Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery
Apparently we have some of the fear profiteers and panic mongers worried. Anti-(insert cause du jour, in this case “safe, affordable milk”) activists Samuel Epstein and Ronnie Cummins don’t care for the content of our Milk is Milk Blog. They have gone so far as to issue a scathing press release claiming our information is a danger to public health. Both Epstein and Cummins rely on the fact that their outrageous claims and food safety attacks are rarely challenged and that their conflicts of interest are largely left un-exposed. Like the life-sucking vampires they are, exposure to sunlight makes them shrivel and die; ergo, anyone who risks disagreeing with them must be unscrupulously and viciously attacked. So be it. We can stand the heat and are happy to get the exposure. We like sunlight. What about Epstein and Cummins?
Samuel Epstein also claims everything from Ritalin to dog flea collars, and of course anything non-organic, causes cancer. The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR.org) has ranked Epstein as “the least credible scientist on issues of environmental cancer” joining with groups like the American Cancer Society, U.S. Food & Drug Administration and the American Medical Association in debunking Epstein’s false and misleading claims. If you were to follow the discredited advice of Doc Sammy Epstein to avoid cancer you should never use or consume hot dogs, non-organic shampoo, flea collars, talcum powder, soap, cosmetics, irradiated food, any non-organic fruit or vegetable, red meat, birth control pills or breast-cancer-detecting mammograms. Oh, and Sam also believes that IBM (yes, that’s International Business Machines) was the “puppet master” for the Holocaust, apparently pulling Hitler’s strings to facilitate the genocide of the Jewish people. Allrighty then. Clearly, following this guy’s advice will start to make Howard Hughes’ phobias and paranoia look like common sense.
Simply put, Samuel Epstein is a dangerous nut job who profits from promoting fears to anyone willing and gullible enough to listen. Putting the Milk is Milk Blog in the same category of “dangerous to the public health” as he places life-saving mammograms, well I can live with that. Reviewing the publicly available tax returns for Epstein’s organization the Cancer Prevention Coalition, his priorities come into clear view. In 2002 Epstein reports spending a whopping total of $425 on research while spending a corresponding $6,337 issuing “press releases.” In fact, Epstein spent 20 times more on “tolls and parking” in 2002 than he did on research and of course all that pales in comparison with his “travel expenses” to help spread the word.
Sunshine and facts are what people should look for when the likes of Epstein make claims that milk or animal productivity supplements somehow cause cancer. His press releases are replete with claims that evil IGF-1 levels in milk are a deadly link to cancer, while he and his animal-rights buddies suggest alternatives such as soy juice to avoid this risk. What you don’t see is any actual research validating his claims, or references to the fact that the American Cancer Society, American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, World Health Organization, etc… (We can go on and on here) say his claims are false. You certainly won’t see the peer-reviewed research published in the Journal Cancer Epidemiology which stated: “Increasing dairy milk intake was not significantly associated with increasing serum IGF-1 concentration in meat-eaters or vegetarians or among both groups combined. However, vegan women who consumed 3/4 pint or more of soya milk/day had a significant 28% higher IGF-1 concentration than vegan women who did not drink soya milk.” And why do you not see these facts? Because Epstein and Cummins get their money from people with vested commercial interests in generating these fears in order to sell alternative products - like soy milk.
The Horst Rechelbacher Foundation is the largest single donor to Epstein’s coalition. Horst M. Rechelbacher, who founded the natural products company Aveda in 1978, is an extreme environmentalist who makes his fortune from Intelligent Nutrients, a biodynamic and organic food and nutraceutical corporation. Biodynamic is a form of extreme organic agriculture, and of course, these high-priced products are bought by people who believe that non-organic products cause cancer and other ills. Rechelbacher, in addition to providing most of Epstein’s budget also pays Epstein for his services as a “medical advisor” to Mr. Rechelbacher’s company - Epstein also conveniently sits on the medical advisory board for the company. In addition to the $212,500 funneled into Epstein’s coffers which are used to spread fear about his competitors’ non-organic products, Mr. Rechelbacher also has given tens of thousands of dollars to other food fear mongers like Greenpeace and to Ronnie Cummin’s Organic Consumers Association. Lest we forget, Mr. Cummins was the co-author of the press release calling our Blog a threat to public health. (By the way, the Rechelbacher Foundation tax returns are filed care of a Dennis Ritchie - apparently related to Neil Ritchie and Mark Ritchie who run the Institute for Agriculture Trade Policy, another group of fear mongers attacking the safety of non-organic food. The Ritchies also run a for-profit organic coffee company which benefits from these food scares.)
Question: at what point will someone - perhaps the IRS - start to scrutinize these “organic” and “natural” product millionaires taking charitable tax deductions for what would be marketing expenses for anyone else. Of course, if it were exposed that they were marketing their products by falsely claiming their competitors’ products caused cancer, there could be some legal problems as well. Hmm, and these are the folks held up as “socially responsible” companies?
As for Ronnie Cummins, well, let’s tackle him later in the week. His antics are worthy of a dedicated column unto himself. Milk is Milk, and don’t let the likes of Samuel Epstein or Ronnie Cummins tell you otherwise.