From: "Robert Cohen" <notmilk~...> Date: Thu May 26, 2005 7:44
am Subject: Another Phony Dairy Industry Study notmilk2002
Offline Send Email

Forgive My Ignorance (and Anger)

I had never before heard of the Journal of Epidemiology and
Community Health, but consider this: There are approximately
250,000 journals on this planet, and anybody with an agenda
can get himself (or herself) a publication. After that, all it
takes is a well-financed press conference, and the work of
fools is given equal weight to the work of Nobel Prize-winning
scientists.

The dairy industry's latest con job (they've fooled the media
and they've fooled most consumers) claims that drinking milk
lowers strokes and heart disease. That so-called scientific
study was published in the June, 2005 issue of the British
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, whatever the
heck that is...

So...I called the closest college library to my New Jersey
home, Fairleigh Dickenson University (201-692-2289). FDU
carries approximately 1,000 titles, but the Journal of
Epidemiology and Community Health is not in their stacks.

I then called Princeton University (if it was good enough for
Al Einstein, it's good enough for me). Princeton's research
library contains some 44,634 titles. Most of these journals
are published once each month, so if I did not sleep for 30
days and spent one minute per journal, I'd know all there was
to know. Sadly, I cannot do that. Even sadder...among the
44,634 important journals that Princeton University does
carry, one will not find the unprestigious Journal of
Epidemiology and Community Health.

I wrote to the journal and asked how many subscribers
they had. Sonia McEwan, Editorial Assistant, was kind
enough to respond:

"The printed version of the journal has about 1,000
institutional (mainly university libraries) and personal
subscribers, and this is declining steadily as is the trend
for academic journals."

In any event, a group of scientists from the University of
Ulster in Northern Ireland and Wales College in Great Britain
have concluded from their data:

"These results give no convincing evidence of an increased
risk of vascular disease from milk drinking. Rather, the
subjects who drank more than the median amount of milk had a
reduced risk of an ischaemic stroke, and possibly a reduced
risk of an ischaemic heart disease event."

The lead scientist and author off this study, Peter Elwood,
retired ten years ago in 1995. His colleagues tried to honor
him by publishing his work, but they could not find a credible
journal interested in such a poorly done study. Thank goodness
for peer review! Sadly, one can always find a journal
desperate enough to fill their pages with crap-science. Was it
a payoff or bribe or favor returned? We'll never know, but one
thing is certain. This bad study has been marketed by
brilliant professionals.

America's Press exaggerates their conclusion, but members of
the media tend to do that after being coddled and fed gourmet
lunches at lavish press conferences.

American consumers have been left with the impression that
dairy products prevent heart disease. How bogus.

Having no known college library or hospital in the United
States carrying this obscure journal, I did what any other
notmilk guy would do. I paid the $12 fee and downloaded and
printed the study. What can I say? Mickey (my parent's Amazon
parrot) will soon have a new liner for the bottom of his cage.

Please try not to laugh by the following:

  >From 1979 until 1983, 2,512 men were asked to keep a one-week
diary of everything they ate. Details of deaths were
collected in 2003. Each man was given a triple-beam balance
scale and was required to weigh every bit of food and drink
that he consumed.

I said, "Try not to laugh."

Milk was measured from milk drinks, breakfast cereals, and
custard. The scientists forgot to include cheese, pizza, ice
cream, yogurt, sour cream, whipped cream with crumpets in
their analyses of what might have led to strokes or other
events associated with heart disease.

Regarding the consumption of milk, the scientists write:

"...most of the differences are small and it would be
impossible to predict how these would together affect
relations with vascular disease."

I was quite anxious to review the food charts in great detail.
After all, I suspected some form of experimental bias was at
work here. Over 2,500 men were in the original study, but only
665 were given scales and food questionnaires. Was this a
double blind study? What other foods were eaten, and in what
quantity? How much Stilton and Devonshire cheese did these
Brits eat? Sadly, we'll never know. The only food that the
scientists reported (Table #2) was liquid milk.

The study was absurd. The conclusions were worse. The
reporting of this study is criminal. June is National Dairy
Month in the United States. Expect to see this June
publication heavily promoted by those who had the three-month
insider lead time to design and publish well-placed magazine
stories and advertisements.

Robert Cohen http://www.notmilk.com

<rudy-canoza~excite.com> wrote in message
news:1117139163.881951.41820~g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
  > From: "Robert Cohen" <notmilk~...> Date: Thu May 26, 2005
  > 7:44 am Subject: Another Phony Dairy Industry Study
  > notmilk2002 Offline Send Email
  >
  > Forgive My Ignorance (and Anger)
  >
  > I had never before heard of the Journal of Epidemiology and
  > Community Health, but consider this: There are approximately
  > 250,000 journals on this planet, and anybody with an agenda
  > can get himself (or herself) a publication. After that, all
  > it takes is a well-financed press conference, and the work
  > of fools is given equal weight to the work of Nobel
  > Prize-winning scientists.

