The PERFECT New York Egg Cream

Occasionally, I write a column and am completely
baffled by my reader's responses. I'd guess that
each of my columns results in a minimum of two or
three dozen serious relies or commentaries. Ten
percent of my columns will result in over 100
email letters. On rare occasion, one percent of
my columns will result in over 1,000 responses.
I can never predict what chord a column will strike,
but last week's "Three Cups of Tea column took
me completely by surprise. See:

http://tinyurl.com/ea9e3

Towards the end of that column, I mentioned that my
daughter Lizzy enjoyed authentic New York egg creams.
Nearly 200 readers requested the recipe, which once
again proves to me that the way to a reader's heart
is often through his or her stomach. In any event,
the recipe for a PERFECT New York egg cream is as
easy as making the perfect syrup, which is as easy
as 1-2-3!

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup Chocolate Syrup (made from soymilk, cocoa
powder, sugar)
1 cup unsweetened homemade soy milk
1 cup club soda

METHOD

To make the perfect chocolate syrup, mix ONE part soymilk
with TWO parts cocoa powder and THREE parts sugar. (For
those who must be politically correct, we recommend
cocoa powder produced anywhere but the Ivory Coast.
Unlike Hershey's and Nestles, slavery cannot and should
neither be tolerated nor supported. For sweetener we
prefer dehydrated sugar cane juice.)

Add 1/4 cup syrup to one cup soymilk and stir until syrup
blends into the milk.

Add one cup club soda, stir and enjoy!

Do not use commercial soymilk. Something is lost
in the translation. If you do not have a soymilk
making appliance and cannot make your own, purchase
unsweetened soymilk from your local Asian market.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

The Perfect Diet Book...Hallelujah!

I am often asked by first-time visitors to the
Notmilk.com website:

"How can I best learn more about vegetarianism?"
or
"I am confused and looking for information.
"Would you recommend a book for me to read?"

I've often suggesedt a list of 5 or more books, which
can be a bit overwhelming to the newbie, but until
today I had not found that one perfect book.

From now on, I'll not hesitate in recommending the
following as a starting and ending place for the
ideal food and diet plan:

The Hallelujah Diet by George Malkmus
Copyright 2006

The meat of this book, as it were, begins with Chapter
One's bold claim:

"How to Eliminate Sickness"

Most people, faced with a life-ending illness such as
a severe stroke or heart attack, begin to change their
lifestyle not because they want to, but because they must.
Such is the nature of man. Disease-preventive lifestyles
begin with healthy diet. We prevent disease in our
motor vehicles by doing oil changes and using the proper
gasoline. Fuel for the car is critical to its long term
survival. Fuel for the body is even more critical. Feeding
the human body junk (food) can only lead to one very
negative outcome. So...from hospital beds, dietary vows much
more powerful than annual New Year's resolutions are made.
The key to health and longevity is to be found through
diet. It's really rather simple, as George Malkmus
illustrates.

The Bible holds such profound wisdom and Malkmus begins
at the beginning. Genesis. Readers are given a roadmap to
good health, and it begins with that basic dietary plan in
Genesis 1:29

"I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon
the face of the earth, and every tree, in which there is
the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be
for meat (food)."

Once in a lifetime, miracles in which people beat cancer
(Chapter 3) should become the rule and not the rarity.
It's all about food. Malkmus offers testimony after
testimony, tale after tale, evidence that scientists would
call "anecdotal," yet, miracles become the norm when
the simple roadmap to health is followed as written in
Genesis 1:29. This is not faith, although faith and belief
that one will be cured from disease is a very important part
of healing. This is much more than faith. This is one of
those wonderful events in which faith and science merge
into a oneness that cures one doubting Thomas after another.

In Chapter 6, Dr. Malkmus illustrates that God's way
(the consumption of living foods) is supported by modern-day
science. Can a diet of cooked foods do any person good?
A diet in which enzymes are lost, proteins denatured, heated
oils and fats convert to carcinogenic trans-fatty acids,
vitamins and minerals become less available, fiber is strained
and removed.

Malkmus simply does what few others have been able to do in
a simple and concise fashion. He defines the problem, then
determines the solution. The first half of the Hallelujah
Diet defines sickness so that no other conclusion can be
reached but this: The consumption of animal products is
what sickens a body whose design is to be well. The
defining line between sickness and health is diet, as
Dr. Malkmus so eloquently and brilliantly illustrates.

The second half of the book...well, now we're cooking.
Darn. Lousy expression. Does not apply. Fact is, for
optimum health, we should apply this guideline: Now
you're not cooking!

It takes just six chart-filled pages for George Malkmus
to explain the Hallelujah Diet. So as not to severely
challenge people who have been meat eaters all of their
lives, the author pre-determines a ration: 85-15.
Eighty-five percent raw food, 15 percent cooked. He
follows that sage advice (parsley advice, rosemary advice,
thyme advice) with a chapter on dead foods. Those who
begin the journey by taking a series of small steps
are soon into taking giant strides.

I like the fact that Malkmus includes a chapter on juicing.
Many people keep their juicers tucked away in the darkest
recess of the least accessible kitchen cupboard. I now
juice every single day, and if you do the same, you taste
life with each sip of fresh cider or orange juice. The
juice from watermelons has become one of my favorites.
Sweet life. Powerful enzymes that cleanse and stimulate.
You will feel the difference.

Digest the first nineteen chapters of this book and
you've built a foundation. Chapter 20 has an unusual
title for advice beginning on page 251:

"Getting Started."

You might think that this is what you've been doing
during the first three hours of reading the book.
Malkmus makes things easy by "charting the course" and
taking you through his diet, step by step from grocery
stores to farmer's markets. He discusses tools (blenders,
juicers, and food processors) and replacement options for
foods that have become habitual such as coffee. Before
ending the book, Malkmus succeeds in getting you to "fall
in love with food all over again." In that sense, this
Hallelujah Diet of his is a honeymoon love affair that
will become a long term marriage of good health and
happiness.

The Hallelujah Diet by George Malkmus
Copyright 2006

http://www.destinyimage.com/destiny-image-show-isbn.php?
sku=076842321X

Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/ra6bm

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

They've Got Our Number

The dairy industry is getting wise to our ways.
Congratulations to dairy farmers. They've woken up
in the middle of a full scale undeclared war, and
only now are beginning to realize the nature of
their enemy. The battle has been raging for twelve
years, and although the dairy industry wins occasional
skirmishes, the die has been cast. For them, the war is
already lost.

An editorial in the April 25, 2006 issue of Hoard's
Dairyman (The National Dairy Farm Magazine) finally
recognizes the nature of the animal rights industry
protest. (One can no longer fairly apply the word
"movement" to animal rights. A.R. has become a lucrative
cash-generating industry, and as such, devotes greater
resources towards churning dollars than towards helping
animals.)

Hoard's editors write:

"There's A War Going On Out There"

I give them credit for hitting the nail on the head.

Hoard's writes:

"We cannot afford to ignore the pressures being mounted
on us. Activists with ample time and money are making
concerted efforts to harass dairy farmers and other
livestock producers in a number of damaging and costly
ways. They sue, file complaints, demonstrate, obtain
injunctions, lobby for stiffer regulations, and
otherwise handcuff people who mean well and simply are
trying to raise a family on a farm."

Can you hear the violins?

The Hoard's editorial writer concludes:

"In our opinion, some activists use 'conservation' and
'welfare' campaigns simply as smoke screens. The real
agenda of many of them is abolishment of animal
agriculture and adoption of vegetarian diets for
everyone. Regardless of their reasonableness or motives,
we have to pay attention...we have no choice. There's
a war going on out there."

Dear dairy farmers,

Hoard's finally got one right.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Apple, Broccoli and Carrot TV Ads

Think carefully. Try very hard to recall. When is
the last time that you saw an advertisement from the
Apple Association? The Broccoli Bloc? The Carrot
Coalition? When? Never, and that's too bad. Should
not apple, broccoli, and carrot growers be made to
spend dollars to advertise their healthy products
much the same way as the dairy producers are required,
by law, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on
milk ads?

A group of researchers (Aktas Arnas, et. al.) explored
consumer purchases and children's eating habits and
food consumption as a factor of the television ads that
children are exposed to. The results of this study
have been published in the April, 2006 issue of the
journal Pediatrics International.

The authors write:

"Children's eating habits and their food consumption have
direct relations with obesity, diabetes, cancers, hypertension
and coronary heart disease. Television advertisements directly
affect children's eating habits and their food consumption."

Researchers determined that the time devoted to watching
children's television programs was approximately 121 minutes
per day. During this time, children were exposed to 35 minutes
of advertising. During the scope of the study, 334 of the 775
TV ads were food-related. The food scientists write:

"Most of the food advertisements were about candy/chocolate,
chips, milk and milk products such as cheese, yogurt, and
breakfast cereals."

Researchers determined:

"...that 40.3% of the children asked their parents to purchase
the goods that they saw on the television advertisements and
that 8.9% of them argued with their parents and/or cried in
order for their parents to buy that particular product. It was
found that the children tended to request more sweetened
products such as candy, ice cream, biscuit, cake or soft
drinks."

The final conclusion:

"More than half of the food presented in television advertisements
were rich in fat and sugar. Children ask their parents to buy
the goods they see on television advertisements both while
watching television and while shopping. Television advertisements
especially affect young children's unhealthy food consumption."

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Three Cups of Tea

I've just read a new book by Greg Mortenson and Dave
Relin called "Three Cups of Tea."

An ex-college friend from the seventies (Liz Relin from
Boulder, Colorado) firmly suggested to me that it was a
must read, and besides, her cousin was the author.

Let me say just two words. Pulitzer. Nobel.

Dave Relin deserves the Pulitzer. The book as a magnificent
read. I wish that I possessed half of Relin's writing
skills. The Nobel Peace Prize will one day go to his
subject, Dave Mortenson, I have no doubt.

Let me give you a brief synopsis, without giving away too
much of the plot. This is a real-life story of a man
who decides to give something back to his fellow
Earthlings. Mortenson becomes an individual with a mission.
His challenge is to build schools for girls in parts of
the world in which education for females does not exist.
That translates into Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yes...Bin
Laden territory. Combine politics and terrorism with passion
of purpose and heroic ideals and you touch upon the theme
of this book.

One of the tiny subplots lends itself to the book's
title: Three Cups of Tea. When meeting with the key
elders of each small village, the first act that
endears strangers to each other is an invitation to
their home in which first one, then a second, and
finally a third cup of tea is shared. Mortenson
has two strikes against him before getting to first
base. He's an American, and he's an infidel (non-Muslim).
I cannot imagine how I would keep my head, in such
circumstance, but Greg Mortenson achieves the
impossible. For that, he becomes a hero to everyone
who reads this book.

Which leads me to my latest passion. I've been lately
drinking three (or more) cups of herbal tea each
evening while doing my night's reading. Mortenson
learned to enjoy sugar-sweetened tea with rancid
Yak's butter. For me, the tea is sweetened with
maple syrup. To that, I pass on the yak butter and
add my own invention, rich homemade millet milk.
For those of you with SoyToys, add 2/3 cup millet
to the grinding bowl and fill the water pot to
the top line (1700 cc). In 25 minutes, you'll have
millet milk. Refrigerate overnight and it gels to
custard which works well in tea. With maple syrup
added, it's pure heaven.

Lizzy came downstairs and I offered her some tea. Instead,
she filled half a glass with the millet milk, added
chocolate syrup (vegan), and topped off the glass with
club soda. I took a sip. Betcha Al Queda and Taliban
yaksters from Northern Pakistan never enjoyed a better
New York-style egg cream!

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

I've Broken a Promise

A few months ago, after reviewing the umpteenth bit of
phony dairy research by uncovering a fatal flaw that the
media neglected to note, I promised myself that I was
finished wasting my time countering every biased and
ridiculous piece of research submitted by the dairy
industry. I promised that I would ignore future stories,
for they waste my time and the media has shown that they
are not inclined to report the truth by biting the hand
which feeds them.

I've read dozens of newspaper accounts of the latest
phony dairy study and not one of them reveals that the
study was financed by the Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC).

This past weekend, this new story hit the newspapers.
If you believe what you read, it's dangerous for a
pregnant woman not to drink cow's milk because her
child will be born severely underweight. Let me quote
the reaction of the Toronto Sun:

"Women who aren't drinking enough milk during pregnancy
are giving birth to smaller babies, putting their
developing infants at harm, a Canadian study suggests."

The Ottawa Citizen had the temerity to report:

"Women who cut down on milk while pregnant can harm
their developing babies nearly as much as if they
smoked, new Canadian research shows."

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=539c1784-a3ea-
4dc8-ba
c8-e423076f2825

Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/fzttn

The study has been published in the April 25, 2006 issue of
the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Scientists found
that infants born to mothers who drank little or no milk
weighed 1-1.5 ounces less than infants born to women who
drank a lot of milk.

So...an eight pound 4 ounce baby from a milk drinker might
weigh only 8 pounds and 3 ounces from a non-milk drinker.
As Snagglepus the Lion (Yogi Bear's friend) used to say,
"Heavens to Mergatroid!" I, on the other hand, might have
used other richly descriptive adjectives to voice my
displeasure at the absurdity of dairy deceivers.

Let's analyze this non-traumatic weight difference scenario.
Women consuming extraneous growth hormones from cows
have infants that will weigh one ounce more. Is this a good
thing in the 21st century in which an obesity epidemic
defines our kids? Do we want our children-to-be exposed to
powerful steroid and protein growth hormones as our little
ones grow in mom's uterus?

The headline could easily have read:

"Moms who drink milk birth obese little chub-balls."

Please let the scientist/researcher who took money
from the Canadian Dairy Board and then came to her
unethically phony conclusion know the word most often
applied to a man or woman who rents body or soul for
dollars. The senior author's name is:

Cynthia Mannion

Tel: 403.210.3848
FAX: cmannion@...

The bottom line...yes, I lied. I could not leave this story
alone. Please forgive me, but I could not allow the bastards
to get away with another one...

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

(For Women Only) Yesterday's Awesome Letter

Kim Currier kimkc @ verizon.net wrote:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Notmilkman,

I have an interesting story about my own medical discovery
after giving up dairy. I stopped consuming dairy products
the last week of January and have felt so much better with
each monthly cycle. Since about May 2005, my monthly periods
were getting worse every month. Then, extremely bad in the
fall when our whole family increased our dairy consumption
(for what we thought was good health before winter and I
had increased my own dairy consumption by using the South
Beach diet philosophy that dairy stays longer in the stomach
so you don't feel hungry as quickly between meals).

