WELL, AT LEAST COW'S MILK IS PURE
Or is it? Fifty years ago an average cow produced 2,000 pounds of milk per year. Today the top producers give 50,000 pounds! How was this accomplished? Drugs, antibiotics, hormones, forced feeding plans and specialized breeding; that's how.
The latest high-tech onslaught on the poor cow is bovine growth hormone or BGH. This genetically engineered drug is supposed to stimulate milk production but, according to Monsanto, the hormone's manufacturer, does not affect the milk or meat. There are three other manufacturers: Upjohn, Eli Lilly, and American Cyanamid Company. Obviously, there have been no long-term studies on the hormone's effect on the humans drinking the milk. Other countries have banned BGH because of safety concerns. One of the problems with adding molecules to a milk cows' body is that the molecules usually come out in the milk. I don't know how you feel, but I don't want to experiment with the ingestion of a growth hormone. A related problem is that it causes a marked increase (50 to 70 per cent) in mastitis. This, then, requires antibiotic therapy, and the residues of the antibiotics appear in the milk. It seems that the public is uneasy about this product and in one survey 43 per cent felt that growth hormone treated milk represented a health risk. A vice president for public policy at Monsanto was opposed to labelling for that reason, and because the labelling would create an 'artificial distinction'.
The country is awash with milk as it is, we produce more milk than we can consume. Let's not create storage costs and further taxpayer burdens, because the law requires the USDA to buy any surplus of butter, cheese, or non-fat dry milk at a support price set by Congress! In fiscal 1991, the USDA spent $757 million on surplus butter, and one billion dollars a year on average for price supports during the 1980s (Consumer Reports, May 1992: 330-32).
Any lactating mammal excretes toxins through her milk. This includes antibiotics, pesticides, chemicals and hormones. Also, all cows' milk contains blood! The inspectors are simply asked to keep it under certain limits. You may be horrified to learn that the USDA allows milk to contain from one to one and a half million white blood cells per millilitre. (That's only 1/30 of an ounce). If you don't already know this, I'm sorry to tell you that another way to describe white cells where they don't belong would be to call them pus cells. To get to the point, is milk pure or is it a chemical, biological, and bacterial cocktail? Finally, will the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) protect you? The United States General Accounting Office (GAO) tells us that the FDA and the individual States are failing to protect the public from drug residues in milk. Authorities test for only 4 of the 82 drugs in dairy cows.
As you can imagine, the Milk Industry Foundation's spokesman claims it's perfectly safe. Jerome Kozak says, "I still think that milk is the safest product we have."
Other, perhaps less biased observers, have found the following: 38% of milk samples in 10 cities were contaminated with sulfa drugs or other antibiotics. (This from the Centre for Science in the Public Interest and The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 29, 1989). A similar study in Washington, DC found a 20 percent contamination rate (Nutrition Action Healthletter, April 1990).
What's going on here? When the FDA tested milk, they found few problems. However, they used very lax standards. When they used the same criteria, the FDA data showed 51 percent of the milk samples showed drug traces.
Let's focus in on this because it's critical to our understanding of the apparent discrepancies. The FDA uses a disk-assay method that can detect only 2 of the 30 or so drugs found in milk. Also, the test detects only at the relatively high level. A more powerful test called the 'Charm II test' can detect drugs down to 5 parts per billion.
One nasty subject must be discussed. It seems that cows are forever getting infections around the udder that require ointments and antibiotics. An article from France tells us that when a cow receives penicillin, that penicillin appears in the milk for from 4 to 7 milkings. Another study from the University of Nevada, Reno tells of cells in 'mastic milk', milk from cows with infected udders. An elaborate analysis of the cell fragments, employing cell cultures, flow cytometric analysis , and a great deal of high tech stuff. Do you know what the conclusion was? If the cow has mastitis, there is pus in the milk. Sorry, it's in the study, all concealed with language such as "macrophages containing many vacuoles and phagocytosed particles," etc.
