The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the Washington DC-based non-profit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) recently paid for and placed what's described as an "anti-cheese" billboard near Lambeau Field, home to the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers, and birthplace of the now iconic "cheesehead" sports fashion accessory worn by Packer fans throughout Wisconsin (the United States' leading producer of cheese) and worldwide. The advertisement in question features the Grim Reaper holding a scythe, and carries a message warning drivers about the fat, cholesterol and sodium in cheese. PCRM (which is a bit more than simply a physicians group advocating "responsible medicine") is adamant that cheese is one of the main culprits behind America's astounding and undeniable fatness. The billboard is part of the organization's battle against it.

"Warning: Cheese Can Sack Your Health," the billboard self-righteously tells drivers on their way to Packers games.

Oh yeah ... and originally the billboard featured the Grim Reaper wearing a cheesehead.

Pure Wisconsin blasphemy.

At least the Angel of Death WAS wearing a cheesehead in the controversial ad ... that is until the company that manufactures cheeseheads, Foamation Inc., threatened legal action. Soon after, the headwear was blacked out of the large billboard. Now the cheesehead is conspicuously absent for drivers passing by.

However, the ad - cheesehead included - was still posted on PCRM's website as of press time, with no sign that the "physicians committee" had plans to remove it. While the AP account of the controversy makes it sound like PCRM caved when it comes to the cheesehead-wearing Reaper featured on the billboard near Lambeau, a post by PCRM's founder, Dr. Neal D. Barnard, on PCRM's website paints the situation differently, saying, "the billboard vendor painted the cheesehead out after receiving threats of legal action from the cheesehead manufacturer."

"The ad is aimed at parents who have no idea that cheese may be the cause of their children's ever-worsening weight problems - or their own weight and health problems, for that matter," writes Barnard of the billboard. "... Annual cheese consumption in America was only 3.8 pounds per person back when the USDA started keeping records in 1909. But fast-food chains and pizza places, aided and abetted by federal programs buying up cheese and dumping it into schools, have dramatically escalated cheese consumption. Today, Americans are eating roughly 34 pounds of it per person per year. If even one or two of those pounds stick each year, we would have explained the entire obesity problem in America."

Got that? Seems simple enough. PCRM, concerned as these physicians are for our health, says it's cheese that's making us fat. It's the cheese that's killing us.

These are physicians, after all. Physicians wouldn't lie to us, would they?

Well ...

You see, these particular physicians have a bit of an agenda. They're not exactly your run-of-the-mill primary care practitioners. They're different.

They're rampant, angry, deceitful, damn-near-militant vegan physicians. And by "damn-near-militant" I mean the kind of vegan physicians so self-righteous that they don't mind masquerading as a legitimate, medically relevant organization if it allows them to promote a pro-vegan agenda. The kind of vegan physicians who'll place an anti-cheese billboard near Lambeau Field and claim they're doing it for the public's good, not just to make headlines and further their real platform.

The kind of vegan physicians who don't want you to eat cheese, even if it means lying to you.

Led by Barnard, an advisory board that includes the well-known and controversial beard of Dr. Andrew Weil, and even employing Elizabeth Kucinich as director of public affairs, PCRM is more PETA-style vegan advocacy than it is real medicine. I'm not anti-vegan. I'm anti-bullshit. And the PCRM cheesehead billboard reeks of it.

There's a reason why PCRM has been criticized in the past by the American Medical Association and the American Council on Science and Health - and misleading stunts like this one seem to validate those critiques.

Can cheese make you fat? Sure. And as Americans we're eating a lot of it. But is it cheese that's REALLY behind our country's dangerously expanding waistline? Is cheese at the root of the obesity epidemic? Could cheese really be the culprit behind the "entire obesity problem in America," as Barnard suggests?

More importantly, is that even why PCRM created the ad in the first place?

Probably not. When it comes to America's weight problem, I'd point to our rampant consumption of junk food and soda. I'd point to our growingly sedentary lifestyle. I'd point to our seemingly insatiable appetite for fast food ... all before I pointed the finger at Wisconsin cheese.

I'd point out that while Americans do consume roughly 34 pounds of cheese per capita every year, as PCRM suggests and is backed up by numbers from the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, six countries consume more annually. This includes cheese-eating leader France, which takes in whopping 52.7 pounds per capita every year.

I'd point out that France's obesity rate is roughly half that of the United States' - suggesting more to our problem than just cheese.

But I'm no physician.

BOX SCORES

As the NBA lockout continued this week, representatives from the league and the NBA Players Association continued to negotiate somewhat fruitlessly. With the start of the regular season now in serious jeopardy, NBA Commissioner David Stern warned that there are "enormous consequences at play." God I hate David Stern. ... It was announced this week that the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics will open next season in Japan at the Tokyo Dome with a two-game series. The game could feature Japanese megastar Ichiro Suzuki, unless the Mariners get lucky and figure out something better to do with the aging pointless-singles hitter by then. ... Finally, the AP reports that Ontario police have charged 26-year-old Chris Moorhouse for throwing a banana on the ice toward Philadelphia Flyers player Wayne Simmonds last Thursday during an NHL preseason game. Simmonds is black. Moorhouse, it seems, is a tool.