Anyway, I talked to my sister in Idaho (who introduced me to
the South Beach diet) about this and she complained about
heavy flow the second day of her period also, tired/moody and
is considering having a hysterectomy since she has fibroids
along with these awful monthly periods. I had headaches with
blurred vision episodes once a month (like I had on the
highest level of birth control pill in my mid-20's), cramps
that felt as bad as labor pains (after birthing 5 children
I am all too familiar with these), body aches, could feel
my ovaries ache the week before my period, and PMS with "a
touch of depression" which I never experienced before.

I developed anxiety the days before my period because of the
worries of leaking through on that second day of my monthly
cycle and missed many social events (some "close to the heart"
like a special, long-time elderly neighbor's funeral on Oct.
13) due to this problem and the horrible PMS headaches.

Due to the heavy blood flow, for the first time in my life I
had to buy "super-sized" tampons and had to use maxi pads
with them. The ironic thing is that since I quit all dairy
products, my periods mid-February, March and April were
on-time and so easy since they were symptom-free! Have you
heard of women in the UK dealing with similar problems during
their monthly cycles?

I am so thankful that a late night search led me to the Notmilk
website last January when I decided to complete more research
regarding my daughter Molly's dairy addiction problem. Through
Molly's problem, we were led to find answers to our entire
family's health problems directly linked to dairy consumption.
My husband, who I bribed to give up dairy, mentioned the other
day that he would never go back to any dairy products.

He continues to feel mentally alert at his computer engineering
job and is afraid that he will end up in the emergency room if
he started consuming dairy products again. By the way, the bribe
was a TV gaming system next winter for the family which was a
great motivator those first few weeks of transition for my
husband and kid. It is difficult to be different or "un-American"
by giving up all dairy. I am not thrilled about having a gaming
system in my home due to such a sedentary activity and having to
monitor the usage of it. But, I promised them this item to aim
for a goal of 6 months of dairy-free living not even thinking
that everyone would see & feel so many health benefits. My 11
year-old daughter and I are vegetarian/not quite vegan which
is a totally unexpected progression after giving up dairy but
we both have had sensory issues with meat since early
childhood.

After a hike with her Girl Scout troop yesterday, my daughter
found out that she doesn't need to renew her prescription for
her Albuterol inhaler since she doesn't have wheezing anymore.
By the way, my 3 year-old daughter (Molly) is continuing to
improve daily with the most noticeable social/language/attention
growth the last two weeks. Unlike the school district special
education evaluators who ignorantly stated that the dairy
and behavior link hasn't been "scientifically proven", Molly's
special education teachers at the local school believe there
is a huge connection and were very supportive of a dairy-free
diet. This made last week's IEP meeting an easier process and
Molly's first week of preschool a wonderful transition for
both of us. Thank the Lord!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks to Kim for sharing her story!
:>)

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Fibrous Cysts in Female Breasts

I'll never begin to comprehend what it is like to be a woman.
I will neither be blessed nor cursed with all of the wonderful
attributes or terrifying challenges faced by the gentler and
better half of my species.

One dark cloud hanging over the psyche of each woman in
America today is that murky veil called breast cancer. Women
are continuously in fear, urged to regularly examine their own
breasts because early detection of a carcinogenic lump increases
rates of survival. Upon self-examination, many women detect one
or more lumps that turn out to be nothing more than fibrous
cysts. During that nightmarish interval representing time of
discovery and ultimate diagnosis revealing that she does not
have a breast cancer, a woman is exposed to one indignity after
another. She must schedule appointments. She is disrobed,
x-rayed, and then probed. She then must wait for a doctor's
telephone call, usually made by a nurse or physician's aide.
During that period, a woman is filled with terrifying "what-ifs,"
and it is human nature to become stressed and worry about the
worst possible scenario.

There are hundreds of millions of different proteins in nature,
and only one hormone that is identical between any two species.
That powerful growth hormone is insulin-like growth factor, or
IGF-I. IGF-I survives digestion and has been identified as a key
factor in the growth of every human breast cancer.

Like a perfectly identical key fitting into the most sophisticated
hi-tech security lock, IGF-I is identical in human and cow.

If you believe that breast feeding "works" to protect lactoferrins
and immunoglobulins from digestion (and benefit the nursing infant),
you must also recognize that milk is a hormonal delivery system. By
drinking cow's milk, one delivers IGF-I in a bioactive form to the
body's cells.

Dr. Robert Heaney, whose research is subsidized by the dairy industry
and is cited most often as their milk and calcium expert, performed
a study that determined that women who drink milk have higher
blood serum levels of IGF-I than women who do not drink milk. He
published his findings in the October, 1999 issue of the Journal of
the American Dietetic Association. Heaney concluded:

"Serum IGF-I levels increased significantly in milk drinkers, an
increase of about 10% above baseline but was unchanged in the
control group."

A soon-to-be published study in the May 1, 2006 issue of the
International Journal of Cancer reveals that women with high
circulating serum levels of IGF-I are associated with high
levels of fibrous breast cysts.

The authors reported:

"Our results suggest that elevated levels of IGF-I may contribute
to the development of fibrocystic breast conditions."

From Imaginis.com (a female breast cancer support group):

"Fibrocystic breast condition is the most common cause of
non-cancerous breast lumps in women between 30 and 50 years
of age. More than 50% of women have fibrocystic breast symptoms
at some point in their lives."

Forgive me for being so obnoxiously blunt today, but a
friend has been diagnosed with the real thing, so let
me say it this way. Attention: If you still drink milk...
To those of you Cleopatras still in De-Nile:

It's milk, stupid.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

What Inspires You? This inspires me.

Sometimes, a person or event rips open the fabric of
what we call "normal" to expose the hell of human suffering,
yet, if one gazes closly enough at the pain, there is always
a tiny bit of heaven to be found. Such is today's painful
diary kept by a dying man who was filled with life.

A man or woman in his or her youth, with perfect health,
cannot possibly understand that the human destiny is
death. The American destiny due to a diet of animal
products is death with suffering.

Before his death, my friend and webmaster kept a journal
of his experiences with prostate cancer. That diary is
one of the most powerful things I have ever read. A few
days after his final entry, Dave was hospitalized. I wrote:

"Dave Rietz is now in the hospital. Dave's cancer
has spread to his brain, spine, throat, and internal
organs. I spoke to Dave yesterday, and he possesses
a very keen mind in a very sick body. He has an
incredibly powerful will to live, but system
after system is failing. Dave is not doing very
well at all."

His own words should be read by men and women in
their youth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Personal Log: My long fight against prostate cancer
by Dave Rietz

This file is a recap of my history...and perhaps the nitty
gritty of my premature "end game".

During 1992 I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and it was
soon determined that it had already spread (stage 4). Through
some basic math (doubling times for the cancer) I believe the
cancer had already spread at least two years earlier...which
means I have been living with a terminal cancer for over 12
years.

Thanks to gunfire off of Viet Nam and additional problems caused
by aspartame (http://www.dorway.com) I have a nasty (maddening)
case of tinnitus (ringing in the ears). This often affects one's
balance and on the 18th of October I fell and shattered my right
wrist. Two weeks later I began urinating cranberry colored urine
and tests showed I had 1 cm stones in my kidneys. They blasted the
stones on the 12th of November and 31st of December. That should
have taken care of the problem...but two weeks later, on a
Saturday, I began urinating blood as well as blood clots.

After three days of passing bloody urine and around 60 blood
clots ranging in size from a kidney bean to as much as two inches
long and a half inch wide (yeah, hard to believe a man could pass
something like that) I went in for emergency surgery.

The doctor found what he called a "poorly defined cancerous
growth" at the seam between the bladder and prostate gland,
which he removed and sent off for analysis.

Yesterday, I found out from the doctor that the growth was more
prostate cancer now growing outside the gland. He had removed
a 2.5 cm strip of cancer (yeah, almost an inch) and the recovery
problem for that has been being able to urinate at all...and
of course more blood and infection.

For the record...I am living on borrowed time. My rich uncle
(not a blood relation) had prostate cancer a few years before
me. By his 8th year he became increasingly crippled and pain
riddled...and by his tenth year he was very dead. I am going
into my 13th year and as yet I have no symptoms it has spread
to the bones (the end game). The prime reason for this extra
longevity has been Mr. Cohen's information on IGF-1...which
I now call "plug and play cancer fuel". Abandoning all milk
and dairy, and therefore all IGF-1, has allowed my cancer to
grow significantly slower...thereby extending my life perhaps
long enough for someone to find a cure.

His important information is the reason I insisted on creating
and maintaining notmilk.com and all his other web sites...
for expenses only.

Running Log of events: (Commencing October, 2002)

18 October fell (tinnitus) and shattered my wrist.
(very hard to type!)

25 October began to bleed continual in urine. CT and other
scans showed 1 cm stones in right kidney and slightly smaller
in the left.

11 November they blasted the right kidney and 31 December
they blasted the left.

25 January began bleeding very heavily in the urine, along
with lots of nasty blood clots (ranging in size of a kidney
bean to as big as half an inch wide and two inches long.)

28 January in for emergency surgery. Urologist scraped off
2.5 cm of prostate cancer cells from inside my urinary tract...
at the neck where it meets the bladder. Spent three days in
the hospital and learned all about catheters and urine
collection bags. Wore one of those bags until the next Tuesday.
Doc mentioned a "stint" being placed inside that would have to
come out later. Had no idea what he was talking about.

21 February saw the cancer specialist. Lots of good news:... no
sign that the cancer had spread to my bones (CT and bone scan)
so will see yet another specialist to determine what else can
be done to my still cancerous prostate gland. Best news of all:
from previous PSA scores I had expecte my PSA to be around eight.
However, the removal of one inch of cancer cells from my urinary
tract allowed a significant drop to only 2.4, despite the
operation and other problems. Best 43rd wedding anniversary
gift either Isa or I could have received!

11 March the urologist removed the "stint"... which was around
eight inches of plastic or rubber tubing. Given three days of
antibiotics and by Saturday the urine was fairly clear. Doc
commented that after only 45 days there were "bumps" evident
where the cancer had been removed. Not good!

16 March Bleeding back with a vengeance. After three days I
told the urologist. On Friday, after seeing the cancer doc
got a script for amoxicillan.

24 March...urine starting to clear up again.

31 March...Even after taking the new drug Diflucon I am still
bleeding with occasional blood clots.

03 April - I saw a new oncologist on the 3rd of April. At first
she downplayed any role in chemotherapy, and offered little hope
with respect to more radiation. With 6,500 rads in 1993 it would
not be possible to provide an effective amount of additional
radiation without significant damage and almost guaranteed
additional health problems. They drew blood for another PSA.
The doctor called later that evening and gave me the bad news,
that in only 13 days my PSA had rocketed to 7.5 (three points
in only thirteen days). Rather than have a PSA (cancer)
doubling time of 4 months it now seemed to be only twenty days.
Very bad news.

07 April...Cancer specialist talked about various options.
Seems his choice is a newer chemotherapy drug called Taxotere.

08 April...Urologist indicated that removal of the bladder and
prostate gland would be a very poor choice.

09 April...Told Mr. Cohen about the drug Taxotere. He did
research on http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and found some
very encouraging information. (over 80 articles)

23 April...PSA still rising. Still bleeding because the cancer
is still growing inside my urinary tract. Commence chemotherapy
on 1 May.

30 April...Bleeding more than ever. Have to wear Depends because
of the constant oozing of pure blood between urinations. Passing
increasingly large blood clots. Largest clot so far around
2 inches long and around 3/16 inches across.

01 May...First chemotherapy session. Drug used Taxotere. No
untoward reactions. No nausea afterwards (ate crackers and
original Frito chips during session, and a good meal within
the hour afterwards. If anything...it seems to have increased
my appetite.)

02 May...The first chemotherapy session began around 2PM yesterday
and only 12 hours later yesterday's heavy blood laden urine with
increasingly large blood clots...is already clearing!

02 May...First chemotherapy plus FIFTEEN hours...urinary bleeding
has already stopped. Amazing! This Taxotere must be slaughtering
those prostate cancer cells in large numbers.

05 May... seeking more information on Taxotere used with HRPCa.
There is a huge paucity of information. Started a Yahoo forum on
this subject: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/taxotere/ I am hoping
to attract a variety of stories/comments/results...

06 May...over the past four days the prior amazing results has been
reduced. However, still no real side effects, light spotting, only
very small blood clots...but much more difficult to urinate.

06 May...Had a "port" installed to ease the task of chemotherapy
injections. No problem. About a 3 inch scar on my chest with a
small lump underneath. Minimal pain and discomfort. Ugly bruise
and it is a bit sore.

08 May...Second Taxotere session using the new "port" went without
a hitch.

09 May...Interesting difference between the first and second doses.
This time more spotting, no decrease in blood in urine, and little
improvement in urine flow (after 15 hours). Constipation still a
significant problem but may be caused by the pre-drug given to
reduce side effects. Have a bit of lightheadedness...perhaps
dizziness from the drug.

11 May...Spotting almost zero. Considerable relief on elimination.
Urine now more yellow than red. Signs of significant progress.

12 May... Backsliding a bit. Elimination relief was only temporary.
Again, more blood in the urine. Seems that the effective "life" of
these chemo drugs is rather short...doing maximum damage within
first two days then losing effectiveness rapidly until the next
infusion. Combined effect seems to be reduce the cancer by five
within the first two days...while it regains around three until
the next treatment. With this two steps forward and one step back
it may well take a long time overcome this cancer.

14 May...over the past couple of days I have experienced unusual
pains in my feet and lower legs. Makes walking difficult. My
left foot seems quite tricky making walking even dangerous.

15 May...Last successful (but difficult) urination was at 4am.
By 9am I knew I was in trouble...contacted the urologist and made
a visit to have a catheter inserted. Promptly dumped around 500cc.
Seems the cancer cells have grown sufficiently to cut off the normal
flow so will have to keep this in place for a week or two...or more.

15 May...Third chemo received without incidence. Urine still quite
bloody again but no clots to speak of.

16 May...Consumed a couple of glasses of prune juice after chemo and
that seems to have offset the constipating effect of the pre-drug.
Still lots of blood in the urine despite the catheter that now
bypasses the urinary tract from the bladder...which suggests cancer
is also present in the bladder. Not good.

22 May...Catheter remains...perhaps for a week or more, maybe
longer.
Still lots of blood in the urine. This Thursday was my "lull" week
without chemo. The 29th will be a telling day with blood tests,
PSA test, and the beginning of my second round of chemotherapy. Last
blood count had higher than normal platelets...but everything else
was within limits.

28 May...Much heavier spotting and much more blood in the urine.
Had one 1/8 inch blood clot around 2.5 inches long. Hard to
understand the mechanics of what is happening. Next round of chemo
begins tomorrow...during which I will get more blood work and a
current PSA. Hopefully the PSA is less. If not...not good.