IT GETS WORSE
Well, at least human mothers' milk is pure! Sorry. A huge study showed that human breast milk in over 14,000 women had contamination by pesticides! Further, it seems that the sources of the pesticides are meat and--you guessed it--dairy products. Well, why not? These pesticides are concentrated in fat and that's what's in these products. (Of interest, a subgroup of lactating vegetarian mothers had only half the levels of contamination).
A recent report showed an increased concentration of pesticides in the breast tissue of women with breast cancer when compared to the tissue of women with fibrocystic disease. Other articles in the standard medical literature describe problems. Just scan these titles:
1. Cow's Milk as a Cause of Infantile Colic in Breast-Fed Infants. Lancet 2 (1978): 437
2. Dietary Protein-Induced Colitis in Breast- Fed Infants, J. Pediatr. I01 (1982): 906
3. The Question of the Elimination of Foreign Protein in Women's Milk, J. Immunology 19 (1930): 15
There are many others. There are dozens of studies describing the prompt appearance of cows' milk allergy in children being exclusively breast-fed! The cows' milk allergens simply appear in the mother's milk and are transmitted to the infant.
A committee on nutrition of the American Academy of Pediatrics reported on the use of whole cows' milk in infancy (Pediatrics 1983: 72-253). They were unable to provide any cogent reason why bovine milk should be used before the first birthday yet continued to recommend its use! Doctor Frank Oski from the Upstate Medical Centre Department of Pediatrics, commenting on the recommendation, cited the problems of acute gastrointestinal blood loss in infants, the lack of iron, recurrent abdominal pain, milk-borne infections and contaminants, and said:
Why give it at all - then or ever? In the face of uncertainty about many of the potential dangers of whole bovine milk, it would seem prudent to recommend that whole milk not be started until the answers are available. Isn't it time for these uncontrolled experiments on human nutrition to come to an end?
In the same issue of Pediatrics he further commented: It is my thesis that whole milk should not be fed to the infant in the first year of life because of its association with iron deficiency anemia (milk is so deficient in iron that an infant would have to drink an impossible 31 quarts a day to get the RDA of 15 mg), acute gastrointestinal bleeding, and various manifestations of food allergy. I suggest that unmodified whole bovine milk should not be consumed after infancy because of the problems of lactose intolerance, its contribution to the genesis of atherosclerosis, and its possible link to other diseases.
In late 1992 Dr. Benjamin Spock, possibly the best known pediatrician in history, shocked the country when he articulated the same thoughts and specified avoidance for the first two years of life. Here is his quotation: I want to pass on the word to parents that cows' milk from the carton has definite faults for some babies. Human milk is the right one for babies. A study comparing the incidence of allergy and colic in the breast-fed infants of omnivorous and vegan mothers would be important. I haven't found such a study; it would be both important and inexpensive. And it will probably never be done. There is simply no academic or economic profit involved.
OTHER PROBLEMS
Let's just mention the problems of bacterial contamination. Salmonella, E. coli, and staphylococcal infections can be traced to milk. In the old days tuberculosis was a major problem and some folks want to go back to those times by insisting on raw milk on the basis that it's "natural." This is insanity! A study from UCLA showed that over a third of all cases of salmonella infection in California, 1980-1983 were traced to raw milk. That'll be a way to revive good old brucellosis again and I would fear leukemia, too. (More about that later). In England, and Wales where raw milk is still consumed there have been outbreaks of milk-borne diseases.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (251: 483, 1984) reported a multi-state series of infections caused by Yersinia enterocolitica in pasteurised whole milk. This is despite safety precautions.
All parents dread juvenile diabetes for their children. A Canadian study reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Mar. 1990, describes a "...significant positive correlation between consumption of unfermented milk protein and incidence of insulin dependent diabetes mellitus in data from various countries. Conversely a possible negative relationship is observed between breast-feeding at age 3 months and diabetes risk.".
Another study from Finland found that diabetic children had higher levels of serum antibodies to cows’ milk (Diabetes Research 7(3): 137-140 March 1988). Here is a quotation from this study:
We infer that either the pattern of cows' milk consumption is altered in children who will have insulin dependent diabetes mellitus or, their immunological reactivity to proteins in cows' milk is enhanced, or the permeability of their intestines to cows' milk protein is higher than
normal.
(continues...)