SUNDAY - JUNE 21, 1998

The sounds of children splashing and diving boards springing and "daddy
watch me" fill this first day of summer, Father’s Day, as I write this
first newsletter heralding the formation of the Dairy Education Board. 
Splash, spring, "daddy," and then a sound that brings joy and mouth
watering anticipation to children of all ages... ring, ring, ring... the
ice cream truck is here.  Children fly across the large grass lawn of
our town pool, towels draping shoulders and dollar bills flapping in
tiny hands, as they run towards their reward.

One wise twelve-year-old male squeals with bitter sarcasm at my youngest
daughter, "Got milk?" Others snicker as my three girls look for
somewhere to hide.  It’s not easy having the NOTMILKMAN as your father.

On Monday Beatlemania comes to New York for a Linda McCartney memorial
service.  She was a breast cancer victim, a vegetarian activist who
endorsed the consumption of milk and dairy products.  Did Linda know
that cow’s milk contains a hormone that is the key factor in the growth
and proliferation of every breast cancer?  That hormone, insulin-like
growth factor-I (IGF-I), is an exact match between humans and cows.  Did
Linda or her oncologists realize that every twelve-ounce glass of milk
doubles the amount of this naturally occurring growth hormone in her own
body, a hormone that makes existing breast cancers grow?  Did Linda know
that one percent of women between the ages of 40 and 50 are clinically
diagnosed with breast cancer but that nearly forty percent of women in
that age group have existing cancer in their breasts... waiting to grow
... waiting for something to light that "fuse" of magnificent cellular
proliferation?

Yesterday, Saturday, I solved another mystery.  One more demon flies out
of this Pandora’s box of dairy industry secrets.  I had written in my
book, MILK--The Deadly Poison, of a day in Chicago in 1985 when milk was
incorrectly pasteurized and 185,000 people got salmonella.  Four of
those trusting milk drinkers died.  I wrote, "Nobody kept records of
leukemia or tuberculosis deaths."  I was wrong.  Yesterday a Chicago
journalist, Barbara Mullarkey called.  She had the records.  She
presented the raw data.  Numbers do not lie.  The population of Illinois
remained about the same from 1980 to 1990 while Chicago’s population
decreased.  It would be a natural assumption to expect that the number
of leukemia and tuberculosis rates remained neutral or declined as a
factor of the population statistics.  Virgil Hulse, MD, had written in
Mad Cows and Milk Gate that most of the dairy cows in America had bovine
leukemia, bovine immunodeficiency virus or bovine tuberculosis.  We
drink body fluids from diseased animals in the name of good health.

What happened in Illinois?  Leukemia deaths increased by ten percent and
tuberculosis deaths increased by thirty percent!

Rest in peace, Linda.  Rest in peace... children of Chicago whose
parents had no clue as to the etiology of their ailments.  Enjoy,
children of my neighbors, the fat and cholesterol and growth hormones
and allergenic proteins in that ice cream... who ignorantly ridicule my
girls for not doing the same.

MORE!

Robert Cohen
Executive Director
Dairy Education Board
http://www.notmilk.com