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    ACRES U.S.A. What brought you intocontact with the story of A1 and A2milk?

    WOODFORD. Im a professor of agri-business, and I also have a science back-ground thats what I was original-ly trained in, agricultural science. Imalways out there scanning to see whatthe issues are, and Ive been aware thatthere was this issue of A1 versus A2 milkfor quite a few years. To our mainstreamdairy industry it was a non-issue, just amarketing game some people were play-ing, and initially I took that view. Then Isaw that a colleague of mine had becomea director of the a2 Corporation, and Ithought the quickest way for me to findout whats going on here is to ask him a

    very direct question, which was, Whyhave you gotten involved with a shonkyoutfit like the a2 Corporation? Of coursethat immediately got a response, and hepulled some material up from his bagand said Id better read it before I madestatements like that, and thats exactlywhat I did. Then I went on the Internetand downloaded scientific articles fromthe various journals, and 48 hours later Ithought, Wow, this is a really big issue!

    I was unhappy with the way the wholesubject was being manipulated by themainstream industry, and it seemed tome a story that had to be told. Thatin itself was quite a challenge becauseIm working with the mainstream dairyindustry and other agribusiness indus-tries all the time. Im in the media veryregularly on a whole range of agribusi-ness issues, and this one certainly raisedthe heat somewhat.

    ACRES U.S.A. Youre featured as anexpert in the media in Australia andNew Zealand?

    WOODFORD. Particularly in NewZealand. Im on the radio I guess everyweek here on national radio theyre

    always ringing me in relation to agri-business matters. In Australia Ive donethe odd television program, and prob-ably quite a few radio interviews, too, ifI think back over the years. My profilewould be a lot higher in New Zealandthan in Australia, though.

    ACRES U.S.A. For people who dontknow, New Zealand is a heavily agricul-tural country?

    The Devil in the Milk

    A1 or A2? How Beta-CaseinsAre Changing the Dairy Industry

    Keith Woodford

    Theres a devil in the milk, says agricultural scientist Keith Woodford, and it has little to do withproduction methods. Woodfords startling thesis, backed up by a pile of research, is that a mutationmany years ago created an aberrant protein in some European cows, called A1 cows to set themaside from all other cows, which are called A2. As a result, the milk from these cows has been linkedto a host of maladies, including Type 1 diabetes, autism and heart disease.

    Still virtually unknown in this country, the A1-A2 question is prominent enough in New

    Zealand, where Woodford lives and works, to have spurred public controversy and the creationof a successful company that markets only A2 milk, the a2 Corporation. For growing numbers ofAmericans who have noticed that milk seems to attack their systems even though they are lactose-tolerant, Woodfords work, collected in his book, Devil in the Milk, offers vital illumination.

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    WOODFORD. Absolutely. Were a littlecountry down in the South Pacific, 4million people, and our economy isbased around pastoral agriculture, withthe dairy industry being the most impor-tant.

    ACRES U.S.A. Another thing thats notwidely known in the Americas is thewhole issue of A1 versus A2. Up here

    the issue is organic versus conventional how milk is produced and how itsprocessed. What is the history of A1 andA2 down there in the Antipodes?

    WOODFORD. Its exactly right that itstarted here, down under. This issuehasnt found major traction yet in theUnited States or in Europe, and themainstream industry of course wouldlike it to stay that way for as long aspossible. It really started with a profes-sor of childrens medicine at Auckland

    University, Bob Elliott. He was lookingat diabetes, childhood, Type 1 diabetes,which is the one where you actually haveto have insulin. Once you get it you haveit right through your life, and you haveto take regular insulin shots. ProfessorElliott was puzzled by the fact that someSamoan children living in New Zealandhad much higher incidence of Type 1diabetes than Samoan children livingin Samoa. He said, This has to be anenvironmental effect, not a genetic effect,because theyre the same people, the sameethnicity. He looked to see what differ-

    ences there were in the environment or inthe foods they ate, and the key differencewas milk. Children in New Zealand, bethey Samoan or any children, drink a lotof milk. Whereas in Samoa itself, in theislands, they tend not to. He also knewalready that casein was what we call dia-betogenic it was linked to diabetes. Sohe rang the New Zealand Dairy ResearchInstitute here, arguably the leading dairyresearch institute in the world, and said,

    I dont understand whats going on. Ithink there has to be a link to milk, butI also know that there are some parts ofthe world, such as in Kenya, where somegroups of people drink huge amounts ofmilk but dont get any Type 1 diabetes.