Which publication has the NoMilk industry bought and has used
to present it's agenda?

  >
  > The dairy industry's latest con job (they've fooled the
  > media and they've fooled most consumers) claims that
  > drinking milk lowers strokes and heart disease. That
  > so-called scientific study was published in the June, 2005
  > issue of the British Journal of Epidemiology and Community
  > Health, whatever the heck that is...
A journal specifically bought out by the milk industry as
you stated.
  >
  > So...I called the closest college library to my New Jersey
  > home, Fairleigh Dickenson University (201-692-2289). FDU
  > carries approximately 1,000 titles, but the Journal of
  > Epidemiology and Community Health is not in their stacks.

It is a British Journal.

  >
  > I then called Princeton University (if it was good enough
  > for Al Einstein, it's good enough for me). Princeton's
  > research library contains some 44,634 titles. Most of these
  > journals are published once each month, so if I did not
  > sleep for 30 days and spent one minute per journal, I'd know
  > all there was to know. Sadly, I cannot do that. Even
  > sadder...among the 44,634 important journals that Princeton
  > University does carry, one will not find the unprestigious
  > Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
You have proven that it doesn't exist.
  >
  > I wrote to the journal and asked how many subscribers they
  > had. Sonia McEwan, Editorial Assistant, was kind enough to
  > respond:
  >
  > "The printed version of the journal has about 1,000
  > institutional (mainly university libraries) and personal
  > subscribers, and this is declining steadily as is the trend
  > for academic journals."
  >
  > In any event, a group of scientists from the University of
  > Ulster in Northern Ireland and Wales College in Great
  > Britain have concluded from their data:
  >
  > "These results give no convincing evidence of an increased
  > risk of vascular disease from milk drinking. Rather, the
  > subjects who drank more than the median amount of milk had a
  > reduced risk of an ischaemic stroke, and possibly a reduced
  > risk of an ischaemic heart disease event."

And you are unhappy with that? A published article is there so
anyone can question it. You have a Mickey Mouse site that
publishes things in it. So what?

  >
  > The lead scientist and author off this study, Peter Elwood,
  > retired ten years ago in 1995. His colleagues tried to honor
  > him by publishing his work, but they could not find a
  > credible journal interested in such a poorly done study.
  > Thank goodness for peer review! Sadly, one can always find a
  > journal desperate enough to fill their pages with
  > crap-science. Was it a payoff or bribe or favor returned?
  > We'll never know, but one thing is certain. This bad study
  > has been marketed by brilliant professionals.
You can teach them many things about how to market things. How
many people have you bribed?
  >
  > America's Press exaggerates their conclusion, but members of
  > the media tend to do that after being coddled and fed
  > gourmet lunches at lavish press conferences.
Don't you wish the American Press could exaggerate your
NoMilk crap?

  >
  > American consumers have been left with the impression that
  > dairy products prevent heart disease. How bogus.
And they are not aware of cholesterol or drinking of low fat
milk? Amiericans consumers are stupid by your definition. You
are so smart. Maybe you can tell people on your web site what
to eat and not eat.

  >
  > Having no known college library or hospital in the United
  > States carrying this obscure journal, I did what any other
  > notmilk guy would do. I paid the $12 fee and downloaded and
  > printed the study. What can I say? Mickey (my parent's
  > Amazon parrot) will soon have a new liner for the bottom of
  > his cage.
If Mickey can read then he would want to drink milk to prevent
heart disease.
  >
  > Please try not to laugh by the following:
  >
     > >From 1979 until 1983, 2,512 men were asked to keep a
     > >one-week
  > diary of everything they ate. Details of deaths were
  > collected in 2003. Each man was given a triple-beam balance
  > scale and was required to weigh every bit of food and drink
  > that he consumed.
  >
  > I said, "Try not to laugh."
  >
  > Milk was measured from milk drinks, breakfast cereals, and
  > custard. The scientists forgot to include cheese, pizza, ice
  > cream, yogurt, sour cream, whipped cream with crumpets in
  > their analyses of what might have led to strokes or other
  > events associated with heart disease.
Forgot to include? What would the numbers look like if they
had included them? they were looking at milk.

  >
  > Regarding the consumption of milk, the scientists write:
  >
  > "...most of the differences are small and it would be
  > impossible to predict how these would together affect
  > relations with vascular disease."
  >
  > I was quite anxious to review the food charts in great
  > detail.
Can I laugh now? Sorry, that's right we promised not to.

