. Altogether, more than three dozen agencies prepared climate adaptation plans, which were required as part of President Obama's climate change agenda.

"Climate change is no longer a distant threat," said Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy. "It is already challenging our communities and our ability to protect the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink."

Some members of Congress remain unconvinced that climate change in the form of global warming is occurring. Whether they will see the administration's planning and preparation for climate change as a colossal waste of public funds remains to be seen. Certainly if the Senate reverts to Republican control after today's election and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., (a vociferous climate change denier) once again is appointed chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, he could schedule hearings on the matter later next year.

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Canada Remains Noncommittal on TTP Pending U.S. Action on Trade Promotion Authority

U.S. trade officials have been in negotiations with their Japanese counterparts for months on the subject of trade in agricultural and automotive projects. Less well-known but also just as important is the trade relationship between Canada and the United States and the lack of much progress on that front, at least as it relates to the prosed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) free trade agreement.

Canada maintains a tightly controlled supply management program for a number of its farm products, with milk, cheese, eggs and poultry the largest of these. U.S. negotiators are eager to open talks on bilateral trade with Canada as part of ongoing discussions aimed at bringing about a 12-nation TPP, but Canada appears reluctant to engage in the talks until the United States first achieves a meaningful agreement involving Japan, and until Congress grants the Obama administration fast-track negotiating authority.

Gary Doer, Canada's ambassador to Washington, indicated recently that Canada can't put itself in the position of negotiating an agreement with the United States and then have Congress wreck the deal with amendments. Without fast-track, which provides for congressional approval of trade deals, but without amendments, Doer's concerns are well-placed. The question is whether Congress will take up and approve fast-track authority next year, regardless of which party is in the majority.

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Washington Insider: Milk Study Questions Old Assumptions

While there is broad agreement across the United States and Europe about the health benefits of drinking milk, especially to strengthen bones but also to boost overall health, a recent report raised new questions about those assumptions.

The new study was reported in the U.K. medical journal BMJ and casts doubt on the widely held view that milk helps adults ward off hip fractures and broken bones. It reported tracking more than 100,000 Swedish men and women for up to 23 years and found no link between milk consumption and fracture risk.

That was not the only surprise, however. The ominous aspect was the finding that avid milk drinkers were more likely to die at younger ages than their counterparts who drank little or no milk — a result that will take some work to understand.

For example, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans advise everyone over the age of 8 to consume three cups of milk per day or the corresponding amount of yogurt, cheese or other dairy products. Milk is a convenient source of calcium, vitamin D and phosphorus, nutrients that are important for bone growth.

However, the new research from the Uppsala University, the Karolinska Institute and the Swedish National Food Agency raised questions of how deeply supported this advice may be since the scientists could find no randomized clinical trials that credit drinking milk with reducing the risk of fractures or premature death. In fact, even observational studies that might reveal an association between milk and better health have had mixed results, the journal notes.

The research team cited one more basic reason for their skepticism about milk consumption: D-galactose that is produced by the body as it breaks down lactose, the sugar in milk. Studies on animals have shown that chronic exposure to the nutrient causes "oxidative stress damage, chronic inflammation, neurodegeneration [and] decreased immune response," they wrote. In fact, when scientists want to mimic the effects of aging, they give animals shots or food containing D-galactose.

So the researchers considered two large studies of Swedish adults. The Swedish Mammography Cohort included data on 61,433 women who answered questions about their diet between 1987 and 1990. Among them, 38,984 answered a more detailed diet survey in 1997. In addition, the Cohort of Swedish Men contained data on 45,339 men who completed a diet questionnaire in 1997. All of the study participants were tracked until death or 2010.

Among the women, 17,252 suffered some type of fracture, including 4,259 who had a hip fracture. Drinking milk did not appear to reduce this risk; compared with women who drank less than one glass of milk per day, women who drank at least three glasses per day were 16% more likely to have any fracture and 60% more likely to have a hip fracture.

In addition, the researchers concluded that the avid milk-drinkers were 93% more likely than their counterparts to die during the course of the study. Those who drank at least three glass of milk were 90% more likely to die of cardiovascular disease and 44% more likely to die of cancer compared with women who drank less than one glass of milk per day.

Men who drank at least three glasses of milk daily were 10% more likely to die during the course of the study than were men who drank less than one glass of milk per day. That was mainly due to a 16% increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Milk consumption seemed to have no bearing on the risk of cancer or fractures for men.

However, there was better news concerning consumption of yogurt, cheese and other fermented dairy products. Compared with milk, these foods have much less lactose, scientists say, because they are produced with Lactobacillus bacteria, which eat the lactose.

With less lactose, these foods produce less D-galactose. So if the researchers' hunches about D-galactose were correct, yogurt, cheese, sour cream and buttermilk should have the beneficial effects linked to milk.

As always, the researchers believe that additional, longer term research is needed to test whether drinking lots of milk actually causes the health problems seen in this study. Also, the findings may not apply to people of other ethnic groups.

And, while the current study almost certainly is not be the definitive word on milk consumption — and, certainly not on milk product consumption — it does raise questions for the U.S. dairy industry which spends heavily to promote dairy sales.

Since expenditures under the Dairy Check-Off program are authorized by the U.S. government, the issue of how to insure that they are consistent with national efforts to promote better diets and consumer health would appear to require additional attention and perhaps changes, at least in emphasis, Washington Insider believes.

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