30 May... Still bleeding quite heavily. Results of PSA test are not
encouraging...with another rise in only one month from the previous
7.5 to 10.87. This translates to a doubling time of perhaps less
than two months (vice four months six months ago). Looks like this
catheter will remain in place for quite awhile...because until the
number of cancer cells diminish dramatically I will not be able to
use my normal voidance system unaided (as in totally blocked). :-(

01 June...Problem with constipation seems to have become a problem
of the past. Still lots of blood in the urine. Very tired, too.
Received a wonderful early Father's day give from my daughter Sonya,
a $380.00 Sharper Image Quadra Ionic Air cleaner...that helps to
eliminate the sickly "hospital" smell from my bedroom and bathroom.
The negative ions not only clean up the air...but they impart a
happier outlook on one's id. Thank you, Sonya!

03 June...New twist. My face seems swollen and a bit puffy so
I weighed myself this morning and in only a few days I have gained
12 pounds. Water retention IS one of the listed side effects.
Much less blood in the urine...almost normal looking.

04 June...Seems I should not have stopped taking the Maxide (blood
pressure medicine). It is also a diuretic... and after taking only
two pills (yesterday and today) I have lost the 12 pounds of water
(that's almost a gallon and a half!). Puffiness is gone, too.
Odd, too, because for the several days I did not take Maxide my
blood pressure was excellent: 128/60.

07 June...Yet new side effects. Nasty headache (Tylenol can't
touch it and while on chemo I cannot use anything else). Touch
of constipation. Urine much more clear (very little traces of
blood).
Have been taking a second round of antibiotics for urinary tract
infection...and I think this is the primary reason for improvement.
I learned yesterday that the catheter should be replaced every
month.
It's a painful (and invasive) procedure...but the alternative is
uremic poisoning and death.

10 June...Completed another ten days of antibiotics to cure my
urinary tract infection. Time will tell if it will return.

12 June...Nausea makes an excellent diet aid. Over the past
seven days I lost eight pounds. Perhaps the formaldehyde getting
dumped back into my system is part of my problem(s)? (Headaches
that don't respond to the only thing they allow me take...Tylenol,
occasions of racing/pounding heart and erratic blood pressure,
stuff like that. Seems my 15 years of Equal in my coffee...and
all the ensuing formaldehyde poisoning, will haunt me to my last
day). Today was my fifth chemotherapy treatment. Next time around
they will check my blood to see why I am so tired...and other
things. Urine still ranges from quite bloody to almost normal...and
as yet I have made no correlation as to cause and effect. There
seems to be no pattern...just random "this is what you have right
now".

16 June...Not quite so tired this time around. Still very variable
results (bloody urine-almost clear, etc.). Hair is beginning to thin
noticeably. Much less nausea this time around...but despite eating
better I have lost a couple more pounds.

19 June...Sixth chemo behind me. Appetite seems to be excellent
after chemo...but rapidly turns to nausea the next and following
days. Still on-again/off-again bleeding (mostly on). Before I began
my blood work was normal. Three weeks ago only one parameter was
out of bounds (platelets) but today there were three more... and
just about everything listed on the test report shows significant
change either higher or lower readings (towards out of limits).

23 June...fatigue has descended with a crush...very tired. Been
having a constant bothersome "lump" feeling in my gut area. Don't
feel like standing, sitting, sleeping...nada. Upon reflection I
have settled upon "Superman" (Christopher Reeves) as my source of
inspiration and courage. If he can be positive with all his
problems...I can be as well with my many fewer problems.

25 June...Replaced the old catheter today. Taking the old catheter
out was like yanking out a cord laced with sand and broken glass.
However, before they insert one they shoot a small syringe full of
2% lidocaine up into the urinary tract...so that insertion is not so
painful. Bled like a stuck pig but am good now for another month. I
will not find out my next PSA count until two weeks from now. Last
one was still rising. Until the damned PSA stops rising not much
chance of urinary tract bleeding tapering off and stopping which
means no change of getting rid of the catheter. Still have nausea
and still quite tired.

28 June...Now spending most of the day in bed...mostly sleeping.
Day turns into night and visa versa. A couple of minutes on a very
slow tread mill leaves me short of breath. Only six chemo's
(actually,
two full strength doses split up into six doses) and already I am
beyond tired with my blood parameters all heading out of bounds.
Right kidney began to be painful today...called the urologist and
he asked if I also had a fever (which I do... 99.9) and chills
(which I don't). If I do get that way to call and they will
prescribe a stronger antibiotic. Almost twenty days with two
different antibiotics and I still have not eliminated the urinary
tract infection or reduced the amount of blood in my urine.
Depressing.

1 July...This is the first day I have felt worth a hoot in a long
time. Actually had around 4 ounces of real-looking urine... before
it turned red again. First time in many days (at least four) since
I felt good enough to get out of bed, get dressed, and even consider
going out for a short while (Walmart). Appetite still leaves a lot
to be desired but it's a bit better today. Unfortunately, Thursday
is the beginning of the third round of three chemo treatments.
Of note...a lot less spotting.

2 July...I was asked if I would come in a day early to accommodate
the upcoming holiday weekend. Saw the doctor, had blood tests (PSA
should be tomorrow...we have our fingers crossed it is finally
going down!) and it seems that after six chemo sessions my blood
work is within general safe limits. Will be taking a new drug...
called estramustine...that is supposed to work well with Taxotere
to amplify the beneficial effects. One significant drawback is it
can cause blood clotting problems so I will also be taking Coumadin.
Doc did not like my 30 pounds weight loss over the past two
months...
and requested I take the pills for nausea and eat more. Lots of
bright read urine...which the doctor says he is not worried about
(as long as the blood work is OK). He would be concerned if it was
dark red. Also have samples of Lexapro (four weeks worth) to ease
the depression (yeah...the catheter, pain, and lack of progress
to date has taken its toll...but only on occasion)
More tomorrow when the PSA comes in.

3 July...Seventh chemo behind me. Still have nausea despite taking
Prochlorper for the problem. The antidepressant Lexapro is being
tolerated well (far superior to the mind-numbing Prozac I took for
only three days during 1996). The estramustine and Coumadin/warfarin
side effects listings are scary. Was not able to get PSA reading
yesterday...guess I will have to wait until Monday :-(

4 July...Actually had almost a full day with almost normal looking
urine. Slept most of the day... including through the fireworks.
Both the Lexapro and Prochlorper have drowsiness as side effects
and the two together really zapped me. Bummer.

6 July... Back to very red urine. Spotting had almost disappeared
but now it's back with a vengeance.

7 July... both the spotting and blood in the urine has subsided a
bit.
Terrible news... PSA is almost double in one month. From 10.87 on
the 29th of May to 19.7 on the 3rd of July. Guess I will be adding
the pills to my regimen.

12 July...Three days of estramustine and I am still here. Had a
couple of short barf sessions...nothing major. That, coupled with
my normal Taxotere session on Thursday seems to be effecting
changes.
Urine is much more clear (still pink enough not to be able to do a
UTI test) but much better. Spotting less, too. Overall not as bad
as the long list of side effects suggested. Perhaps this is time
for renewed hope of beating this cancer. This new drug is so kickass
that I can receive only one cycle of 18 pills every 28 days.

14 July... Yesterday and the night before I seemed to be very
restless. Perhaps apprehensive, too. Impulses were to -move- legs,
arms, walk around, fidget...so I took another Lexapro for such
things. Well, next came insomnia...which, as it turns out, is
attributable only to this drug and none of the others I am taking!
Go figure. Was so "overactive" I actually went outside (nice and
cool) at dusk and trimmed about six bushes. Amazed myself I had
that much energy. :-)

15 July...After wrestling with this for a couple of days I decided
it was too important to omit from any discussion of my complete
situation:

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week I took a second chemo
drug called (short brand name) Emcyt (for estramustine which the
nurses don't seem to care for as an identifier). With a long list
of possible side effects I was apprehensive...and did have a couple
of short barf episodes...which I now blame on how I took the meds.
(another names: Estracyt and EMP)

Before this session I had been increasingly tired, so much so that
I slept most of 4 July including what was described as a wonderful
fireworks display. My days were long and boring with nothing really
to look forward to.

I think it was Saturday morning...I got up (bleary eyed) and went
to the bathroom. Upon returning to bed, as I have often had, I had
visual pictures...that changed. But these "twilight" dreams had a
huge difference! There were three of them back to back.

The first had me seemingly prone on the ground, close to what looked
like a tall, fat, ugly column stretching to sky...composed of ugly
black messy stuff rather like burned marsh mellow. On the surface of
this ugly structure was what appeared to be active "boils"... rather
like miniature volcanos.

Well...over the past several months, when I go to bed to sleep, I
mandate myself to relax by simply repeating the word over and over,
sometimes picking on a shoulder, jaw or something, only to discover
that the part had not been relaxed. Once in an open mind relaxed
state I then repeat "no cancer" over and over and over again.

This time my chant interacted with my dream...and as I changed that
short phrase first the boils shrank and disappeared, then the entire
column...leaving a clear blue sky behind it.

The second dreamscape was me once again seemingly prone...not too
far from what appeared to be the bottom half of a window set into
a stucco wall of a building. It was covered with ugly black
splotches...and as I continued to chant my chant those splotches
shriveled up and disappeared until the entire beige wall was clear
and new looking.

The last dreamscape I didn't recall for a couple of days. It was of
a huge tree-lined lawn, perhaps pasture, that was scarred by ugly
black "things". Again, as I continued to chant "no cancer" those
black things faded one by one (as in the other dreams) and finally
disappeared.

I didn't think all that much of the dreams...except perhaps wishful
thinking. However, beginning that day I seemed to acquire an
abundance of energy...having to move my legs and arms in particular.
So I decided to put that to good use by exercising...something I
have not been up to for quite a while. My urine cleared up
considerably to the "bright red" hoped for by the doctor. I seem to
be much more alert, now.

Perhaps the power of prayer, coupled with the right "paths" to
killing this cancer are taking effect. Only my next PSA score will
tell that one for sure.

20 July...The last five days have been uneventful. I continue to be
alert with plenty of energy...and I am eating normal again (first
time in months) and I am maintaining my new weight (35 pounds less
at 222). My urine has ranged from strawberry to almost clear and
back again. The catheter is definitely a bother...but perhaps I can
get rid of it if my next PSA shows a decrease rather than rise,
meaning that the cancer cells in my urinary tract will most likely
be shrinking. Today I will be shedding everything, putting a cork
(stopper) into the end of the catheter...and for the first time
since early January I will get into my lonely Jacuzzi for a long
warm soak. :-)

20 July...Ahhhhhhhh! A 15 minute soak in the 106 degree Jacuzzi
was *wonderful*! It loosened up lots of barnacles (dead skin) which
was then very easy to scrub off during an equally great 15 minute
shower. I feel like a new person :-)

20 July...This evening I did something I have not done for years...
go to a movie. Best of all...I went with three of my four children!
Yes...they range from 34 to 39...but so what. Our family values
are still prime...our tastes are still quite similar...and most
important...we are still a closely knit family. We saw "League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen" with Sean Connery...and all of us enjoyed
it. (The last movie we went to together was "Titanic"...1997 or so).
Best of all the high-end theater seats were comfortable and I had no
problems. (check out the awesome site http://www.lxgmovie.com/)

24 July...It keeps getting better and better! My urine rages from
bright red (the cancer doctor indicated that was desirable) to
almost
clear. In addition...I have stopped spotting which infers to me that
the cancer cells within my urinary tract are shrinking, which in
turn
may well mean that I can soon abandon this catheter and urine
collection system. :-) My next PSA with the cancer clinic will not
be
until after the 31st...and I am very impatient to know if my PSA is
falling. So...one thing the Navy Hospital will still do for me (over
65) is a free PSA...so I am off to see them this morning.

26 July...Today my urine is about as clear (yellow) as I have seen
it in many months. Spotting is still almost nil. Yet... I had the
Navy take blood for a PSA test and I was shocked that it had almost
doubled yet again in only one month (now 34). I have no idea what
is going on. My physical systems say I have turned a major corner...
yet the blood test says nothing has changed.

31 July...Second chemo with both Taxotere and Emcyt. Urine mostly
normal looking (except the other day I had a very long skinny
twine-like blood clot that may well have been around eight inches
long overall). Almost no spotting. Hemoglobin levels are now below
acceptable and so they have added Procrit shots to boost hemoglobin
production. Only real manifestation of this new problem is my eyes
seem to get leaden after a few hours of being awake. So, besides the
chemo treatments the chemo required extra drugs are Cumadin to
prevent blood clots that might be caused by the Emcyt and Procrit
to boost hemoglobin production. All in all not too bad.

3 Aug...For the past several days my urine was pretty much normal
looking. Last evening I had familiar pains that come with urinary
tract infections and this morning my urine is bright red again.
The Procrit seems to be somewhat slow acting...as I am still feeling
a bit tired. Slight problem with pains in the lower
abdomen...perhaps
a side effect of the Procrit. I must admit that I am quite buffaloed
by the way in which conditions change one way or another...almost
like flipping a switch.

4 Aug...Strong UTI pains...back on yet another antibiotic. Results
of last PSA test from the cancer clinic are encouraging...24.83 vice
what it could be (pushing 40 or twice the last 19.7). The Navy test
done a bit over a week ago was over 33.5... so if the one they did
on the 1st of August is lower...thinks are looking up. OK...took me
two days to get an answer out of the Navy Hospital...seems I need to
write it off as a viable entity. After only one week they say my PSA
has gone from 33.5 to 78.8. I don't think so...especially when the
cancer clinic pegged it at 24.83 for the same time-period.
Conclusion: It appears that my PSA rate is slowing...and that tracks
with my urine being almost clear and minimal spotting. I think the
combination of Taxotere, Emcyt and the vitamin "D" I am taking on my
own is starting to have a positive effect.

13 Aug...Navy admitted that they had lab problems and that the
cancer
clinics PSA of 24.83 was probably correct. I was hoping to get the
catheter removed today...but they inserted a new one until perhaps
next Monday or so...after the urologist confers with the cancer doc.
This time it was worse than the last...sort of yanking out a length
of miniature barbed wire laced with tiny razors...complete with some
flesh attached. Not my idea of a fun procedure.

19 Aug...No word on the catheter...and it still smarts like no other
before it. Perhaps it is because it is "smaller" in diameter so it
moves around more. Waiting for the urologist to confer with the
cancer doc and make a decision as to what to do. Procrit is helping
me to not be so tired...but since my blood count is still low (it
improved from 10.1 to 10.5...should be above 11.5) I still tire
easily.