    Is there anything slightly different aboutthe milk they drink from what we drinkhere in New Zealand and places like the

    United States? The dairy scientists saidthere is a difference, theres a small dif-ference in relation to the casein itsonly a tiny difference, but it could be theanswer. In places like Kenya the milk iswhat we call A2, and in places like NewZealand and the United States the cowsare about a 50-50 mix depending onwhether they produce A1 beta-casein orthe A2 beta-casein.

    ACRES U.S.A. What is a casein, andwhat are A1 and A2?

    WOODFORD. Milk of course containssome protein, some fat, some carbohy-drates in the form of lactose, some min-

    erals and some water. What were talkingabout is the protein component. Theprotein itself consists of two types, thecasein and the whey. You know the chil-drens rhyme about Little Miss Muffetand her tuffet, eating her curds andwhey. The curds are the casein, and thewhey is the other form of protein. Thereare different types of casein proteins, andwithin one is a particular type called thebeta-casein, where there are these two

    variations, A1 and A2. It all gets quitecomplicated, but we all know that milk isa very complex product. Were just say-ing that with one of the proteins withinmilk theres a very slight difference.

    ACRES U.S.A. Milk is not milk as it wasa hundred years ago they take it apartand boil it until it is sort of a milk-likeproduct. Do A1 and A2 survive all theprocessing?

    WOODFORD. The answer is basically yes. There is debate as to whether thepasteurization process might denaturethe protein in some way, and theressome debate over whether pasteuriza-tion makes the problems with A1 milkeven greater, but the science on that isnttotally certain yet. The bottom line is

    that once people drink the milk, the A1beta-casein digests differently than theA2, and with the A1 there is release ofwhat we call a peptide, which is a littlefragment of protein called beta-caso-morphin-7. Thats a terribly long word,and thats why I sometimes call it themilk devil or BCM7 or the casomor-phin, caso meaning casein and morphinmeaning morphine. This is an opioid it has morphine-like characteristics,and if it gets through from the stomachinto the blood then it can cause all sorts

    of problems. The body doesnt like it andtries to react against it, and dependingon the particular genetic makeup of the

    person, we can get all sorts of illnesses.

    ACRES U.S.A. Does it cross the blood-brain barrier?

    WOODFORD. It crosses the blood-brainbarrier very clearly. Interestingly, untilrecently there were no good tests forbeta-casomorphin-7 in the blood, butsome Russian scientists just in the lastfew months have come up with blood

    This issue hasnt found major traction yet in the

    United States or in Europe, and the mainstream

    industry of course would like it to stay that way

    for as long as possible.

    There are different types of casein proteins,

    and within one is a particular type called the

    beta-casein, where there are these two variations,

    A1 and A2.

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    tests for BCM7, and this work actuallyjust came out in the International Journalof Peptide Research and Therapeutics.Theyve not only been able to find theBCM7 in the blood of little childrenthat are fed formula, but theyve also

    found that some of the children excretethe milk devil, the BCM7, quite quicklywhile others dont. The children whodont excrete it quickly tended to exhibitdelayed development. This research is sonew its not in my book, and I think itsgoing to be a debate changer. Its goingto be very hard to ignore this evidence.

    A lot of other scientific groups are goingto be able to use the tests the Russianshave developed, and its going to take thewhole field of research to another level.

    ACRES U.S.A. By delayed development,do you mean their growth as childrenmaking bigger bones and so on?

    WOODFORD. No, its not their physi-

    cal size, it relates to what we call theirpyschomotor development. Its the neu-rological development and their physicaldevelopment in terms of muscle capacity its not actually physical size as such.People dont grow any slower, they justdont develop their human characteris-tics at the same rate.

    ACRES U.S.A. Obviously any interfer-ence with psychomotor developmentcould have unfortunate effects?

    WOODFORD. Absolutely! The dairy

    industry both here and in Australia isalready scrambling to deal with this par-ticular evidence.

