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John McDougall, MD: Marketing Dairy and Disease

Get a first-hand look at one of the most thought-provoking lectures given during the 12-Day McDougall Program, Marketing Dairy & Disease.

In this talk, Dr. McDougall discusses how the dairy industry has created marketing campaigns to sell their products citing research they fund themselves – yet, the negative effects of dairy are still shown in the results. Industry advertises milk as a good source of calcium when in fact dairy is detrimental to bone health and the cause of numerous diseases. Dr. McDougall breaks down the facts and delivers the truth about the effects of dairy on health.

The Dairy Industry is really big business – with sales of over $11 billion for milk and $16 billion for cheese annually in the USA alone – so you might expect hard line marketing from them – but would you expect them to aggressively sell their products if they were known to be harmful to people – especially to women and children?

The Dairy Management Inc., whose purpose is to build demand for dairy products on behalf of America’s 80,000-plus dairy producers, has just released the Dairy Checkoff 2003 Unified Marketing Plan (UMP) with a budget of $165.7 million. The United Marketing Plan explains, “This ongoing program area (referring to the section Dairy Image/Confidence) aims to protect and enhance consumer confidence in dairy products and the dairy industry. A major component involves conducting and communicating the results of dairy nutrition research showing the healthfulness of dairy products, as well as issues and crisis management.”

A significant portion of the money from the 2003 Unified Marketing Plan is specifically targeted to children ages 6 to 12 and their mothers. The goal is “to guide school-age children to become life-long consumers of dairy products, 2003 activities will target students, parents, educators and school foodservice professionals.” (Similar words and intentions have been attributed to the tobacco industry.) All this marketing is working, too: annual fluid milk consumption among kids 6 to 12 increased to 28 gallons per capita – the highest level in 10 years. Children under 18 drink 46% of the milk consumed in the USA.

Realize that when I say milk in this article, I’m also implicating all dairy products that are made from milk: non-fat milk, low-fat milk, buttermilk, cheeses, cottage cheese, yogurt, ice cream, whey, kefir, and butter. All of them share a similar nutritional profile (plus or minus the fat, protein, and sugar), and as a result, all of them contribute to a wide range of health problems.

Will the UMP Inform You of the Contamination? E. Coli, AIDS and Leukemia Viruses?

Last month I left you with some very disturbing facts about the contamination of milk with loads of bacteria and millions of white blood cells (pus cells) which are there to help fight off the infections found in cows and milk (see the April 2003 Newsletter found at www.drmcdougall.com). Will the 2003 Unified Marketing Plan specify money to inform you of this upsetting information? You will never see an advertisement with a famous movie star proudly wearing a white mustache, properly labeled as containing 300,000 white blood cells and 25,000 bacteria.

Dairy products were the foods most often recalled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from the period October 1, 1993 through September 30, 1998 because of contamination with infectious agents, mostly bacteria. They are commonly tainted with disease-causing bacteria, such as salmonella, staphylococci, listeria, deadly E. coli O157 and Mycobacterium paratuberculosis (possibly one of the agents causing Crohn’s disease; a form of life-threatening chronic colitis) – as well as viruses known to cause lymphoma and leukemia-like diseases, and immune deficiency in cattle.

AIDS and Leukemia Viruses

Dairy cattle are infected with bovine immunodeficiency viruses (BIV) and bovine leukemia viruses (BLV), worldwide. (Bovine immunodeficiency viruses can also be properly referred to as bovine AIDS viruses.)

• In the United States, results show an average 40% of beef herds and 64% of dairy herds are infected with BIV.
• In Canada, the infection rate is 70% and in Argentina the rate is 84% for BLV.
• Herds infected with the BIV are usually infected with the leukemia virus (BLV) also.
• Both viruses can cross species lines thus infecting other animals, like sheep, goats, and chimpanzees – and they develop disease.
• Nationwide and worldwide, leukemia is more common in the higher dairy consuming populations.
• An increased incidence of leukemia has been found among dairy farmers in multiple studies.
• BIV infection has been reported in a person.
• The bovine leukemia virus has been classified in the same group as the Human T-cell Leukemia/Lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1), which is known to cause leukemia and lymphomas in humans (Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma).
• BIV is structurally and genetically closely related to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type-1 (the virus causing human AIDS).
• Pasteurization kills many types of microorganisms, but it is not foolproof. There is also concern that pasteurization may break the viruses into fragments that may become even more dangerous.

Has it been shown that the bovine AIDS and/or leukemia viruses will infect you and cause disease? No. Nor has it been proved that they will not. Compared to the efforts to try to convince you of the bone-building benefits of milk, almost nothing has been spent to establish whether or not it is safe to feed your family dairy products teeming with bovine immunodeficiency and bovine leukemia viruses (and/or viral fragments). Some countries take this matter very seriously. For example, in many European countries, health officials have conducted programs to eradicate infected herds – Finland’s program has successfully eradicated BLV from its cattle.