27 Aug...The last few days have been disappointing. More and more
catheter pain, more spotting, more blood in the urine, and I am
evermore tired. Began my third Emcyt treatment...and by Friday
I should have the results of my next PSA test.

29 Aug...The PSA results are in...and still not very good. Latest
number is 36.78 (last was 24.83 a month ago). The numbers are
no longer doubling every month...but neither are they falling,
which is the desired result, of course. The doubling time now
appears to be extened to around two months.

11 Sep...Not much to report...still have the catheter, still taking
Procrit for anemia, still bleeding, and still waiting for something
really positive to take place. No problem with mood or attitude...
just continually tired which severely limits ones options. The blood
workup continutes to go sour...now 12 of sixteen tested items are
out of tolerance. HBC (white blood cells) slipped a tenth of a point
despite taking iron pills along with the weekly Procrit shots.

23 Sep...More chemo beginning Wednesday (Emcyt). Color of urine is
now almost consistently bright red. Don't know if this is a good
sign or a bad sign. I chose to leave in the catheter until
October...
not a good time for any new complications especially with the bad
back from so many hours spent in bed. Chiropractor has helped to
reduce the problem significantly after only two sessions... but
still
have a ways to go. Last PSA had my cancer doubling in twice the
previous time (50% reduction in rise)...and I am praying for an
actual DROP in PSA vice a rise. That would be significant! I will
know more (perhaps) this coming Friday.

25 Sep...Still bright red urine. Worse, my PSA is now 87.21 which
means that the cancer's doubling time changed from two months to
only around 19 days! Wonder why? Very bad news! Now scheduled
for another CT and bone scan (15th of October). Guess they are
worried the cancer may be spreading to the bones. Well, at least
the chiropractor fixed my back problems!

10 Oct...OK...dramatic shift in approach to this dammed cancer.
After much exploration I have decided to go on what is called the
"water cure", supplemented by nothing but fresh home-made carrot
juice. If I can down the suggested 3 quarts of water (with a tad
of sea salt in it for the necessary minerals) and another 3 quarts
of carrot juice (around 15 pounds of carrots per day)...I will
both lose a bit of weight (necessary) and get LOTS of fresh
vitamins, minerals, enzymes...and hopefully this will change my
overall pH to slightly alkaline (an acid body is conducive to
cancer growth...and sugar fuels it). Over the past week my urine
has changed from very bloody to almost normal again. That tells me
I am doing something right. Now I plan to supplement my intake of
carrot juice (augmented with some solid peas and mashed carrots
for solids)...a substance called Wheatgrass juice.

Yes...this may sound like a "last resort"...but considering that
none of the powerful and expensive drugs are doing the job...
perhaps some help from mother nature might make the difference.
Since clean water and fresh juices are far superior to
dead/processed
foods...this seems logical. Still scheduled for a PSA next Wednesday
(15) along with a CT and bone scans. Gonna be a busy day.

16 Oct...CT and bone scans are over...and I will know the results
next week. Just got my PSA...121.21 for a period of 20 days. The
last PSA was 87.21 and IF it were still doubling every 20 days it
would have been 174.42...however, if this trend holds it will only
be 136.71 for a 30 period. Not great...but a slowing trend that I
hope and pray will continue.

24 Oct...Showed up for chemotherapy and was informed I had acute
renal failure...which mandated immediate hospitalization. Went
straight to the hospital where for the next four days I provided
with stints to aid in the processing of kidney function. Strict
diet, lots of drugs, etc...End result: cancer is now in the liver,
lower spine, neck, lymph nodes up and down my throat (wind pipe)
and who knows where else. Currently getting 15 radiation treatments
to ease the pain from the lower spine and base of the brain. Later
treatment should get the wind pipe and other areas as they are
identified. Some time during the coming weeks I will begin a
different type of chemotherapy. Recovered from the renal failure
with no problems so now it is back to "business as usual"...
attempting to control the cancer.

04 Nov...Arrived at the hospital 9am to get an MRI scan of my
throat.
Almost passed out so began another extended hospital stay. Currently
have a 75mg slow-release patch of MS Contin pain killer on my
shoulder,
and lots of scripts for other pain killers "on demand". Will be
camping out here until Monday (third radiation treatment). Now weigh
191 pounds...which means I have lost 64 pounds since March.

Salutation:

Note: During 1992 I was given a prognosis of 8-10 years left to
live.
My rich uncle in Arkansas, who preceded me with this cancer, was
quite hurting by his eighth year and very dead by his tenth. I
surmise that my cancer had spread around two years before it was
discovered (first PSA was 37). So, considering that I am going into
my 13th year and it is not yet into my bones tells me I have been
doing something right. No more milk and dairy with its "plug and
play
cancer fuel" has been the major difference in my slower growing
cancer.

With a bit of luck and perhaps some divine intervention...
I may even overcome this cancer.

Dave Rietz
November 4, 2003

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And that was the end of my dear friend.
Let his words inspire your friend or loved one
to explore a new beginning.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Organic Milk? A Crock of Bull Manure

The organic milk market emerged as a consumer rejection
to Monsanto's genetically engineered recombinant bovine
growth hormone (rbGH). In 2006, organic milk sales are
expected to top $12 billion. This represents one of the
most expensive frauds ever hoisted on consumers.

An independent organization (cornucopia.org) has been
rating organic milk products, assigning from 5 cows
(for the best organic milk) to one cow (for the worst.

So far as cornucopia.com is concerned, the two-cow rating
represents companies with: "questionable long-term commitment
to organics." One cow ratings represent companies whose source
of so-called organic milk is from: "some or all factory-farm
milk." See:

http://www.cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/index.html

What organic milks received the lowest ratings? The losers
include:

Costco organic, Safeway organic, Trader Joe's organic,
Wild Oats organic, and Horizon Farms organic. Whole Foods
was given a two-cow rating. Cornucopia.org refers to
one-cow operations as "ethically challenged."

Cornucopia has filed a suit against USDA, demanding
the enforcement of organic standards. Should you wish to
contact this watchdog organization, call:

Will Fantle, 715-839-7731
Gary Cox, 614-233-4850

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Where Have all the Honey Bees Gone?

(The amazing story of dairy industry culpability)

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe,
then man would only have four years left to live."
- Albert Einstein

This from the Penn State Agriculture Magazine, Spring 1998:

"In the spring of 1993, entomologist Maryann Frazier
encountered a mystery. 'Beekeepers began calling to
report that they had no bees in their colonies,' she
recalls...They had seen bees making flights in February,
but by April, there were no bees. What happened to them?'

Frazier's investigation into the reasons the bees
disappeared continues today. If she and her colleagues can't
unravel the mystery of why bee colonies are dying, beekeepers,
fruit and vegetable growers, and consumers all are likely to
feel the consequences."

I live in New Jersey, America's Garden State. Believe it
or not, we have a state insect, the honey bee. Honey bees
pollinate crops. It's actually a big business. Pollinators
travel America, leasing their bees to crop growers. Beekeepers
keep the honey. During World War II, there were over 6 million
commercial beehives in America. By the mid-1980s, that number
had dropped to 4 million. Today, there are 2.5 million remaining.
America's honey bees are disappearing, and those who best know
bees have a number of theories, but no one conclusive reason.
The one universally accepted fact is that bees are in trouble.

Could an aspirin manufacturer be the cause of the bee's demise?
The Bayer Aspirin Company may be giving our environment an
incurable migraine headache.

My first hint came from an ad in the April 10, 2006
issue of Hoard's Dairyman. There, on page 270, a full
color advertisement proclaims:

"Bayer supplies the technology to fix the milking
machine on the right."

On the right side of the ad is an enlarged photo of
a most grotesque fly with large red eyes and appendages
containing end-to-end cactus-like spurs.

In smaller text, Bayer informs prospective customers:

"Bayer understands how much profit flies suck out of
your entire operation. That's why we developed QuickBayt
Pour-On insecticide...put the high-tech tools from Bayer
to work." (Bayer is owned by the IG Farben Company, and
no, I will not be getting into that controversy here...)

I began to search the Internet for the secret ingredients to
Bayer's miracle fly solution. Gobs and gobs of this high-tech
gunk are slathered onto dairy cow's bodies. What's in QuickBayt
that makes life so very dangerous for the honey bee?

Imidacloprid.

Imidacloprid is a widely used insecticide that has environmentalists
extremely concerned. Apparently, scientists have known for many
years the impact that imidacloprid has on wildlife. Here are some
of the recognized hazards of using imidacloprid:

Imidacloprid has raised concerns because of its possible impact on
bee
populations...it is also acutely toxic to earthworms...

Imidacloprid has raised concerns because it causes eggshell thinning
in endangered bird species...it is highly toxic to sparrows, quails,
canaries, and pigeons...

Imidacloprid can be toxic to humans, causing epileptic seizures,
diarrhea, and lack of coordination...

Imidacloprid is extremely toxic at low concentrations to some
species of aquatic fish and crustaceans...

Can food be contaminated with imidacloprid? You tell me whether
this is comedy or tragedy at work. Neither the United States
Department of Agriculture nor the Food and Drug Administration
includes imidacloprid in their food monitoring programs.

Two European studies have shown that vegetables tested with
imidacloprid were contaminated, one week after exposure.

It seems clear that imidacloprid use on dairy farms should be
closely monitored by regulatory agencies. The Bayer Company
is making lots of money on this drug, but the true cost might
become America's newest headache. My advice to FDA and USDA
regulators who refuse to regulate: Take two imidacloprids
and call me in the morning.
.
"Even bees, the little almsmen of spring bowers,
know there is richest juice in poison-flowers."
- John Keats

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Parking Ticket & Immigration Nazis

"Lovely Rita meter maid nothing can come between us
When it gets dark I tow your heart away
Standing by a parking meter
when I caught a glimpse of Rita
Filling in a ticket in her little white book..."
-John Lennon & Paul McCartney, 1967

I enjoy living is a society of laws in which justice
is blind, and laws regarding crime and punishment are
equally applied to all people.

New York City has traffic laws and an enormous storage
depot for cars parked illegally on city streets. Yet,
on any given day, streets on the affluent upper west
side of Manhattan are clogged with double-parked
vehicles which violate the spirit of the law.

Today (April 20, 2006), federal immigration officials
arrested seven owners and executives and hundreds of
illegal alien employees of a pallet manufacturing company,
and I wonder why.

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrant workers are employed
by America's dairy industry, and like New York City's
illegally parked cars, nobody in authority has the courage
to apply the laws of our once great land equally.

On July 4, 1776, America's Continental Congress assigned the
task of creating a corporate seal of sorts to a company in
formation, the United States. Three men, Benjamin Franklin,
John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson soon came up their version of
the "Great Seal" which includes these words: "E Pluribus Unum"
(from many, one). One hundred years later (1876), the
Statue of Liberty would be erected in New York Harbor to
welcome immigrants of many nations. On her pedestal were
inscribed these words:

"...her name. Mother of Exiles...Give me your tired, your
poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."

America remains a melting pot of greatness, governed by
laws which must be applied equally to all. Once exceptions
to these laws are made, either by intention or mis-intention,
a society begins to crumble.

Let there be raids and arrests until Congress enacts a fair
and equitable policy without prejudice. Until that time,
the law is the law. If compassion is to be extended, there
shall be no further raids. If justice is to be extended,
then the industry abusing immigration laws above all other
industries is the dairy industry, and no further protection
should be offered to those who have previously bribed Presidents
and members of Congress with "protection money."


On March 23, 1971, Secretary of the Treasury, John Connally
witnessed the payment of a $3 million cash bribe to then
President Richard Nixon. His comments were recorded on
a Watergate tape:

"These dairymen are organized; they're adamant, they're
militant...And they, they're massing an enormous amount
of money that they're going to put into political activities,
very frankly."

That influence continues to this day, and that is the reason
why immigration officials prosecute others with prejudice
while looking the other way as the dairy industry continues
to conduct illegal activities. Favoritism continues to weaken
the spirit of America, and compromise the integrity of our
nation.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Ya Gotta Feel Sorry For These Guys

Sure, I hate their product (milk), but these are
good people (dairy farmers). They work harder than
most and have values that once made America strong.

Yesterday, I received the latest issue of Hoard's
Dairyman (April 10, 2006), "The National Dairy Farm
Magazine." This has been a pretty lousy year for dairy
farming. Dairy producers are getting clobbered on many
fronts. Here are some examples:

Washinton Dairygrams (page 237)

"USDA predicts 2006 all-milk (average) price in $12.75
to $13.35 range (per hundred pounds of milk produced).
Averaged $15.18 last year."

"Sluggish holiday sales and heavy milk supplies sent
January cheese stocks up 7 percent over 2005."

Opinions (Letters to Editor - page 238)

"Here in southeast Mississippi we took a direct hit from
Katrina, with damage equal to or worse than our Louisiana
neighbors...we had hoped for some help from our local and
state governments. That help never came."

Dairyman Danny Korba, Mississippi

"I would not willingly live downwind from a large
confinement dairy. Large dairies are the enemy of
every small dairyman."

Dairyman Dean Haas, Wisconsin

"In a recent farm newspaper, I read about a bull killing
a young dairy farmer. Why can't farmers realize keeping
bulls is very dangerous?"

Dairywoman Diane Hummel, Wisconsin

Editorial (page 250)

"Early research indicates wildlife and humans could be
suffering some devastating effects caused by endocrine
disrupters...In the Southeastern U.S., researchers
looked at eight dairy and eleven swine farms. They found
40-65 pounds of estradial and 44 to 176 pounds of estrone
discharged each day...Of the 139 waterways evaluated so
far, 80 percent had at least one of the 95 compounds
on the list. Worse, one-third had at least ten of them."

Milk Cheese Outlook (page 261)

"While most people thought that dairy product prices
would fall this year, few anticipated the collapse in
butter and cheese prices that occurred."

It ain't easy, and skyrocketing gas prices will soon be
making things a lot worse.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Soaring Gas Rates; Free Vegan Food

I filled up my van today and charged $50 to my
Citgo credit card. For me, that's a record! For
Americans, that's outrageous. For gas companies,
that's criminal.

Gas prices are soaring. That's no secret. My
adjustable rate mortgage is escalating out of
control. What few stocks I have in my Wall Street
portfolio are now bottom feeders and the market is
beginning its long anticipated slide. Here comes that
"I" word (inflation) and I don't even want to talk
about the price of red peppers in the supermarket;
over $3 per pound! Oh, yes...two daughters in
college and a third on the way, and how could I let
Lizzy down? (I purchased NJ Devils Stanley cup playoff
hockey tickets through the first two rounds).

I have no will power when it comes to balancing
my own budget or indulging my daughters, but when
opportunity presents itself by raining manna from
heaven, I go out into the night with my net and feast
on free vegan food.

Now, you can have that same opportunity.

