We’ve all heard that milk is good for you. It has vitamin D and calcium – both ingredients for strong bones and good health, right?

Today, some new data is casting some doubt on the claims. It turns out, scientists aren’t totally clear on how much milk actually helps your bones. Exercise and other sources of vitamin D may actually do a lot more for overall bone strength, as is demonstrated in societies that don’t drink milk. In milk-heavy communities, the rate of bone fractures is actually higher. Is milk to blame? Potentially.

Not only is milk not necessarily good for strong bones, a new study has found that there’s some real unhealthy stuff in milk.

The study, conducted in 2013 by CoBank, found fat content, flavorings, and added sugars contribute to childhood obesity, which has reached pandemic proportions in the U.S. and other western countries.

Milk, among other dairy products, is a major part of America’s obesity problem. Milk is one of the largest sources of saturated fats and has been linked to diseases like prostate cancer and diabetes.

Plus, a majority of adults can’t even digest it. 90% of Asian-Americans and 75% of African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Jews can’t digest milk. 

And yet with all this data, the United States Department of Agriculture still recommends that its citizens consume 3 cups of milk or another dairy product every day for citizens ages 9 and older. Why?

It turns out, Big Dairy is a big thing in Washington D.C. In 2010, the New York Times reported that, in an attempt to get out of a fiscal rut, the pizza chain Domino’s planned to heap 40% more cheese onto its pizzas, and the USDA did nothing to stand in their way, fearing the influence of big dairy.

And now, five years on, not much has changed. Domino’s sales boomed as a result of a $12 million campaign to spread awareness, paid for Dairy Management, an organization whose job it is to lobby the USDA.

As of 2014, the dairy lobby poured more than $6.5 million into lobbying politicians, and since 1995 has received over $5 billion in subsidies for dairy programs. That’s a pretty good ROI, isn’t it?

The famous Got Milk? campaign has been officially retired, but the industry has not let up in its mission to sell us the idea that milk is actually healthy for us.

At the end of the day, it isn’t, and consumers are taking note. Milk consumption has dropped by 37% since the 1970s.

It may be for the better.