DIET & HEALTH

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1996:

Health research
Fears that drinking cow’s milk
can trigger juvenile diabetes in genetically
susceptible children rekindled in October after
Dr. Paul Pozzilli of the Department of
Diabetes and Metabolism at St. Bartholomew’s
Hospital in London and colleagues at
the University of Rome explained in The
Lancet , the journal of the British Medical
Association, how certain proteins in cow’s
milk can stimulate an immature human
immune system to produce antibodies that
then attack similar proteins in the victim’s
own pancreatic cells. European Commissionsponsored
research showed in June that bottlefed
babies are twice as likely as breast-fed
babies to get diabetes. Jill Norris of the
University of Colorado Health Science Center
in Denver, argued in the August 27 edition of
the Journal of the American Medical
Association that the previous research was
weak––but Hans-Michael Dosch, M.D., of
the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto,
who drew attention to a possible link between
cow’s milk and diabetes in 1992, argues that
the association is now “as strong as the association
between cigarette smoking and cancer.”

A study of 43 menopausal women
by Gregory L. Burke, M.D., of the Bowman
Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina, has confirmed findings by a
team at the University of Manchester,
England, that regular consumption of soy protein,
rich in natural phytoestrogen, can
relieve or prevent hot flashes. Addressing the
American Heart Association conference on
November 12 in New Orleans, Burke said he
plans to do a follow-up study of 240 women,
who will take soy protein in larger doses.
National Heart, Lung, and Blood
I n s t i t u t e hypertension specialist Edward
Rocella, M.D., on November 13 told the
American Heart Association conference that a
diet low in fat but rich in fruits and vegetables
appears to lower blood pressure as quickly
and lastingly as drug treatments, without the
expense and side effects of drugs. Americans
currently spend $10 billion a year on blood
pressure medications, Rocella said.
Use of antibiotics in animal feed
“has created a public health problem of crisis
proportions,” because constant exposure
to antibiotics has encouraged deadly microbes
to evolve resistant strains, the 65-nation
World Medical Association declared on
October 25. “National medical associations in
collaboration with veterinary authorities
should encourage their governments to restrict
the use of anti-microbial agents as feed additives,”
the WMA recommended.
Rating the food programs at 38
prestigious universities according to availability
of low-fat and vegetarian meals, the
Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine reported on October 30 that Duke
University in Durham, North Carolina, offers
the best menu. Rating worst were West Point,
Annapolis, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and
Johns Hopkins, where the medical training
program and the Johns Hopkins Center for
Alternatives to Animal Testing have apparently
not attracted a big vegetarian food clientele.
Asian menu
The San Francisco Animal Care
and Control Commission voted 7-3 on
November 14 in favor of banning the sale of
live mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians,
but exempted fish. The proposed ban
now goes to the Board of Supervisors, where
it may have a hard time against the opposition
of animal vendors who claim to have delivered
key votes to elect mayor Willie Brown.
An appellate court in Seoul,
Korea, in late November overturned the conviction
of a dog meat vendor, ruling that contrary
to a 1988 Ministry of Health and Welfare
edict, dogs are “edible food.” The verdict did
not overturn the edict, but did open it to legal
challenge. Ministry of Health and Welfare
official Park Jong-sung said the dog meat ban
would meanwhile remain in place.
Business is reportedly surging in
Tharae, Thailand, the reputed dog-slaughtering
capital of Southeast Asia. Drivers from
the city of 16,000 collect dogs throughout the
Thai countryside; the major killers export the
meat and pelts of as many as 100,000 dogs
apiece per year.
Trying to avoid the acrimony that
greeted the arrival of Pizza Hut and
Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises in
I n d i a, McDonald’s in mid-October opened
its first restaurant without beef on the menu at
an upscale New Delhi shopping center. Pork
is also excluded. Customers may choose
between mutton burgers and deep-fried vegetable
burgers.
Miscellany
The American Vegan Society
offers a “vegan passport” explaining in 39
languages what a vegan is, for use when
ordering food in unfamiliar places. The 48-
page “passport” is $5.00, from POB H,
Malaga, NJ 08328.
Vegetarianism, already fast gaining
popularity, surged this year due to the
“mad cow disease” scare, say the Vegetarian
Society, of Britain, and the German Vegan
Society. The 150-year-old Vegetarian Society
gained 20,000 members, a 5% increase, and
reported that 41% of Britons are reducing
meat consumption while 7% have become
vegetarians. The GVS says about a third of all
Germans now eat little or no meat, and that
people under age 39 bought a third less meat
during the first half of 1996 than in 1995.
Baltimore is trying to figure out
how to cope with meat-for-drug swaps,
videotaped in September by sheet metal worker
and community activist Rylow Williams.
“Meat is becoming another kind of cash,”
says police lieutenant Barry Baker: dealers
accept $25 to $50 worth of shoplifted steaks,
roasts, or hamburgers in trade for $10 worth
of crack cocaine.
The Jack-in-the-Box hamburger
c h a i n parent firm, Foodmaker Inc., has
reportedly settled out of court more than 90
personal injury cases resulting from e – c o l i
bacterial contamination of burgers in January
1993, at costs ranging from $19,000 to $15.6
million. Three children in the Seattle area and
one in San Diego died from the outbreak.