My very dear friend Harshad Parekh has launched a
successful line of Vegan Indian chutneys, spices,
and instant gourmet meal mixes. Hs products are
sold in many of America's finest gourmet shops.

Now, you can have a sample of his culinary classics
at no cost. You only pay for the shipping and
handling. Go to his website and select 3 Simmer Sauces:

http://www.naturallyindia.com

Fill out the order form, and in a few days you'll be
feasting with Shah Jahan at his Taj Mahal.

I've cooked with these sauces. It's easy to become a
gourmet chef in one easy lesson. Here's how.

Sautee onions, garlic, cauliflower, and carrots in
one tablespoon of sunflower oil. Add chickpeas.
Add 1/4 cup of water and a tablespoon of any of the
three complimentary spice packages that you'll soon
receive in the mail. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve
on rice, preferably Basmati.

What's the catch? How can anybody give away free food?
There's an easy explanation. The stuff is addictive.
There. I gave away Harshad's secret. You'll soon be
buying his products by the case. What better way to
save money than to purchase wholesale directly from
the manufacturer? That's easy to answer. Take advantage
of the manufacturer's one-time free offer.

Which exotic simmer sauce packages do I recommend?
That's according to your taste, of course. If you like
hot and spicy, go for the grilled tofu curry (tikka masala)
with chili, grlic, fenugreek, (and other spices). If you
would like something milder, try the simmer sauce for creamy
veggie curry made with pistachio, saffron, cashew nuts, and
other exotic spices. Trust me. These are as good as they sound.
(All you pay is the $6 shipping charge).

For more information:

Harshad Parekh
Tel: 908-369-6300
Fax: 908-369-9300
Cell: 908-500-4996
http://www.naturallyindia.com
harshad@...

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Rehabilitating Patients with Notmilk

It is quite refreshing to find an anti-milk article
on a rehabilitation website. What a joy! The following
article is posted (right-side of page under Featured
Articles) at:

http://www.rehabedge.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Milk Can Kill by Elizabeth Noble, PT

Educate yourself and your patients that
milk does NOT do the body good!

When I started the SOWH in the mid-seventies,
osteoporosis was not the common, deadly disease
it is today (hip fractures are the 12th leading
course of death). As a student in Australia
during the decade before, osteoporosis was
diagnosed only after a fracture caused by
minimal trauma (e.g. falling from standing).
Bone mineral density (BMD) scans had not been
developed and I am not sure we were worse off
without them (more on that subject later).

To consider the consumption of dairy products as the
culprit, not the cure or prevention of osteoporosis is
to attack a very sacred cow for families, and also for
the Big Business of dairy products. And osteoporosis is
only part of the problem...

Those of us who have observed the food trays of
hospital inpatients can conclude that most dieticians,
despite 4 years of formal education, have not kept
current with the medical evidence. Exceptions include
Nancy Appleton, Building Better Bones (1990) who also
sells a test kit on her web site. Susan Brown is another
enlightened nutritionist who wrote Better Bones, Better
Bodies in 1996.

In 1992 Frank Oski, Jr., who was chief of Pedatrics at
Johns Hopkins wrote Don't Drink Your Milk: New Frightening
Medical Facts About the World?s Most Overrated Nutrient.
He had already linked milk consumption with juvenile
diabetes and claimed that at least 50% of all children in
the United States are allergic to milk, many undiagnosed,
suffering among other ailments, constipation, diarrhea,
and fatigue. Oski considered dairy products the leading
cause of food allergy and advised against drinking milk
or eating dairy products for all ages. Many cases of
asthma and sinus infections, he found, were eliminated
by cutting out dairy products.

Another, better known, pediatrician Benjamin Spock, in the
7th edition of his Child Care, admitted that "research has
forced us to rethink this recommendation...dairy products
contribute to a surprising number of health problems..."
Then in 1997 Robert Cohen, published Milk: The Deadly
Poison, an expose of Monsanto's greed in causing Bovine
Somatrotropin (BST-genetically engineered bovine growth
hormone or rbGH) to be added to America's milk supply
since 1994. Cohen created the Dairy Education Board in
the midnineties and one could spend days exploring the
extensive citations on his website: www.notmilk.com

To understand ailments ranging from cancer to childhood
obesity (many kids today even look bovine!) one must bear in
mind that cows and humans share the same hormone, insulin-
like growth factor, or IGF-1. Each sip of milk contains
that growth hormone. Both human and cow's milk contain
70 amino acids in identical sequence. The injection of
Monsanto's government-permitted poison into the cows
increases the growth hormone in each sip of milk by 80%.

In 1998, I picked up a French book by Anne Laroche-Walter:

Lait de Vache: Blancheur Trompeuse, which translates as
"Cow's milk: White Trickster". following a 1994 publication,
Ce Lait Qui Menace Les Femmes (This Milk that Threatens Women,
by D. Rapha Nogier, who describes how drinking milk influences
the preponderance of breast cancer. In 2001, Robert Cohen
published Milk: A-Z which is a book of cartoon illustrations
on the right-hand page, and medical citations for the
particular malady (e.g., asthma, zits) on the lefthand page.
I highly recommend this book for your waiting room since
patients can quickly look up an ailment. Children, always
the target of noxious advertising, will be entertained by
the drawings.

In 2003, THE MILK LETTER : A MESSAGE TO MY
PATIENTS was published in the Sunday New York Times
Magazine, October 6, 2002 by Robert M. Kradjian, MD,
Breast Surgery Chief, Division of General Surgery at
Seton Medical Centre in Daly City, CA. This comprehensive
review of the many dangers associated with milk consumption
appearing in a weekend newspaper indicated to me that the
topic had become mainstream. This information has been in
print for almost two decades yet uninformed and misinformed
health providers continue to tout the benefits of dairy
products!

While writing the third revision of my book, Having Twins
and More (with a large chapter on nutrition), I had more
conversations with my publisher's attorney concerning my
News for Milkaholics than any other topic in the book.
The publisher feared litigation since more than a dozen
states have a Agricultural Libel Law allowing prosecution
for disaparaging agricultural products. This growing
legislation was a result of the suit against Oprah
Winfrey by the Texas Cattlemen's Association after she
vowed on her TV show she would never eat another hamburger.
Of course, if one sticks to the medical evidence (and there
is plenty of it?and growing) there is no libel.

Latest to come along in 2005, is The Milk Imperative
(www.milkmperative.com) by Russell Eaton in the UK with 60
pages on how to make alternative milks from various nuts.
Eaton's contribution is a theory that bone-making cells
(osteoblasts) are eroded by too much exercise, dietary
calcium and Vitamin D. I have been puzzled for many years
by the evidence that greater bone density does not mean
less risk of osteoporosis. As a PT, I know that the BMD
scans do not measure collagen, muscle strength nor balance.
Fluoride, for example, makes bones denser but also more
brittle leading to more, not fewer fractures.

Dr. Steve Cummings and Dr. Warren Browner at California
Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco are researching
osteoprotegerin, a hormone involved in digesting the
calciumcontaining mineral of old bone in need of repair.
Perhaps it is be involved with or a marker for, vascular
calcification that leads to hardening of the arteries
and cardiovascular mortality. Cummings has pointed out
problems with BMD scans including inaccuracies and the
cavalier creation of the term 'osteopenia'. He also noted
that inability to rise from a chair without use of arms
equalled maternal history as a risk factor for a hip
fracture. Imagine if we could rise from a squat as we did
in childhood, and Asians still do? With far fewer osteo
and ortho problems as a result!

The latest 'study' I have read, I am ashamed to say, is
from my home country, Australia. Title: Calcium- and
Vitamin D3-Fortified Milk Reduces Bone Loss at Clinically
Relevant Skeletal Sites in Older Men: A 2-Year Randomized
Controlled Trial by Robin Daly, et al was published in
J Bone Miner Res, (March 2006;21:397-405).

I dispute their claim that a short-term increase in
bone density translates into a "nutritionally sound
strategy to reduce agerelated bone loss." It is the
long-term that is important. Furthermore, there are
many additional problems caused by lowfat milk that
were not addressed at all. (Farmers fatten their hogs
with low-fat milk, and humans consume more of it since
they feel they are safe from fat, but actually ingest
more calories from the carbohydrates!).

For ischemic heart disease, milk carbohydrates were
found to have the highest statistical association for
males aged 35+ and females aged 65+. In the case of
coronary heart disease, non-fat milk was found to have
the highest association for males aged 45+ and females
aged 75+, while for females 65-74, milk carbohydrates
and sugar had the highest associations. (Alternative
Medicine Review, 1998 Aug, 3:4). The Townsend Medical
Letter, Harvard School of Public Health, and Julian
Whitaker, MD have all admitted that milk causes many
health problems. Of course, if milk is a problem, then
cheese (12 pints are needed to make one pound) and
ice-cream (10 pints to make one pound) are worse for
being more concentrated.

Cow's milk is for calves. Humans need breast milk to
thrive, indeed they will develop 10 more IQ points.
The challenge is to create opportunities for American
mothers to breastfeed, especially while working, as
Scandinavia has done. Few epidemiologists take a history
of breastfeeding when looking at adult diseases; an
exception to this is the work of Michel Odent, MD, whose
database can be searched at www.birthworks.com

Most formula fed infants developed symptoms of allergic
rejection to cow milk proteins before one month of age.

About 50-70% experienced rashes or other skin symptoms,

50-60 percent gastrointestinal symptoms, and 20-30
percent respiratory symptoms. The recommended therapy
is to avoid cow's milk.

Epidemiological and Immunological Aspects of Cow's Milk
Protein Allergy and Intolerance in Infancy.
Pediatric-Allergy-Immunology, August, 1994, 5(5 Suppl.)

"Overall, about 75% of the world's population, including
25% of those in the U.S., lose their lactase enzymes
after weaning. Lactose malabsorption and lactase
deficiency are chronic organic pathologic conditions
characterized by abdominal pain and distention,
flatulence, and the passage of loose, watery stools.
Once correct diagnosis is established, introduction
of a lactose-free dietary regime relieves symptoms in
most patients...who remain largely unaware of the
relationship between food intake and symptoms."

Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, 1999 Apr, 28:3

More than 50 diseases have been linked to the
consumption of dairy products and lately there is much
interest in the fact that those who suffered a previous
heart attack are more likely to have osteoporosis than
those who did not report a heart attack.

The common link is harmful calcification that can
result from regular consumption of dairy products. Kidney
stones are another example, and most PTs have treated bone
spurs, tendinitis and bursitis, perhaps without
considering dietary causes. Breast and prostate cancer
are known to begin as microcalcifications. The role of
nanobacteria in such calcification is the latest theory
and summarized in The Calcium Bomb www.calciumbomb.com

The authors present research linking arthritis and heart
disease, and review the role of excess calcium in many
diseases, including osteoporosis. Nanobacteria are
postulated as the cause of the inflammation and although
tetracycline can destroy them, first their calcium
coating must be dissolved.

How can people, especially women, accept that they
probably have too much calcium (typically in the form of
dairy products) when they are being told on all sides to
add supplements as well?

The 12-year Harvard study of 78,000 adult women found
that those who drank milk three times a day actually
broke more bones than women who rarely drank milk. In
countries like the the US, Australia, Scandinavia and E
urope where dairy product consumption is among the
highest in the world, osteoporosis and fracture rates
are also among the highest. By the same token the
incidence is low among the Chinese and Japanese whose
traditional diets contain no dairy products at all.
(Sadly, that is changing, in Tokyo, I saw Haagen Dazs
ice cream for sale and bottled coffee milk in automats
on train station platforms). Prior to the US occupation
of Japan after the war, breast cancer was conspicuous
by its absence among the Japanese, but is now increasing
every year. The benefits of the Chinese diet were
revealed during the China-Cornell-Oxford project by
T. Colin Campbell. He grew up on a dairy farm, studied
veterinary science and thus had every reason to believe
that milk was 'Nature's perfect food' until his research
proved that wrong.

We eat more than we exercise, all of us. Thus while both
are important for health, diet (what we eat) and nutrition
(what we absorb) is critical. Our weapons of mass
destruction are the knife and fork!

According to the US Department of Agriculture, the average
American consumes more than 550 pounds of dairy products
annually; 40% of the diet and providing 52% of daily caloric
intake.

Sadly, our degenerative diseases are increasing in
developing countries as they copy our bad habits. I
personally have observed these changes since I first
travelled in Asia in the sixties. During my recent
travels in francophone West Africa, I Was dismayed by
large billboards on the dirt roads exhorting the
benefits of dairy products.The ads even depict boys
with more muscles, like some of the Milk Mustache
posters. However, noone in Africa received the $25,000
to pose with the white smear Like the US celebrities,
such as Donna Shalala who apparently didn't regard that
as a conflict of interest!)

In January of this year, an extensive study by the National
Institute for Research in Reproductive Health showed that
an estimated 61 million Indians suffer from osteoporosis.
The World Health Organization (WHO) states that one out
of eight males and one out of three females in India
suffer from osteoporosis. This has resulted from the
recent and dramatic increase in milk consumption in India;
it is the fastest growth market in the world in milk
production and consumption. What should we do about this
sacred cow?

Firstly, ask all patients about their diets in general,
and consumption of dairy products in particular. If you
are treating them for one of the 50 plus conditions
(see www.notmilk.com for an alphabetical list), then
suggest they give up all dairy products for a couple of
weeks. Not even a drop in tea or coffee! It is the bovine
proteins that are usually more troublesome than the lactose.

I found it strange that during the Mad Cow disease scare in
Europe that citizens drank the milk and other dairy products
of these cows, apparently unconcerned about the path those
prions might take!

Fortunately, in the USA today there are many milk
substitutes since most recipe, it seems, s call for a dairy
products. Soy milk sales are huge (and the dairy companies
are part of this growing market, too). Make sure you have
organic soy milk from non-genetically modified soybeans.
You can substitute rice milk, amasake (also made from rice)
and many other kinds of "milk" you can make yourself from
nuts. Or you can simply eat a healthy diet without dairy
products or their substitutes, as does the world's most
populous country (China) and my family. Bon appetit!

References:
Appleton, Nancy, Building Better Bones. Wayne, NJ: Avery, 1990.

Brown. Susan, Ph.D. Better Bones, Better Bodies. New Canaan, CT:
Keats,
1996.

Campbell, Colin T and Thomas M Campbell, II, The China
Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever

Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss

and Long-Term Health. Dallas,, TX: Benballa, 2005

Cohen, Robert. Milk A-Z Argus Publishing, PO Box 229,

Oradell, NJ 07649, (201-967-7001).2001
______________Milk: The Deadly Poison. Oradell, NJ: Argus,

1997.

Colbin, AnneMarie. Food and our Bones. New York: Plume, 1998.

