SPOCK SPEAKS ABOUT MILK: A COUP FOR PCRM? WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1992:
Child-care expert Dr. Benjamin Spock advised par-
ents at a September 29 news conference in Boston that babies
under the age of one year should not be given cow’s milk, and
that, “breast-feeding is the best milk feeding for babies.”
Spock, who gave up eating dairy products himself last
year, at age 88, went on to explain that cow’s milk causes some
babies to suffer intestinal blood loss, allergies, and indigestion,
as well as contributing to “some cases of childhood diabetes.”
Spock spoke as part of a panel including Johns
Hopkins University director of pediatrics Frank Oski, who
wrote a book in 1977 titled Don’t Drink Your Milk, and Neal
Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine. Early wire service and TV stories about the presen-
tation indicated Spock had directly supported Barnard in recom-
mending against giving children any cow’s milk. The early sto-
ries carried vituperative reaction from an anonymous American
Medical Association spokesperson, directed at Barnard but
tending to heighten the impression that Spock too had seriously
challenged mainstream medical opinion.