    ACRES U.S.A. What usually happens inthe United States when something threat-ens the image of an extremely profitablefood product is that it becomes hardto research, because the agribusinesscorporations fund a lot of universityresearch and wield great influence. If

    they dont want an issue investigated, itgets harder to get the research funded.How has the evidentiary trail developedin New Zealand and Australia?

    WOODFORD. In the United States there

    was in fact a lot of very interesting workundertaken at the University of Floridastudying whether BCM7 is implicatedin some of the symptoms of autism. Itwas led by Professor Robert Cade, whois now dead, but hes very well known,particularly in Florida. Among manyother things he invented a drink called

    Gatorade, but he also did a huge amountof work on diseases such as autism, andIm reliably told that his work was essen-tially shut down because of pressurefrom large agribusinesses in the UnitedStates. His work related to both gluten,which is somatically quite similar to theBCM7 as well as to milk and casein, andthe agribusiness industries over therewere very, very negative. Here in New

    Zealand our mainstream industry ini-tially was involved in research, but oncethey realized the threat that the researchposed, they went to great lengths tomuddy the water. Theyve even beenassociated with research trials, one ofwhich was published in the internationaljournal Diabetologia. Supposedly groupsof rodents in three different countries Canada, Britain and New Zealand were fed either A1 or A2 milk with all oftheir diets supplied from New Zealandby the Dairy Research Institute. Whathappened, presumably by accident, was

    that the A2 diets were contaminated withexactly the chemical, a little peptide, thatwas believed to be causing the problem.So here we had two groups of animalssupposedly fed A1 and A2, but the A2diet had actually been contaminatedwith the bad product from the A1 andat a high level. As a result, they didntget very strong evidence that there was agreat difference between A1 and A2. Theamazing thing is that the results of that

    trial were published, but no mention wasmade of the contamination.

    ACRES U.S.A. Did this sloppy workcause a scientific scandal?

    WOODFORD.It is a scandal, but in thiscase the industry has gotten away with

    it. In my book I published the evidenceand name the names. Its something Icouldnt do if I didnt have the evidence,because of course I would have beensued immediately. The evidence is allthere. The scientists knew about the con-tamination at least 18 months before thepaper was published, but they made nomention of it, and in fact that particulartrial is the one the mainstream dairyindustry uses again and again to argueagainst the A1-A2 issue. So yes, I think

    it is a scientific scandal. Its out there inmy book but its not in the internationalheadlines.

    ACRES U.S.A. What kind of evidencelinks A1 milk to diabetes and autism,and how compelling is it?

    WOODFORD. There is a debate as tohow compelling it is. I think that if onelooks at the evidence quietly and objec-tively, overall it is overwhelming. If welook at the Type 1 diabetes to start with,

    wherever in the world the level of A1beta-casein is high, then we have high lev-els of Type 1 diabetes. The United Statesfits into that category, as does Canada.In rural countries where A1 beta-caseinis low then Type 1 diabetes is also low.Thats a good starting point, but of coursethere could be other factors that lead tothat, so then we guess again under the sci-ence. Were talking about Type 1 diabetesand we know in general apart from thiscontaminated trial that I told you about,that when mice and rats are fed A1 beta-casein, they get much higher levels of dia-

    betes than if theyre fed A2 beta-casein.We think we even understand the mecha-nism. In Type 1 diabetes what happensis that you get destruction of the isletcells within the pancreas, where insulinis manufactured. We can actually find asequence in the islet cells, a sequence ofamino acids that is very similar to thebeta-casomorphin 7. Now, we know thatType 1 diabetes is a autoimmune disease,and that means the body is accidentally

    We know in general that when mice and rats

    are fed A1 beta-casein, they get much higher levels

    of diabetes than if theyre fed A2 beta-casein.

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    attacking itself, its what I call the medi-cal analogy of friendly fire. The body istrying to attack something, presumablythe BCM7, but its getting confused andits actually attacking something in itselfwhich looks a bit like the enemy. Now,

    theres no doubt that Type 1 diabetes isan autoimmune disease, so this story fitsreally well.