____________ Food and Healing. Ballantine Books, NY1996. Cummings SR,
Nevitt MC, Browner WS, et al. Risk factors for hip fracture in white
women.
N Engl J Med 1995; 332: 767-773.

Eaton, Russell. The Milk Imperative. Deliveredonline.com,

2005 (www.milkimperative.com)

Kradjian, Robert M. The Milk Letter : A Message To My Patients.
Sunday New
York Times Magazine, October 6, 2002 Laroche-Walter, Anne. Lait de
Vache:
Blancheur Trompeuse, Geneva: Editions Jouvence, 1998.

Mulhall Douglas, and Katja Hansen. The Calcium Bomb, The

Writers Collective, Cranston, RI
Noble, E. Having Twins?and More, 3rd edition, Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Nogier,D. Rapha묬 Ce Lait Qui Menace Les Femmes, 28, rue

Comte-F鬩x-Gastaldi, Monaco: Editions du Rocher, 1994

Oski, Frank, M.D. Don?t Drink Your Milk: New Frightening

Medical Facts About the World?s Most Overrated Nutrient.

TEACH Services, Inc, Route 1, Box 182, Brushton, NY 12916.

1996.

Resources
http://www.birthworks.com/primalhealth/keywords.html (the

database of Michel Odent, MD

http://www.notmilk.com

http://www.calciumbomb.com

http://www.milkimperative.com

http://www.milksucks.com

http://www.nancyappleton.com



http://www.nutrition.cornell.edu/ChinaProject/

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, 5100
Wisconsin Ave. N.W.Suite 404, Washington, D.C. 20016. (202)
686-2210.Much good information about diseases caused by dairy
products can be found in their publication Good Medicine and
the books of Neal Barnard, MD, one of the founders.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Drinking Whiskey vs. Milkshakes

Casey Stengel once said:

"They say some of my stars drink whiskey, but I have
found that the ones who drink milkshakes don't win
many ball games."

A few years before I was born, Casey Stengel began his
tenure as manager of the New York Yankees. During a
twelve-year period that included my most impressionable
growing up years, Stengel won an unprecedented 10 pennants
out of 12 seasons and led my favorite baseball team to
five straight world championships.

Despite Stengel's opening quotation to this column, alcohol
has never enhanced athletic performance. There are anecdotes
suggesting two exceptions, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle, but
I shall forever remain sceptical regarding the suggestion
that pre-game-night drinking binges ever result in
superstar performances.

Alcohol is a drug, and drugs and sports just never mixed.
That is, until the most recent decades of drug-enhanced
athleticism. Today, one scandal after another has taken the
joy of sports away from many fans, and rightly so. Every
kid in my time wanted to grow up to be Mickey Mantle. Every
kid in my father's time wanted to grow up to be Babe Ruth.
How many kids in this 21st century want to inject steroids
into their bodies and become grotesque hormones creatures
like Barry Bonds or Jason Giambi or Mark McGwire? Humans
with arms like treetrunks? There will always be many who
stand ready to sacrifice health for glory, and that remains
the challenge for sports today. Shall we allow our children
to accept such a legacy? Before answering, take a look at
those steroid-induced treetrunks that other people call arms:

http://notmilk.com/graphics/mcgwire.jpg

Correct me if I am wrong, but has not the size of the above
steroid user's upper arm swelled larger in circumference
than his head? No human should look like that.

The above link represents the one occasion that America's
dairy industry participated in truth in advertising. Home
run hero Mark McGwire's grotesque body enabled him to
accomplish two things. One, hit a record number of home
runs. Two, sacrifice his boby to hormone-induced wear and
tear that pre-maturely ended his career and compromised
his future health. The same can be said for Barry Bonds
and his brittle knees. The same can be said for Jason
Giambi and his pituitary tumor.

Whiskey drinkers were occasional winners for Casey Stengel.
Milkshake drinkers were always losers, no doubt about it.
This column does not endorse the drinking of whiskey.
It dulls the senses and contributes nothing to athletic
performances of any sort.

Now for steroid hormones and milkshakes.

Endocrinologist Clark Grosvenor published a review of the
known hormones and growth factors in cow's milk ("Hormones
and Growth Factors in Milk,"Endocrine Reviews, volume 14,
number 6, 1992). Each sip of cow's milk includes pituitary,
hypothalamic, pancreatic, thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal,
gonadal, and gut hormones. The list does not include other
important milk factors such as prostaglandins and neuropeptides.

The milk shake may appear to be white and pure, but what
follows is a list of bioactive substances in milk taken
from Table One of Grosvenor's paper:

PITUITARY HORMONES (PRL, GH, TSH, FSH, LH, ACTH Oxytocin)

STEROID HORMONES (Estradiol, Estriol, Progesterone, Testosterone,
17-Ketosteroids, Corticosterone, Vitamin D)

HYPOTHALAMIC HORMONES (TRH, LHRH, Somatostatin, PRL- inhibiting
factor,PRL-releasing factor, GnRH, GRH)

GASTROINTESTINAL PEPTIDES (Vasoactive intestinal peptide,
Bombesin, Cholecystokinin,Gastrin, Gastrin inhibitory peptide,
Pancreatic peptide,Y peptide, Substance P, Neurotensin)

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

But Does He Pee on Fire Hydrants?

The following story can be found in today's Mumbai Mirror
newspaper. (Mumbai is the modern-day name for the city of
Bombay, India).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Orphan who grew on dog milk
Mumbai Mirror, April 15, 2006

24-yr-old was abandoned after his parents died
and was left with no choice

This is the story of an orphan in Bihar who took to
the company of dogs in childhood, even feeding on
their milk to satiate his hunger.

Chethru Mishra, now 24, used to feed on the milk of
bitches as a child and the habit continues till date,
reported the local Hindi paper Aaj.

"He has grown up on the milk of a bitch and still
drinks it," says a villager.

Chethru, who lives with dogs, is a resident of Sahiyara
village, Sitamarhi district.

It all began when his mother died a few days after his
birth and his father, a labourer, was unable to provide
cow's milk due to lack of money. His father would leave
him and go away to work in the fields.

So Chethru began to spend more and more time with dogs,
playing, sleeping and even eating in their company. "When
puppies were fed by bitches, he would also drink their milk,"
a villager was quoted as saying.

His father too died when he was barely six-years-old and
his uncle failed to provide for him. So his strange
friendship with dogs grew.

Even today, Chetru lives like a vagabond. He visits the local
police station daily to collect some food and mostly speaks
only when he is hungry.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Does the above story disgust you?
There are approximately 4,700 different mammalian species
in the animal kingdom.
Would a similar story of a human growing up on
bear milk or cat's or pig's milk be equally disgusting?
Probably.

One could apply a similar revulsion to 4,699 other species,
but when it comes to cows, most educated people (doctors,
nutritionists, dietitians, school teachers) adamantly
argue great nutrition and great taste.

What part of logic and wisdom do adult humans
sacrifice as a result of childhood manipulations?
Mammals possessing lesser brains can only scratch
their heads in wonder...

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

"Houston, We've Got a Problem"
-Apollo 13 Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert

That single sentence struck fear in the hearts
of NASA engineers thirty-six years ago. Today,
we are faced with more than a problem in Houston.
We've got a challenge. One small step for the
dairy industry. One giant leap for vegan-kind.

I will not be able to make it to Houston this week,
but perhaps a passionate Notmilk reader or activist
is able to step up to the plate. Here's the story...

The deceptive scoundrels who have brought to America
the "Milk helps you to lose weight" lie will be
visiting a Houston supermarket on Monday,
April 17th from 11 AM until 1 PM.

Food Town Supermarket
8800 West Sam Houston Parkway South
Houston, Texas

The dairy industry is conducting the Texas version
of their "Great American Weight Loss Challenge."
Houston is just one of seventy-five American cities
which the milk producers plan to invade with their
untruthful propaganda.

Perhaps one or more of you can meet them and make a
major statement or a minor demonstration. Call the media!

Milk was designed to help infants experience rapid
weight gain. Does it make any sense that a substance
rich in calories, saturated fat, and naturally occurring
growth hormones would represent a miracle weight loss cure?

Before answering that question, let's look at a June,
2005 publication in the journal Archives of Pediatrics
& Adolescent Medicine (2005;159:511).

The study of 12,829 American children determined that those
who consumed more than three servings of milk per day were
35 percent more likely to become overweight than those who
drank little or no milk.

So...Houston activists unite! Vegetarian groups, animal
rights groups, activists for just plain sanity. Get to
the dairy demo and demonstrate, please.

Make a flyer:

In 1967, the skinniest English model became all the rage
in America. She could have been a model for string bean
growers. She was a walking advertisement for anorexia and
her name was Twiggy.

Dairy diet for Miss Twiggy?
Soon she'll resemble our Miss Piggy!

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

One Man's Death

I am currently spending my evenings with "Truman," a
meticulously researched biography written by David
McCullough. I am midway through the 992-page tome,
and already it is one of the most magnificent books
I have ever read. Last night, I marked a page (420)
that contained a quotation worthy of sharing.

The year was 1945 and the Germans had surrendered. In a
few days, Harry Truman would make the decision to drop
nuclear bombs on Japan. Truman, Churchill, and Stalin were
meeting at Potsdam. Churchill had discussed the needless
loss of tens of thousands of allied soldiers during one
particular campaign, and Stalin responded, "When one man
dies it is a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics."

In 2006, more than 234,000 American men will be diagnosed
with prostate cancer. That's statistics.

The very passionate Notmilk webmaster (my fellow warrior),
Dave Rietz, lost his life due to prostate cancer. That was
a tragedy.

One out of every 544 Americans has been diagnosed with Crohn's
Disease. That represents over 500,000 Americans. That's stats.

In the late eighties, my good friend (Richard Grubman) died
from Crohn's Disease. He left his two sons (Michael and Ethan)
without a father and his wife (Nadine) without a husband. That
was a tragedy.

There are over 250,000 journals in this world and each year
tens of millions of papers are peer-reviewed and published.
There is enormous evidence of dairy's link to both cancer
and Crohn's Disease. But with a preponderance of existing
literature, one would do better sifting through sands on a
beach on a hot summer's day in search of a perfect silicon
crystal than progress through the so-called "literature"
seeking definitive solutions to any single problem. That
quandary represents both statistics and tragedy.

Dairy & Cancer:  http://www.notmilk.com/b.html
Dairy & Crohn's: http://www.notmilk.com/c.html

Having been made aware of the above, one can neither
forgive nor forget the criminal acts and unethical
intentions of America's dairy industry. Dairy's top
scientists and administrators are aware of the facts
and expend enormous resources creating and marketing
sham studies to fill sham journals in order to confuse
consumers. Phony dairy industry statistics have become
a major component of the tragedy of one man's death.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Parting The Red Sea

During the course of one's life, an individual often
faces seemingly impossible obstacles. Moments of truth.

More often than not, at that moment of challenge and need,
a person stands alone. It is something more than the love
of a deity that gifts a person with the ability to perform
miracles. What is required at such moments is the love of
oneself and the strength of one's convictions.

This evening (April 12, 2006) is a day of celebration for
the Jewish people. We take time to reflect upon our past
and future. Four questions are asked during our evening
sedar, the first of which is "Why is this night different
from all other nights?" There are many answers, of course,
but the answer most often given is that we were once
slaves to tyranny. Tonight is a night to ask questions
and seek answers. Tonight is a night to pledge to no
longer be a slave to scenarios which rob men and women of
their freedoms.

I receive more than one thousand emails each day, one of
which usually includes a variation upon the same theme
of the following question:

"As a Jew, how do you come to terms with God's promise
to Moses to deliver him to a land flowing with milk
and honey?"

One must consider the sweetness of freedom.

In the Old Testament, Moses was promised a "Land flowing
with milk and honey." Egyptian Jews were in slavery.
First-born infants were put to death. Exodus represented
a promise. A world in which milk flowed from breast-feeding
mothers who would often nurture their children, one from
each breast, with the sweetness of freedom.

Upon reaching their 13th birthdays, Jewish boys and
girls read a passage from the Torah (5 books of Moses)
in front of their congregations, in celebration of that
day in which they become adults. On that date, a boy
will celebrate his Bar Mitzvah and a girl will celebrate
her Bat Mitzvah. Many people understand the word Mitzvah
to mean a good deed. Actually, the literal translation
of "mitzvah" is "commandment." A male Bar Mitzvah is a
"son of commandment" while a female Bat Mitzvah is a
"daughter of commandment." It is, then, our duty to perform
good deeds. Ws are thus commanded.

Tonight, I will envision the scene of Charleton Heston
playing Moses parting the Red Sea in Cecil B. DeMille's
50-year-old classic, The Ten Commandments. Tonight I will
reaffirm my committment to continue to perform as many
good deeds as can be performed. I may never succeed in
my personal Notmilk version of parting the Red Sea, but
my future failure or success will not result from a lack
of trying.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Jerry Seinfeld on Milk & Pizza

The Jerry Seinfeld show was one of the most
sucessful sitcoms in television history.
Jerry's milk comments:
________________________________________________

Jerry Seinfeld (to kids):

Hey, look at those large animals in the field!
Let's go squeeze those things underneath them
and then drink whatever comes out. Then, let's
take whatever's left over, put it aside for a
year or so and - eat it!

Kids:
Eeeeew!
________________________________________________

Jerry:

Isn't it weird that we drink milk, stuff
designed to nourish baby cows? How did THAT
happen? Did some cattleman once say, "Oh,
man, I can't wait till them calves are done
so I can get ME a hit of that stuff."
________________________________________________

Jerry:
Is that it? Ice cream?

George:
Thirty-nine years I enjoy my milk
products, and now I can only pray for
proper digestion. I'm an old man...

Jerry:
An old and bloated man. Lactose intolerance,
the milk-lover's Wile E. Coyote!

George:
Beep beep.

Kramer:
I sorta like that full feeling. You
know, they oughta make foods with a
whole lotta lactose. Pepperoni-and-
lactose pizza, lactose sprinkles,
stuff like that.

George:
Are you insane?!

Jerry:
Jury's still out on that one. Speaking
of food, you guys are invited to a
barbecue thrown by Elaine and her
new boyfriend.

George:
As long as he's not a dairy farmer.
One look at those cows and I'm musical.

Kramer:
Hey, there's a group for you people, you
know. It's called, uh... Lactose
Intolerants Anonymous. Yeah, that's it.

George:
Really?

Kramer:
The L.I.A.
A whole bunch of 'em, they meet every week
in that little church on Fifty-Second.

