Date: Fri, 18 AUG 1995 17:29:38 -0400 From: Betty Martini Newgroups: bionet.neuroscience Subject: Re: Anything on Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Dear Robert: This is an answer to your post and Richard Kerr's post and one by James McIninch who evidently is a Georgia Tech student. Perhaps I can answer them all by quoting a letter from George L. Tritsch , Ph.D. (Ph.D. in biochemistry, Pursue University, 1954) who quotes a recent article from a very well respected journal (Cancer Research) and it is as recent as June 1995. I do not know Dr. Tritsch but he gives his credentials as: 1954-56: Department of Biochemistry, Cornell Medical College, New York 1956-59 Rockefeller University, New York 1959-1995 Cancer Research Scientist of Roswell Park Center Institute, Buffalo, New York April-95 Retired There has been a great deal of discussion about the insulin growth factor and this discusses IGF as I understand it and as Robert Cohen understands it, and has declared to the FDA: "I am disturbed by the statement made by Land O'Lakes and Cabot Creamery that there is a "modest rise in IGF-1 concentration in milk produced by BST-supplemented cows." They further state that this protein is totally destroyed during digestion. This is untrue. If this were true, there would be no such thing as food allergy or the widely used immunization by the intestinal route (enteric immunization). In fact, "allergy to cow's milk is the best studied example of food protein allergy." (J.A. Stein, ed., 'Internal Medicine', 1994, page 360-361; Mosby-Year Book Inc.) The unequivocal consequence of drinking milk from BST-supplemented cows is an elevated level of IGF-1 in the blood." "A recent article (Cancer Research, 55:2463-2469, June 1995) from Renato Baserga's laboratory in Philadelphia has shown clearly that IGF-1 is required for the establishment and maintenance of tumors. The mechanism for this is that IGF-1 protects the cells from apoptosis (programmed cell death). IGF accelerates tumor growth and appears to affect the aggressiveness of tumors. As the IGF-1 level is decreased, cell death can take place. We are talking about IGF-1 levels of 10 nanogram per m1, i.e., 0.00001 milligram per ml." "My concern is that increases in such minute levels could readily enter the blood stream of individuals drinking milk from BST treated cows. As an individual ages, indolent tumor cells do appear in various organs (breast, ovary, prostate, etc..) which grow slowly with the result that clinical cancer is not manifested until old age, or, in many cases, after the individual would have died of other causes. Stimulation of these cells by elevated levels of IGF-1 would result in clinical cancer in a decade or two or even less. Furthermore, these levels of IGF-1 could stimulate the progression and aggressiveness of childhood leukemias to a point that chemotherapy could not be effective, much less curative." "The widespread consumption of BST supplemented milk is therefore an experiment on an unsuspecting population that could have horrendous consequences and overwhelm the health care system. The experiment would take one to three decades when it would be difficult to dismantle a well-entrenched BST industry, and still have one to three decades' worth of individuals in the pipeline. I can conceive of no animal experiments to test this and to provide hard data to predict the magnitude and time frame for this effect. The risk to benefit ratio of this experiment is clearly not in favor of the consumer." Signed George L. Tritsch August 7, 1995