Target: Dr. Vivek Murthy, Surgeon General of the United States
Goal: Mandate cancer risk warning labels on all milk and dairy products.
Prostate cancer kills 34,500 men every year, and black men are twice as likely as white men to die from it. They are also nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed and 27% less likely to receive any treatment at all. Early detection provides the best chance of treatment, but not creating cancer at all is even better.
Consuming just 2/3 cup of cow’s milk a day increases the rate of prostate cancer by 60%, according to a newly released study of over 28,000 Seventh-Day Adventist men. Previous research may have missed this connection because after 2/3 cup, the human hormonal response is maxed out– i.e., participants already consumed too much dairy to notice a correlation. Multiple studies by the National Cancer Institute, the World Cancer Research Fund, and others, show a link between milk and various cancers. Over 17,000 doctors in the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine assert that consuming dairy products increases the risk of cancer.
Traditions are only worth keeping when they don’t harm us, and there are dozens of milk alternatives. It’s time to empower the consumer to make new, healthier choices. Your signature asks the U.S. Surgeon General to require warning labels on milk and milk products to indicate that consuming dairy products increases cancer risk.
Dear Dr. Murthy,
One of every eight men is diagnosed with prostate cancer, which kills 1/41, or 34,500 men every year. Early detection is key to survival, but tests and treatment can be painful, invasive and embarrassing, and health care is more difficult for the poor to access. The most effective advice for men’s prostates is a healthy diet of plants, yet most people still don’t know this, and meanwhile cultural tradition and advertising tell us that milk does a body good.
A recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition determined that just 2/3 cup of milk a day led to 60% higher prostate cancer rates. This hormonally-influenced link may have been missed by previous studies due to the fact that after 2/3 cup, the human biological response does not further increase cancer but is maxed out– thus the relationship is curvilinear rather than incremental.
The Physicians’ Committee of Responsible Medicine affirms that dairy products increase cancer risk. Black men are most susceptible to the dangers of milk products: they are 1.7 times more likely to be diagnosed with, and 2.1 times more likely to die from prostate cancer than white men. They are also 27% less likely to receive any treatment at all. Meanwhile, black women are 40% more likely to get breast cancer, and research by the National Cancer Institute reveals that one cup of cow’s milk a day increases breast cancer risk by 50%.
Health decisions are made between people and their doctors. You are America’s doctor. It is time to empower the consumer with the knowledge to make their own decisions. Would you please mandate a warning label on all milk and milk products? The label should make it clear that “Consuming dairy products increases the risk of cancer.”
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
With big milk companies shutting down everywhere, I don’t think it will be necessary now.