  > After all, I suspected some form of experimental bias was at
  > work here. Over 2,500 men were in the original study, but
  > only 665 were given scales and food questionnaires. Was this
  > a double blind study? What other foods were eaten, and in
  > what quantity? How much Stilton and Devonshire cheese did
  > these Brits eat? Sadly, we'll never know. The only food that
  > the scientists reported (Table #2) was liquid milk.
That's exactly what they were looking at. You can do one with
cheese if you want. Normally only one variable is looked at.
These are not rats where you can control everything.
  >
  > The study was absurd. The conclusions were worse. The
  > reporting of this study is criminal. June is National Dairy
  > Month in the United States. Expect to see this June
  > publication heavily promoted by those who had the
  > three-month insider lead time to design and publish
  > well-placed magazine stories and advertisements.

Dare I say that you are biased. I doubt that more people will
start drinking milk or more people will stop drinking milk
because of Bozos like you.

  >
  > Robert Cohen http://www.notmilk.com

SPAM

     >>Dare I say that you are biased. I doubt that more people
     >>will start drinking
milk or more people will stop drinking milk because of Bozos
like you [Cohen]. <<

COMMENT:

Indeed. If you go to medline, you find that not only did
Elwood do his own epidemiological study of dairy consumption,
but also a meta-analysis of 10 other pretty good studies.
Result--- a small but statistically significant suggestion
that there is something in milk which prevents stroke. An
example of this kind of finding is from the Honolulu Heart
Program, which found the protective effect of milk (non milk
drinkings had twice the stroke risk), but not other calcium
foods, suggesting that whatever is in milk which protects
against stroke, if anything, it's NOT the calcium. We don't
KNOW what it is. Geez, wouldn't it be politically incorrect
if it turned out to be the dairy fat. Shades of Woody Allen
and Sleeper.

You know, when the French found that drinking a lot of red
wine and eating French cheese didn't automatically make you
drop over dead, nobody in particular accused them of being
shills for the Bordeaux and Brie industries. Though there was
at least as much justification for the suspicion. Rather, they
went ahead and looked at a number of studies to see if the
effects were replicable and robust, and it turned out that
they were. So they scratched their heads. This is the
beginning of knowledge, of wisdom. You admit that what the
principle you thought was generally true, didn't predict a
particular real result. So maybe your worldview needs to be
more complex.

Once upon a time, everybody knew for sure alcohol was bad
for people. And certainly cheese. And milk, well---
forgetabout it.

But reality just isn't that easy. Sorry.

Eur J Clin Nutr. 2004 May;58(5):718-24.

Milk drinking, ischaemic heart disease and ischaemic stroke
II. Evidence from cohort studies.

Elwood PC, Pickering JE, Hughes J, Fehily AM, Ness AR.

Department of Epidemiology, Statistics and Public Health,
University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff, UK.
pelwood~doctors.org.uk

OBJECTIVE: Milk consumption is considered a risk factor for
vascular disease on the basis of relevant biological
mechanisms and data from ecological studies. The aim was to
identify published prospective studies of milk drinking and
vascular disease, and conduct an overview. DESIGN: The
literature was searched for cohort studies, in which an
estimate of the consumption of milk, or the intake of calcium
from dairy sources, has been related to incident vascular
disease. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Ischaemic heart disease and
ischaemic stroke. RESULTS: In total, 10 studies were
identified. Their results show a high degree of consistency in
the reported risk for heart disease and stroke, all but one
study suggesting a relative risk of less than one in subjects
with the highest intakes of milk. A pooled estimate of
relative odds in these subjects, relative to the risk in
subjects with the lowest consumption, is 0.87 (95% CI
.74-1.03) for ischaemic heart disease and 0.83 (0.77-0.90) for
ischaemic stroke. The odds ratio for any vascular event is
0.84 (0.78-0.90). CONCLUSIONS: Cohort studies provide no
convincing evidence that milk is harmful. While there still
could be residual confounding from unidentified factors, the
studies, taken together, suggest that milk drinking may be
associated with a small but worthwhile reduction in heart
disease and stroke risk. SPONSORSHIP: The University of Wales
College of Medicine and Bristol University. Current support is
from the Food Standards Agency.

Publication Types: Meta-Analysis Review Review, Tutorial

PMID: 15116074 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

==========================================

Stroke. 1996 May;27(5):813-8.

Effect of dietary calcium and milk consumption on risk of
thromboembolic stroke in older middle-aged men. The Honolulu
Heart Program.

Abbott RD, Curb JD, Rodriguez BL, Sharp DS, Burchfiel
CM, Yano K.