Jerry:
Sixty cramping people in one tiny
room, now there's a situation.
________________________________________________

Jerry:

Ever have milk the day after? It scares
the hell out of you.
________________________________________________

George:

That's okay. That's good. You think Louie
Pasteur and his wife had anything in common?
He was in the fields all day with the cows,
you know with the milk, examining the milk,
delving into milk, consumed with milk.
Pasteurization, homogenization...
________________________________________________

Kramer: (to George)

But what tempts you? You're a portly fellow.
A bit long in the waistband. So what's your
pleasure? Is it the salty snacks you crave?
No no no no...Yours is a sweet tooth. Oh, you
may stray, but you'll always return to your dark
master...The cocoa bean! And only the purest
syrup nectar can satisfy you. If you could, you'd
guzzle it by the gallon...Ovaltine!? Hershey's!?
Nestle's Quick!?
________________________________________________

Seinfeld's routine as performed on the David
Letterman show:

Jerry Seinfeld: "I'll tell you what I like about that
mad cow disease...I like the fact that we're attempting
to blame it on the cows! They are crazy! They are nuts!
These cows are out of their minds! Of course the cows are
thinking 'Oh yeah? You're drinking me, you're eating me,
you're wearing me, you're sneaking up on me and tipping
me over.' Yeah, and I'M a little off mentally? That's why
we're mad! Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe we'll eat a little
less.

Everyone in this room is trying to lose a little weight.
A little..something. Everyone's trying to lose something.
And not one of you is doing it. I'm not doing it. No one is
doing it. Not one person is losing weight! Not one! Do you
think that a possible explanation could be that we are still
trying to find ways to stuff MORE CHEESE into A PIECE OF
PIZZA?! We've hollowed out the crust. We hollowed out the
crust about 3 years ago. Now we're double-layering the
foundation. I understand they have a new thing coming out...
They will actually bake your head right into the pizza!
Pizza Hut. It's called 'Hey Pizza-Face.' And you wear the
pizza and attempt to eat your way out of it."

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Tiny Predatory Dairy Bugs

Many dairy farmers participate in the cruel and barbaric
practice of cutting off cow's tails, preferring not to be
lashed with feces-dipped whips. How then, do cows protect
themselves from the painful bites of winged insects who
find such bovine nether-regions so delightful?

I have long been a critic of dangerous pesticides applied
to the bodies of cattle to rid them of flies. I recently
came across a high-tech, sci-fi solution to natural pests.

Fly Predators.

Some dairy farmers now use tiny Hymenopteran insects of
the Chalcididae family, a group containing many of the
worlds beneficial insects.

A California company (Spalding Labs) breeds, markets, and
distributes multiple species of tiny wasps that invade a
yet-to be born fly. Purchase those wasps and soon after the
fly lays her eggs, the Predators invade and then dine on the
developing fly pupa. Fly Predator is a trade name, owned by
Spalding. The list of Fly Predators includes various species
of tiny wasp. One sounds like a daily lunch special at Mario
Batali's acclaimed NYC restaurant, Babbo. Spalangia cameroni,
anyone? Another species of Fly Predator would scare the
vestigial arms off of a Spielberg Juraissic Rex, Muscidifurax
raptorellus.

If you own a 1,000-cow farm, the cost of purchasing nice bugs
for your farm is only $1.15 per month per cow. Spalding's claim:

"For most dairies, 1,000 Fly Predators per cow per month
provides excellent control."

The good news: These tiny wasps do not in any way bother
humans or cows. Their target is the fly pupa. I wonder,
though. Do these litte bugs also feast upon bee pupa?
What happens on 3,000 cow farms when millions of Predators
are ordered and released into the environment at one time?
Unless the Predators are shipped with tiny leashes, what
other beneficial insects might these creatures be
destroying?

Where have you gone, Stephen Jay Gould, a nation turns its
lonely eyest to you (woo, woo, woo).

To order Fly Predators, call: 1-800-560-1638
(ad code # 487)

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Presidential Milk Lies

Bill Clinton was president of the United States
in November of 1993. At that time, the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) was experiencing the
greatest drug approval controversy in its history.

Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth
hormone (rbGH) was about to be approved. The new age
of biotechnology was dawning and President Clinton
was called upon to pay a favor to Monsanto.

During the controversy, even dairy farmers were
worried that more milk resulting from Monsanto's
rbGH hormone (Posilac) would hurt their business.
Wisconsin dairy farmers spearheaded the protests,
led by Pete Hardin, the editor of a monthly
publication called The Milkweed. See:

http://www.themilkweed.com

Although FDA approved rbGH in November, 1993,
Clinton's White House placed a moratorium on
its use so that a three-month Presidential review
and commentary could be made. On February 1, 2004,
the Clinton Administration issued their White
House Report. That report reached eleven conclusions,
each of which was significantly flawed. Conclusion
number two is now coming back to haunt many of
America's dairymen.

Conclusion Number Two:

"Income for individual farmers who use rbGH is likely
to increase because rbGH favors good herd management."

Today, in 2006, milk production is at an all-time
high due to the use of rbGH. Wholesale milk prices
are at an all-time low. Isn't capitalism based upon
a supply and demand formula? When supply is high and
demand is low, prices will remain low. In a market
in which milk demand has been shrinking every year
for the past twelve years, without exception, why
would milk manufacturers want to produce more milk?

Would the White House lie be swallowed, hook, line,
and stinker?

Apparently, the bigger the lie, the greater is the
belief of the citizenry. For the small dairy farmer,
rbGH represents the most powerful weapon of mass
destruction in dairy history.

Recent articles spanning America:

FLORIDA: "Dairy Farmers Sour About Milk Prices"

<http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20060328/BUSINESS/603280575 >

Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/h5uxx

MISSOURI: "Milk Supply Hurts Prices"

<http://www.localnewsleader.com/elytimes/stories/index.php?
action=fullnews&id=163837 >

Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/rhk7d

This is the story for dairy farmers all across America.
Dairymen are suffering. Historically high government
subsidies in the form of sociaolized welfare will not
be enough to bail them out.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Some Say Heroic; I Say Pathetic

Here we go again. Phase two of: The Meatrix. See:

http://www.meatrix2.com

In November of 2003, I became one of many millions of
Internet viewers to watch the Meatrix cartoon...

...but the lone voice who criticized that universally
acclaimed movie as a betrayal to animals and vegetarian
ideals.

That so-called animal-friendly film (it was not) fooled
PETA, Farm Sanctuary and countless other vegetarian
organizations which listed links to the film front
and center on their websites. PETA and Farm Sanctuary
went so far as to promote the film to raise funds
that ultimately betrayed animals due to the passage
of compassionate slaughter laws.

There is no such thing as compassionate slaughter.
The concept of compassionate killing is a delusion.
Not-so in Treblinka. Not in Auschwitz. Not in any of
America's slaughterhouses.

After doing a bit of research, I discovered who was
really behind the production of the original Meatrix
film. I wrote the following on November 6, 2003:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vegetarian Message? Not!

So what if MEATRIX is about eating meat...Do these
once-compassionate orgs give a damn? Apparently not.

Who is behind this cleverly-made non-vegetarian movie
which demonstrates how easy it is to fool most of the
people, most of the time?

A list of the consultants who contributed to the MEATRIX:

Chris Petersen - Factory Farm Consultant
Chris is a pork producer in North Central Iowa
who raises pigs for ham and bacon.

Leslie Seff - Director, Sustainable Energy Project
Leslie raises sheep for their wool in New York's
Hudson Valley.

Terry Spence - Factory Farm Consultant
Terry owns and operates a 400-acre, beef cow/calf
farm in Putnam County, Missouri.

Lisa Bechthold - Factory Farm Consultant
Lisa Bechthold raises and sells quarter horses
on her farm in Foremost, Alberta, Canada.

Sue Jarrett - Factory Farm Consultant
Sue is a California rancher who raises beef for
fast food restaurants. Before slaughter, she sends
her cattle to feedlots to be fattened on corn.

Have you yet to grasp the true nature of the MEATRIX,
and those who have chosen to support and promote it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In April of 2006, Meatrix-2 hit the World Wide Web.

This time around, there is no mistaking the intentions
of meat and milk producing propagandists.

In the initial scene, a voice over informs viewers:

"In the past two years, we've freed over 10 million minds
from the Meatrix. People are waking up to where their food
comes from and are starting to buy healthier sustainable
animal products. You've done well, Leo."

As the voice over plays, cartoons are shown of consumers
purchasing "grass fed" slices of cow, "pasture-raised"
cartons of eggs, whatever they might be, and "organic"
containers of milk.

Don't be fooled this time around as most naive animal
rights do-gooders were fooled in 2003. The Meatrix-2 is
a propaganda film that intends to have viewers eat meat
and eggs and drink milk from so-called compassionate
farm operations. Show me a photograph of the compassionate
executioner. There is just no such animal.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Milk and Parkinson's Disease

The Notmilk letter has previously reported a link between
dairy consumption and Parkinson's Disease, citing these
two scientific links from peer-reviewed journals:

"These results suggest that lactotransferrin may
participate actively in the mechanism of neuronal
degeneration in Parkinson's disease."

Acta Neuropathology, 1996;91(6):566-72.

"According to these findings, disruption in the expression
of these proteins in the brain is probably one of the
important causes of the altered brain iron metabolism in
age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including
Parkinson's Disease..."

Brain Research Review, 1998 Aug;27(3):257-67.

Today's story, published in a Pakistani newspaper,
adds fuel to the hypothesis that dairy consumption
might be the cause of Parkinson's. I wonder why such
studies are rarely published in American newspapers.
Got dairy dollars for milk ad conflicts?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Drinking Milk May Raise Parkinson's Risk in Men
Friday April 07, 2006 (1340 PST)

ISLAMABAD: Middle-aged men who drink a glass or two of
milk each day may be increasing their risk of developing
Parkinson's disease later in life, new research suggests.

The ingredient or possible contaminant in milk responsible
for this effect is unclear, but the current findings suggest
it's not the calcium. The new findings, which appear in the
medical journal Neurology, support those of an earlier report
linking high consumption of dairy products with an elevated
risk of Parkinson's disease among men, but not women.

The current study involved 7504 men, who were enrolled in
the Honolulu Heart Program between 45 and 68 years of age
and followed for 30 years for the development of Parkinson's
disease.

Dietary intake for all subjects was recorded when the study
began in the late 1960s. A total of 128 participants developed
Parkinson's disease during follow-up, Dr. R. D. Abbott, from
the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville,
and colleagues note. The risk of Parkinson's disease increased
as the amount of milk consumed each day rose.

The final statistical analysis showed that heavy milk drinkers
were 2.3-times more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than
non-milk drinkers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

My AR Lecture & The Art of Public Speaking

Two things about lectures (when I am in the audience)
that I abhor. The first, is having to listen to a
speaker who reads from his or her notes. In such
instances, a talk's cadence suffers, the credibility
factor is inversely proportional to the boredom factor.
Nobody wants to listen to a dull talk from somebody
reading a notes that could easily have been read by
the speaker's grandmother or nephew.

The second thing I dislike about listening to a talk
is the one given by a lecturer using a slide show
presentation to get across his point, or to be more
specific, his Power Point high-tech sleep inducer.
Particularly those slide show presentations which
consist of outlined key-word discourses. I am yawning
as I type this, remembering some awful talks by
unskilled lecturers. In the audience, you might hear
my snores.

Many of the best animal rights lecturers and teachers
share the same enthusiasm for speaking as I do. In
closed circles, we often refer to the microphone as
the "world's most powerful aphrodisiac."

Today, I am sharing with you a talk that I gave at
an animal rights convention. It is an extremely rare
day that you will see me approach a lecturn holding
notes in my hand. I am usually well prepared with
my subject matter of the day.

At the 2002 Animal Rights 2002 conference in
Washington, D.C., I was given the opportunity to
address 700-800 activists. I approached the podium
with mixed feelings. I was emotional, and many
themes ran through my head, but there was a film
crew finishing up the fourth day of their NotMilk
documentary, so I tempered my temper. I had no
idea exactly what I would say, or how I would
communicate my sentiments.
____________________________________________________
NOTE: A talk is delivered in a different style than a
written essay. There are errors that I would have
liked to edit, but here follows a verbatim transcript.
My June, 2002 talk:
____________________________________________________

Tonight, we're talking about turning compassion into
action, and I want to change the terminology a bit.

I want to warn us all about turning passion into
inaction, because I've seen too much of it.

Two years ago, before the 2000 election cycle, I was lucky
enough - it's a real big ego boost, to have three hundred
dairy farmers give the NotMilkman a standing ovation, and
that's what happened when I lectured in Washington with
Ralph Nader about genetic engineering and biotechnology -
taking an anti-stance to farmers who are also against
genetic engineering.

Imagine...if I go to a meat producer's conference, you
are never going to have me applaud a cheesehead, it just
isn't ever going to happen. I will sit in the audience
and maybe be the only one sitting there not applauding
whatever they have to say. I am anti-milk one hundred
percent, and the abuse that occurs to these animals.

Last night, I had a very interesting perspective because
I sat right next to Lorraine who is from the other side,
and next to a man, Dan Murphy, who is the editor of a
pro-meat magazine. I love to play poker. I'm a good poker
player because I watch people's faces, and over the course
of an evening's play, I watch tells, I watch faces, I
watch eyes, I watch fingers, I observe tapping on the table,
and blinking, and I know what they're holding by the end of
the evening.

I watched the man very carefully. When he applauded, they
applauded. He was the leader of the group. When he smiled,
they smiled, and there's two things that really disturb me.
One is...were you here to hear Ingrid Newkirk's speech? It
was magnificent (APPLAUSE). It was the single best speech
that I have ever heard in my life. As a matter of fact, it
is the only time that I've gone and bought somebody's tape
(LAUGHTER) this morning. It's worth sharing with
somebody--a great speech.

But what disturbed me was this man gave her a standing
ovation. He stood and applauded...with enthusiasm. And
earlier in the evening, we got some questions to ask,
and this has to be a defining moment in our movement.

His answer. One word answer. Do you know what he said
to the question? He said "yes," and the question was
"Are you guys producing more meat for consumption?"
Isn't that disturbing? The answer is yes. Does that mean
that something that we're doing is not working?

I left the previous year's AR-2001 with a great amount of
emotion, with mixed feelings because, on one hand, everybody
stood and applauded after a Wendy's demonstration in when one
man was arrested. This man made a movie about pigs and it was
wonderful. It was a magnificent feeling, and shortly thereafter
Wendy's changed their policy thanks to the People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals and others and our actions.
Wendy's announced that they were going to support more
compassionate raising of chickens. (APPLAUSE)

For God sakes, these poor birds are allotted eight by eight
inches of floor area, and PETA got a great victory. They
gave them 8 and a half by 8 and a half.  Now come on, that's
not a victory to me. Is that a victory to you? (APPLAUSE)

As Ingrid spoke last night, and I sat in the front row,
and I was watching these people...I imagined...I love Ingrid,
I really love Ingrid. Her book, Free The Animals was an
enormous inspiration. That's why I'm here tonight. That's
why I rescued my dog. That's why I am writing about animal
rights issues, and it's why I do from five o'clock in the
morning until midnight or later, seven days a week.