If you live in a region with a high incidence of herd infection with these viruses you can be pretty sure you will be consuming dairy products containing whole viruses or fragments of these viruses, since the milk from many dairy farms is mixed in large vats at the dairy factory before processing and packaging. Since the industry will not act responsibly in many countries, consumers are left with one choice – eliminate all dairy products from their diet. If eliminating dairy products would prevent even a small risk of human disease, it would be well worthwhile, especially since, as you learned in the April 2003 McDougall Newsletter, they are completely unnecessary for excellent health.

Will the UMP Market the Pain and Suffering Caused Children?

The Dairy Management Inc. has specifically targeted children in their campaign. This will raise no public concern, because most people consider cow’s milk the healthiest of all food choices, especially when it comes to children. Over 25% of children are overweight in Western countries and cow’s milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, butter, and sour cream, with all their fat and calories, contribute greatly to this deadly epidemic. Many of these overweight children are now developing type-2 diabetes. However, the most common variety of diabetes found in children is still type-1 or insulin dependent diabetes (IDDM).

Type-1 Diabetes

The evidence incriminating cow’s milk consumption in the cause of type-1 diabetes is sufficient to cause the American Academy of Pediatrics to issue these warnings, Early exposure of infants to cow’s milk protein may be an important factor in the initiation of the beta cell (insulin-producing cells of the pancreas) destructive process in some individuals.” “The avoidance of cow’s milk protein for the first several months of life may reduce the later development of IDDM or delay its onset in susceptible people.”

Exposure to cow’s milk protein early in life when the intestinal tract is immature sometimes results in the milk protein entering the blood stream where antibodies to this foreign substance cow’s milk are made by the immune system. Unfortunately these same antibodies also attack the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. By glassful of milk after spoonful of ice cream over a period of about 5 to 7 years the child destroys his or her own pancreas – and is left with a lifelong life-threatening handicap: diabetes. The pancreas is forever destroyed and the child will have to take insulin shots daily. Complications such as blindness kidney failure and heart disease will be a real threat during his or her shortened lifespan. (See my July 2002 McDougall Newsletter for a discussion of type-1 diabetes).

Constipation

Not as life-threatening as diabetes but for some as mentally and physically distressing is chronic constipation. As a doctor who has cared for hundreds of children I can tell you they suffer with pain bleeding hemorrhoids and embarrassment. The causal effects of cow’s milk were clearly demonstrated in a study of 65 severely constipated children published in the New England Journal of Medicine. These boys and girls complained of only one bowel movement every 3 to 15 days and many didn’t even respond to strong laxatives (lactulose and mineral oil). Forty-four of the 65 (68%) found relief of their constipation when taken off the cow’s milk. Evidence of inflammation of the bowel was found on biopsy and anal fissures and pain were commonly associated with the constipation – elimination of the cow’s milk solved these problems. When cow’s milk was reintroduced into their diet 8 to 12 months later all of the children developed constipation within 5 to 10 days. For constipation alone cow’s milk should be banned from the School Milk Programs worldwide.

Rhinitis and Otitis Media

The multitude of snotty-nosed kids frequently visiting the pediatrician’s office for ear infections is much more obvious than the constipated crowd and these problems less devastating than type-1 diabetes but these complaints also can be due to consuming the foreign proteins intended for calves. In addition these same children are likely to suffer from gastroesophageal reflux asthma and/or eczema from their unnatural habit of drinking cow’s milk.

Diseases of Foreign Protein

Many conditions can be traced back to reactions to cow’s milk. Milk contains more than 25 different proteins that can induce adverse reactions in humans. Our immune system perceives these foreign proteins as alien invaders like a virus or bacteria and launches an attack in response as in the case of type-1 diabetes discussed above and many other allergic and autoimmune diseases.

DISEASES CAUSED BY OR LINKED TO DAIRY PROTEINS

Dairy products are deficient in iron and beef is deficient in calcium; both contain too little dietary fiber essential fat (linoleic acid) and vitamin C and B3 (niacin) to meet human nutritional requirements. Heavy consumption of either of these food groups – loaded with fat and cholesterol – will result in the diseases common to affluent societies such as obesity heart disease strokes type-2 diabetes and cancer to name just a few serious problems.

If a patient bargained with me “I’ll give up only one of the first two food groups – meat or milk – in hopes of getting well” my recommendation for almost all common health problems in Western society would be “You’re likely to get the most benefits if you give up the dairy products.”

References:

By going to the National Library of Medicine at www.nlm.nih.gov you can view the abstracts of most of these studies and many times secure the original paper.

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