Division of Biostatistics, University of Virginia School of
Medicine, Charlottesville 22908, USA.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Evidence suggests that dietary calcium
is protective against hypertension. This report examines
whether the effect has an influence on thromboembolic stroke.
METHODS: Since 1965, the Honolulu Heart Program has followed a
cohort of men in a study of cardiovascular disease. This
report examines the effect of baseline dietary calcium and
milk intake on stroke risk in 22 years of follow-up in 3150
older middle-aged men (55 to 68 years). RESULTS: Men who were
nondrinkers of milk experienced stroke at twice the rate (P <
.05) of men who consumed 16 oz/d or more (7.9 versus 3.7 per
100, respectively). While the rate of stroke decreased with
increasing milk intake (P < .05), the decline in stroke risk
with increased consumption was modest for those who consumed
under 16 oz/d. Intake of dietary calcium was also associated
with a reduced risk of stroke (P < .01), although its
association was confounded with milk consumption. Calcium
intake from nondairy sources was not related to stroke,
suggesting that other constituents or covariates related to
milk consumption may be important. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude
that an association between milk consumption and a reduced
risk of stroke in older middle-aged men cannot be explained by
intake of dietary calcium. Since milk is often part of a
diverse pattern of dietary intake, it is difficult to
determine whether milk consumption has a direct role in
reducing the risk of stroke. Data suggest that consumption of
milk in older middle age is not harmful, and when combined
with a balanced diet, weight control, and physical activity,
reductions in the risk of stroke may occur.

PMID: 8623098 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

"Sbharris[atsign]ix.netcom.com" <sbharris~ix.netcom.com> wrote
in message
news:1117167249.648773.211420~z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
  > Indeed. If you go to medline, you find that not only did
  > Elwood do his own epidemiological study of dairy
  > consumption, but also a meta-analysis of 10 other pretty
  > good studies. Result--- a small but statistically
  > significant suggestion that there is something in milk which
  > prevents stroke. An example of this kind of finding is from
  > the Honolulu Heart Program, which found the protective
  > effect of milk (non milk drinkings had twice the stroke
  > risk), but not other calcium foods, suggesting that whatever
  > is in milk which protects against stroke, if anything, it's
  > NOT the calcium. We don't KNOW what it is. Geez, wouldn't it
  > be politically incorrect if it turned out to be the dairy
  > fat. Shades of Woody Allen and Sleeper.

Thank you Steve for a sensible scientific reply. I wonder if
the naysayers will let facts get in the way of a good myth.
Rhetorical

-DF

The several points made do not support the charge implied in
the subject line,ie. no conjecture of fraud in the pay of
commercial intrests. I have access to online journals at a
local university and the journal is there. Many smaller and
not domestic journals are not bought by libraries but are made
avalible in large collections by services which sell these
packages. One implication you made was about peer review,
because you downloaded the article says you too had access to
it and on the top of their home page is this:

"A peer review journal for health professionals and
researchers in all areas of epidemiology"

As to milk byproducts being excluded, it all depends on the
question being asked as to the direction research takes.
Without rereading whole milk was the topic being questioned.
Adding otherof the many milk products would only be a
confounding set of variables. If you wish to know about milk
products as a whole, that is a different question and the
research would tbe different accordingly. Many of the points
presented were irrelevant as to the question of milk
consumption and risk factors and even the only possible point
of intrest questioning what was not recorded in the diet is
intresting but not conclusive so as to allow excluding any
possible notion. The wild eyed frothing at the mouth does
support folk coming to some conclusions.

"Doug Freese" <dfreese~hvc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:CZCle.2576$XB2.739290~twister.nyc.rr.com...
  >
  > "Sbharris[atsign]ix.netcom.com" <sbharris~ix.netcom.com>
  > wrote in message news:1117167249.648773.211420~z14g2000cwz.-
  > googlegroups.com...
     > > Indeed. If you go to medline, you find that not only did
     > > Elwood do his own epidemiological study of dairy
     > > consumption, but also a meta-analysis of 10 other pretty
     > > good studies. Result--- a small but statistically
     > > significant suggestion that there is something in milk
     > > which prevents stroke. An example of this kind of finding
     > > is from the Honolulu Heart Program, which found the
     > > protective effect of milk (non milk drinkings had twice
     > > the stroke risk), but not other calcium foods, suggesting
     > > that whatever is in milk which protects against stroke, if
     > > anything, it's NOT the calcium. We don't KNOW what it is.
     > > Geez, wouldn't it be politically incorrect if it turned
     > > out to be the dairy fat. Shades of Woody Allen and
     > > Sleeper.
  >
  > Thank you Steve for a sensible scientific reply. I wonder if
  > the naysayers will let facts get in the way of a good myth.
  > Rhetorical
  >
  > -DF
  >
  >
They will just say that it is all milk industry derived
studies and bought and paid for by them.