That's why I do what I do, researching the lies that come
from the other side. But, boy, oh boy, I just for a second-
just imagined after Ingrid spoke, and we were applauding, I
imagined a pig following, and coming up, and putting his
forelegs up here and saying..."But I'm still going to die."

Compassionate slaughter? I reject compassionate slaughter.
I hate compassionate slaughter. I had an Internet chat with
a woman of Islamic faith who said to me,

    "Allah is perfect. We have Halal slaughter, and we
     measure their pain, and there is no pain. These
     animals feel no pain. They die. Allah is perfect.
     He wouldn't allow the pain. These animals die."

If you think that they don't have pain - if you think
that we're going to lobby Congress and get them to pass
laws, what are the laws accomplishing? They're telling
Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Jones that it's okay to eat meat.
I reject Ingrid's statement that we have to go from
A to R and then from R to Z. (APPLAUSE)

We're telling them that eating meat is cool, and you
know what else? Our own movement - I'm looking at
vegetarian web sites and vegetarian newsletters and
vegetarian magazines and newspapers and I'm reading
articles that say we have to get the calcium, that
meat eaters have better bone density than vegetarians.

When I look at the studies, I know what phonies they are.
My life's work. I used to do research. I ran a lab. I've
held death in my hands. I know how to read scientific studies.
I taught statistics. I know how to work with the numbers.
I get the original studies. I look at their faces. I talk
to scientists. I know how flawed these studies are.

In 1997, the Journal of the American Medical Association
hosted a nutritional conference, a conference that was
sponsored by, guess who? The dairy industry. And in 1998,
Peter Holt's September 23rd - go to the library and look
this study up - September 23 in JAMA. Peter Holt did a study
about colon cancer, and said that people who eat low fat
cheese don't get colon cancer, and what did he do? He
measured over a five year period - he gave free low fat
cheese to people over a five year period and there was a
tiny - not even a statistical difference that was
significant. A millimeter of growth more for the people
who didn't eat the cheese. A millimeter of cellular
proliferation, and the dairy industry has been using that,
since the study was published in 1998 to say that drinking
milk prevents colon cancer.

I went to one of the junior authors of that study and said
"What happened between 1995 when the study ended and 1998,"
and I learned that the people who actually ate the cheese
got the colon cancer.

That issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association
contains one of the great commentaries. That's really comedy,
and not science, because the cellular proliferation AND GROWTH -
an additional doctor wrote an editorial called "Proliferation
Happens," like shit happens, criticizing that study. You can
get the article. They knew it was a fraudulent study, and nobody
else in America reported it. When I saw the study - you know how
I learned about it? Reading the press releases put out by the
dairy industry learning that they had a press conference set for
the Plaza Hotel in New York, and that week every newspaper in
America reported: "Drinking milk prevents colon cancer."

TVs and radios and magazines repeated...and I went on
the New York stations and said "The study was a fraud."
I got in the way of them to show that it was exactly
the opposite. And study after study, that's what these
people do.

Recently, I wrote about a study in Denmark, Annette
Hjartaker, breast cancer - saying that drinking milk as
a child prevents breast cancer. This study was so
significantly flawed, and people within our own movement
have been attacking me for it, I don't know where this is
coming from, and there's something wrong. We're getting
the message that you've got to have Vitamin B-12.
That being a vegan does not work. You're not healthy if
you don't get Vitamin B-12 which comes from rendered animal
intestines from the bacteria that grow within. You're flawed
if you don't take calcium pills. We're not getting
enough calcium, we're not getting enough protein. Something's
wrong.

They're giving us a message that being vegetarian or vegan is
not healthy. Our own people. You see somebody giving you that
advice, that being a vegan does not stand on its own, go into
your organic garden and pick a carrot and you're going to get
all the Vitamin B-12 you need. Doctors take your vitamin
B-12 measurements from your bloodstream when it's stored
in the liver, not in the bloodstream.

And they say you have very low levels of Vitamin B-12 compared
to meat eaters. You shouldn't have any, according to their
theory. You've got to take these pills? That's not the way it
works.

When we get organizations that tell us that we are going
to get these animals slaughtered compassionately, I scratch
my head and I wonder, and I ask everybody the same
damned question:

"Is there too much violence on television? Tell me,
is there? (THE AUDIENCE SCREAMS A COLLECTIVE "YES.")

Geez, you're all wrong. No! There's not enough violence
on television, because when we see somebody die, bang,
you're dead, they fall over, that's it, in real life,
ouch, it hurts. Ouch, it hurts for a long time. It takes
ten minutes to die, and during that period, twenty square
feet are filled with blood.

I want people to see that. I want people to see
un-compassionate slaughter. I want them to see what it's
really like. That's our responsibility. Our responsibility
is to take this message. More people are eating meat, and
what we're doing isn't working.

So, take that compassion and turn it into passion and let
the world know that we don't believe in compassionate slaughter.
We don't believe in any slaughter. These animals are dying,
partially, because of some of our misdirected efforts. We've
got to make the effort to say that no animal deserves to die.

Buy two books today. One is Eternal Treblinka, which will
have you crying, and the other is Ingrid's Free the Animals,
and get Ingrid to get back to the original message. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE-Audience stands)

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Squeezing Udders Until It Hurts

Dairy farmers across America are being squeezed so that
the pain is getting worse, and who is doing the squeezing?

Themselves!

When prices decrease, suppliers should decrease
their inventory. Increasing inventory will lower
prices even more unless demand is increased. That's
economics 101. In today's economic model, prices
are decreaseing. Demand is decreasing. Production
is increasing. That's a model for economic disaster.

This past week, milk prices continued their free-fall
tumble because of oversupply and lower demand.

The Class III price dropped over $1.00, from $12.20
per 100 pounds produced to just $11.11, according
to the United States Department of Agriculture.

In 1960, the average cow produced just 8 quarts of milk
per day. In 1860, it was just one quart per day. Today's
milk production is unnatural, and utters are hurting
as a result.

When the price goes down, farmers turn to different
dairy management tools to squeeze out all of the milk
that they can from their hurting cows. Get ready for
more Posilac (genetically engineered bovine growth
hormone) in all milk and dairy products. Your oncologist
is patient because more milk hormones represent
future patients.

We enjoy taking responsibility for lower demand, although
credit must be given to the geniuses who design stupid
milk mustache ads that the public rejects for their
level of unbelievabity. Imagine, drinking milk and
eating cheese and ice cream makes consumers skinny. LOL

How do we translate the wholesale price of $11.11 that
a dairy farmer receives to the public which is unaware
of how a dairy farm works?

A few years ago, before the approval of the genetically
engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH), farmers were getting
$15 or more for their hundred pounds of milk. In some
areas, the price reached as high as $18 per hundred pounds.

Let's use the $15 number to illustrate loss of income in 2006
dollars.

A 1000-cow farm generates 50,000 pounds of milk per day,
on average. That 50,000 pounds of milk represent 500
hundredweights. Remember, a farmer is paid by the hundredweight.
So, before rbGH approval, a farmer grossed $7,500 for his
daily milk output. That's $2,737,500 per year. Not bad.

Today, that same milk production produces $5,555 per
hundred weight. That's $2,027,575.

Today, we have a yearly loss of $709,925 to the average
1000-cow dairy farmer.

What is a dairyman to do? Produce more milk? Go out
of business? Shut his farm and sell out to real estate
developers? Grow soybeans? Stay tuned. Our hard work
is paying off and that motivates us to work harder.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Milk and Medicine

When I was a young schoolboy, I was blessed to have
parents who were wise to fill our home with books.
Every Time-Life series, from cooking to science to
geography to history occupied hallowed positions on
shelves in our den. Dad even bought the Great Books
series, many of which (but not yet all) I have read.

My most often-used books were the 20 volume set of
the World Book Encyclopedia. We owned the 1964
edition, and it now sits on a shelf in my own den.
With today's World Wide Web, such books have become
almost obsolete. By the time it takes to compile,
write, and publish an encyclopedia series, new news
has become old news. It has been a rare paper that
required my daughters to access World Book articles,
preferring to seacrh for information by asking
questions of Jeeves or performing Google searches.

Yesterday, I was curious and opened Volume 13 of my
World Book, the letter M. I wanted to see what the
editors thought about milk in the early-1960s. As I
skimmed through the book, I first opened to another
"M" subject, Meat Carving, which I quickly passed
There may be more than one way to skin a calf, but
I have no need nor desire to know such things.

I then flipped to Medicine. Time often morphs historic
facts into absurd comedy. For example:

Page 305: "A doctor's day is long and busy...he
makes house calls, treating patients in their homes...
if he is lucky, the doctor goes to bed about midnight.
House calls may take much of the doctor's time."

Page 306: "The average yearly income for doctors in
the United States and Canada is $13,000...specialists
in large cities may earn more than $20,000."

Oh, how times have changed in just 42 years! What
would the 1964 World Book say about milk?

Page 460: "Milk is often called the most nearly perfect
food...Milk contains all the nutrients that we need for
growth and good health...other foods contain these same
nutrients but only milk has these elements in such
amounts that they can work as a team.

Page 461: "California cows average the highest milk
production in the United States, more than 4,600
quarts per year. (NOTE: The average California cow in
2006 will produce over 12,000 quarts of milk.)

Somehow, while we were not paying attention, doctors
changed.

Somehow, while we were not paying attention, cows
changed too. Today, Holsteins might share the same
genus and species names as those 1964 cows, but they
are entirely different creatures. Today their milk
naturally contains more hormones. Today, they weigh
fifty to one-hundred percent more than they did in
1964. Today, their udders often drag on the feces
and urine soaked earth and become ulcerated with
mastitis, unlike their 1964 bovine ancestors.

What changes will we experience in another two
generations? The 2048 World Book, letter M:

Meat Carving: A tradition practiced by Neanderthals
of the late 20th and early 21st centuries...

Medical Doctors: A career made obselete by
present-day focus upon nutrition as the preventive
and cure-all method of achieving good health.

Milk: Like cigarettes, a product once enjoyed
by Americans before it became universally accepted
as the cause of cancers, bone and heart disease.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Fifteen Categories of Cancer-Fighting Plant Chemicals

In 1991, University of Minnesota Researchers categorized
fifteen classes of phytochemicals in fruits and veggies
that have been identified as cancer-fighting agents.

Typically, each single fruits or vegetable contains one
or two of these "magic" substances, but researchers have
identified one of natures food's which contains an
astounding eleven out of fifteen! Got Soy?

To be negative about soy is to criticize everything good
about the wide range benefits derived from the plant
kingdom. The perfect food is the unfairly-criticized soy.
What's next on the nitpicking nitwit critic list, water?

The fifteen categories:

Allium (includes onions, garlic, leeks, chives)
Coumarin (SOY, vegetables and citrus fruits)
Dithiolthiones (SOY, broccoli, cauliflower)
Flavinoids (SOY, most fruits and veggies)
Glucosinolates (SOY, cruciferous vegetables)
Glyceritinic acid (anise and licorice)
Inositol (SOY, oats, wheat, rye)
Isoflavones (SOY)
Isothiocyanates (Cruciferous veggies)
Lignans (SOY and flax seeds)
Limonene (citrus fruit)
Phenols (SOY and most fruits and veggies)
Plant Sterols (SOY and most veggies)
Protease Inhibitors (SOY, seeds, nuts, legumes)
Saponins (SOY, various fruits and veggies)

Mark and Virginia Messina write:

"Scientists at the National Cancer Institute started
to screen plant extracts for anticancer activity on a
systematic basis beginning around 1960. Between 1960
and 1974, they screened roughly 5,000 plant extracts
each year, and today they continue to hunt for cancer-
fighting plants...We consider phytochemicals to be the
vitamins of the twenty-first century, and we feel that
they are what will distinguish the Second Golden Age
of Nutrition."

(The Simple Soybean and Your Health (Avery Press, 1994,
Steinmetz KA, et. al., Vegetables, Fruit, and Cancer.
Journal of Cancer, Causes and Control, 2:427-442, 1991)

In addition to the phytochemicals and isoflavones,
fifty percent of the oil in soy is that essential fat
called linoleic acid. Eight percent is linolenic
acid, more popularly known as Omega 3, which is often
artificially added to cow's feed. Why not get your
essential fats directly from the source? For a near-
perfect food, eat soy!

Whether you believe in Creationism or Evolution, you
most certainly agree (unless you are one of PETA's
founders) that human animals sit atop the scale of
most advanced creatures living on this planet. That
includes our brains with cerebral cortex, circulatory
systems with four chambered hearts, and digestive
systems with stomach pH of 1.8, more than enough
to digest the foods were designed to consume.

Other mammals are unable to digest and receive benefit
from many of those wonderful phytochemicals. The
laboratory rat is one example. Studies criticizing
broccoli or soy or tomatoes do not reveal what unethical
scientists already know. Rats lack gall bladders. Rats
also lack human digestive enzymes. The rat should not
be a model for human nutrition. Neither should cats,
dogs, or chimpanzees. The bottom line is that if broccoli
is good, so too would other vegetables containing
good broccoli-like substances. All of those magic
chemicals together, and you've got the soybean.

Are you still paying attention to the anti-soy hype?
Your best daily multiple vitamin pill is the soybean.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

At Last...Scientific Proof!

Yesterday (April 1, 2006), we reported the story of
overweight dairy princesses. That was not an April
Fool's Day joke. See:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/notmilk/message/2323

The latest dairy industry claim that drinking milk
helps one to lose weight has gone from the absurd
to the preposterous. Milk from each mammal was
uniquely designed for the young of that species
to gain weight, not lose weight. Insitinctively,
all Americans possessing a brain (this does not
apply to employees of FEMA or Pentagon Iraqi war
strategists) know that milk is about growth, not
weight loss. Still...we've been waiting for a bit
of real science to blow the dairy industry's big
fat wet lie out of Lake Eerie.

That not-so-surprising revelation appears in the
March, 2006 issue of the American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition (Vol. 83, No. 3).

Researchers from the Department of Epidemiology and
Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine,
and the Departments of Epidemiology and Nutrition at
Harvard School of Public Health have determined that
the dairy weight loss claim is not supported by real
data. The scientists conclude:

"Our data do not support the hypothesis that an
increase in calcium intake or dairy consumption is
associated with lower long-term weight gain in men."

The actual study abstract:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/83/3/559

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com