dairy diary

kie: the office, or as bernardo calls it, "the graduate student reality show".
kiel: slightly peeved about a dreadful audition today, sick of reading about milk.

i had some down time in the office today (waiting for cells to grow, and between classes), and i read a link on fark that said the Chinese government rejected imports of one shipment of American powdered milk because they considered it "toxic to children". you can see this article here, but i warn you that simply perusing the page draws its authenticity into question.

this specific article, though, is not what i'm here to talk about. the resulting comments page devolved into an internet flame-war about the quality of american milk, and how it is laden with antibiotics and recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). i was interested in this, since a certain roommate of mine has on more than one occasion tried to convince me of the evils of dairy milk.

so i did a little research. a google search of "rBGH milk" (not in quotes) gives a host of pages with negative comments about the use of growth hormones for increased milk production in cows. the first hit is the website of a group called the "cancer prevention coalition." it sounded like a noble enough cause, but looking at the page, i knew that this organization was not exactly non-partisan. a brief look around shows links to multiple articles about the dangers of milk, and in fact the chairman of the organization has written a book entitled "GOT (Genetically Engineered) Milk?"

this chairman, samuel s. epstein, md, is at least a doctor, and the site says he has a long list of publications in scientific journals. they even have a CV on the site. it seems that most of his recent publications are in the international journal of health services, a journal that, from its website, "and philosophy, ethics and law in the areas of health and health care. The Journal provides analysis of developments in the health and social sectors of every area of the world, including relevant scholarly articles, position papers, and stimulating debates about the most controversial issues of the day." providing position papers and debates implies (to me) that multiple opinions are published in this journal. indeed, some of epstein's papers read like a letter to the editor (another milieu of choice or epstein's.).

the site also includes a number of everyday items which the coalition (i.e. epstein) claims to cause cancer. these include, but are not limited to, hair dye, milk, talcum powder, and the pill.

also in my journey through the gorse and groom of the internet, i found www.notmilk.com, home of robert cohen , the "not milk man". this man wrote a petition to the FDA asking them to ban the sale of milk produced in cows supplemented with rBGH. the FDA responded with a very scientifically sound letter resoundingly refuting each of his claims. his website also features an A-Z list of ailments supposedly caused by drinking milk. he went on a 205-day "hunger strike" in order to get the FDA to ban rBGH. naturally, it didn't work, and milk from cows supplemented with rBGH is still available (and ubiquitous). in his further work, lashing out at all animal products, he goes on to say things like this:
""Which part of the egg becomes the chicken, the white or the
yolk?" The answer, or course, is the white. Yolk means food,
and provides nutrients for a chicken which grows within a
shell. Eat egg whites, and you are eating a developing
chicken embryo. Most people do so without a second thought,
but vegetarians are not "most people." If vegetarians are
told that they are eating a vegetarian burger, they do not
expect to devour the fetus of a potential living creature."

there are so many things wrong here.

but is rBGH really bad? it seems that people on both sides of the issue have inflated claims about the milk, but here are some facts (mostly from the FDA response, which cites independent research published in journals like science):

• bovine growth hormone is present in all milk.
• the level of BGH in milk produced by hormone-fed and non-hormone fed cows is the same. that is, an insignificant amount of rBGH actually gets into the milk.
• there is one difference between rBGH and non-rBGH milk. there is an elevated level of the protein IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor). it is an 80% increase, but the amount of IGF-I in milk is significantly lower than the human serum level. thus, an 80% increase of of something already in low concentrations is not significant.
• cancer patients have been shown to have elevated serum levels of IGF-I. IGF-I regulates cell growth, so its involvement in cancer cells is not surprising. HOWEVER, the presence of elevated IGF-I in cancer patients does NOT imply that high levels of IGF-I have any causal relationship whatsoever to cancer.
• the stomach is a complex machine, the purpose of which is to digest sugars, fats, and proteins. among these proteins is IGF-I, as well as any traces of rBGH. in order to be present in the serum, IGF-I would have to first survive digestion in the stomach and second cross the mucosal barriers in the intestines. this is no easy task. in fact, a professor once told me that if one could find a way to deliver proteins orally, he would be a millionaire. bottom line: getting proteins into the blood orally is very hard, especially when there is only a small amount to begin with.

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in an egalitarian society, one man's opinion is as good as another. this is a perfectly valid standpoint when it comes to issues that are difficult to define scientifically (think about religion). however, to quote daniel patrick moynahan (he may not have been the first to say this, but) "everyone's entitiled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

people without a high degree of scientific understanding rely on scientists, doctors, and teachers to parlay to them the information they need. naturally, no one can know everything, so we rely on the opinions of experts when situations arise that require such knowledge. but who is an "expert"? does having an MD or a PhD make one an expert? not always. in fact, many people, looking for credentials, toss around letters like PhD when they write books, but fail to mention that their PhD is in a field partially or entirely unrelated to the field that they discuss. for example, l. ron hubbard, the inventor of the church of scientology, claimed he had a PhD in nuclear physics until it was found out that it wasn't a degree at all. as a side note, scientology itself is a prime example of the successes of those peddling pseudoscience.

anyway, you know not to believe everything you read on the internet, but here are some tips that may help discern if a source is valid or not.

1. the author claims credentials, and REPEATS THEM CONSTANTLY, for example, the author is never referred to as Epstein, but always Dr. Epstein, or Dr. Epstein, MD.
2. the converse of above: the author claims no credentials, AND uses this to his credit. as in, "i'm not a doctor, but i have done lots of research which shows that doctors are wrong..." robert cohen is a good example of this. by distancing themselves from "the establishment," they distance themselves from any flaws in the system. for example, people still get cancer. someone you know has had it. some one i know is fighting it right now. often these situations, lack of progress leads people to turn to alternatives, no matter how silly they may be. ergo, the not milk man, who lists all kinds of everyday foods on his laundry list of cancer and ailment-causing items, appears to be right. he's not.
3. conspiracies, cadres, juntas, whatever, are behind this. in the case of rBGH, it is very easy to say that Monsanto, the biotech company that produces rBGH, faked data or bribed congressmen, or performed other ethically questionable tasks. just because it's evil doesn't mean it's a corporation, and vice versa. in addition, the entire medical community is not involved in a conspiracy spearheaded by drug companies to sell more drugs by keeping or making people sick.
4. lay talk: for example, using terms like "folks" or asking sarcastic questions in the middle of a paragraph that is supposed to state a fact. e.g. "*Factual sentence*. Hmm, have we heard this before? Oh yes! It's *counterpoint*). cohen does this insuffrably.
5. examples of "one person": "once, a woman had pneumonia. she prayed that if she got better she would devote her life to the church. the next day, she was better!" does this mean all women who have pneumonia who pray will get better? certainly not.

i guess what this long long post that took like 3 days to write is trying to say is that i hate when people intentionally deceive and put forth nonsense dressed up as pseudoscience to either sell a product or write a book or make a name for themselves. be on the lookout. pseudoscience is EVERYWHERE! question everything. skeptic is not a dirty word.


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epilogue: what's my opinion on the whole milk story? after reading a lot of papers and research, i feel that while there is very little risk in drinking milk produced in hormone-treated cows, there is also little benefit to administering the hormone in the first place. it increases the milk production of cows by about 10%. well hell. anyways, i had some milk yesterday morning, and i plan on getting another half-gallon of 1% next time i go to the store.