Originally Posted by
NT001
You must be joking. That's the kind of statement you only hear nowadays from spokespeople for Fonterra or Dairy Australia or the discredited former NZ Food Safety Authority, ie people still trying to protect a stance that has been well and truly disproved by clinical research over the past decade. Unless perhaps you are trying to be very cute with your use of words. Of course the adverse health effects for which evidence has been accumulating from the work of teams around the world do not affect each individual member of the "general population" to the same degree, because each individual's susceptibility to harm is modulated in some degree by specific personal circumstamces, whether they be genetic, environmental, medical, immunological, lifestyle, dietary, fitness-related or plain bad luck etc. Some will be lucky. Others may be the victims of a combination of factors. But all members of the "general population" are at risk if they consume A1 milk, and the evidence is now so strong that you won't find knowledgable scientists seriously disputing this any more.
Some may quibble a bit around the edges, but no one - not even the most powerfully equipped dairy interests like Fonterra - any longer disputes that BCM7, the opioid peptide generated through the digestion of A1 milk, can pass through the gut wall of a significant proportion of consumers, and can get into the bloodstream and from there into the brain where it can contribute to a number of unpleasant conditions such as autism and schizophrenia. Nor do they dispute that BCM7 is demonstrably capable of causing inflamation in various parts of the body, a precursor to such diseases as heart disease, diabetes, cancer etc. Nor have they come up with any credible alternative explanation as to why there is an incontrovertible statistical correlation between the high incidence of heart disease and type 1 diabetes in countries where the milk contains a high proportion of A1. (Fonterra still co-holds a patent based on a probable link between A1 milk and diabetes)
A few years ago, people like the European Food Safety Authority were able to say some of these things could be disregarded as they had yet to be proven. They can't now. Their concern is that people may get switched off drinking milk, and at present they still think the possible risks outweigh the proven benefits, so they're not updating their views in line with ty he new research. But why take the risk if it's undeniable and avoidable? A2 milk gives consumers the opportunity to avoid it
In many branches of the research, it has now been shown clinically that there is definite evidence if not absolute proof of links between BCM7 and harmful medical conditions, and that there is a known pathway by which causation could occur. Some critics still argue that such evidence does not prove BCM7 is actually causing medical harm. They want "proof" that it's happening, not just evidence, or even proof that it CAN happen. It's the old story. Remember decades ago when the tobacco lobby said "yes the statistics do seem to support a suspectedl link between smoking and lung cancer, and the medical experts have shown the link could theoretically be causative, but no one has ever actually produced a case where a smoker got lung cancer and all other causes were able to be 100% excluded." Yeah, right.
DYOR. For a start, read Keith Woodford's book "Devil in the Milk", second edition updated. That should be everyone's starting point. Then read the books and scientific papers that show where he's wrong. There aren't any, which should make you think. And if all that doesn't convince you, read the websites that outline the scores of peer-reviewed research papers on the subject of BCM7.