    ACRES U.S.A. Autism is a big issue inthe United States. Its going up, up, up,nobody knows why, and parents are wildwith worry. What links A1 to autism?

    WOODFORD. Autism is obviously avery complex disease, and nobody hasreally claimed that the A1 beta-caseincauses autism. What theyre saying isthat in autistic children, A1 beta-casein

    makes the disease much worse. Thereare a number of groups that are work-ing on this. What appears to happenis that autistic children also happen tohave digestive issues, and they often havewhat we call a leaky gut. The leaky gutallows the peptides the milk devil, theBCM7 to get through from the gutinto the bloodstream, where it does allsorts of things, and it does go straightthrough the blood-brain barrier. Its veryhard to do clinical trials where you takea whole lot of children and give some of

    them this horrible thing called BCM7,do all sorts of tests on them to measurewhats happening, and give the othergroup the A2 protein. We have to workwith animals, and what we find withanimals is that the BCM7 does indeedcause all sorts of weird psychologicalproblems. What happens then, of course,is that skeptics say, Yes, but thats ani-mals, thats not humans. Theyve got allsorts of arguments to muddy the waters.All we know is that theres a lot of autis-tic children who, if you can get themoff casein and if you can get them off

    gluten whats called the gluten-free,casein-free diet then their symptomsare a whole lot better. Now we havethis new test for measuring the BCM7in the blood that should lead to somepretty quick advances as to the extent ofwhich the A1 beta-casein is implicatedin autism.

    ACRES U.S.A. What about children whohave no glutens in their diet but go on

    drinking A2 milk? Do you see the samekind of positive results?

    WOODFORD.You certainly do in some.I have to be careful about the specificinstances, but I have examples here in

    New Zealand of autistic children who candrink A2 milk but behaviorally go justtotally stupid on ordinary milk. Therehave been quite a lot of studies, par-ticularly in Scandinavia, where they havelooked at children who are given thecasein-free diet versus those who stayon it, but the problem is that those trialsdont actually meet the full double-blindstandard.

    ACRES U.S.A. Lets play devils advocatehere. Suppose someone argued that thisis all well and good, but theres a strong

    argument to be made that raw milk ismore healthful in a whole lot of waysthan pasteurized, processed milk andthat perhaps youre overemphasizingthis protein difference?

    WOODFORD. Well, even if its raw milk,if it comes from cows that are producingA1 beta-casein then weve got a prob-lem. So it may be possible to say thatpasteurization makes the problem worsein some situations, but theres no doubt

    that BCM7 is still going to be releasedfrom raw milk if it comes from cows thatproduce A1 beta-casein. We know thebio-chemistry clearly enough as to howthe A1 beta-casein breaks down that itwill not be benign in raw milk. We cansay that unequivocally. The A2 milk thatI drink, incidentally, is organic. But it is

    also pasteurized.

    ACRES U.S.A. OK.

    WOODFORD. I wanted to make thepoint, I think its important for yourreaders to appreciate that the A2 cow isthe natural, original cow that origi-nally all milk was A2 and its onlybecause of the mutation which hasaffected a proportion of modern cows

    that we now have the A1. In any herdthere will be a mix of A1 cows and A2cows, so it is possible to breed for A2.Here in New Zealand the commercialtests are readily available you DNAtest your cows. In the United States, its

    a huge frustration to me because at thispoint those tests are not available. I thinkits also important that people under-stand that all other mammalian speciesare essentially A2.

    ACRES U.S.A. Mothers milk, goatmilk?

    WOODFORD. Yes, goat milk is A2, sois sheep milk and so is human milk.Human milk is essentially of the A2 type.Even within cattle, African cattle andAsian cattle are all A2, its just a propor-

    tion of European cattle that are A1. Herein New Zealand a lot of our farmers areconverting their herds to A2. The main-stream industry is saying its not an issue,but weve got enough publicity out therethat a large number of farmers only usesemen from A2 bulls. All the bulls weuse in the national breeding scheme arecategorized as to their A1 and A2 status,whereas in your part of the world thatisnt the case. Although were only alittle country, we dominate international

    trade in dairy products, and we are qui-etly converting our herds not quite asfast as I would like, but we are convert-ing them across to A2. Thus, the worldsgoing to wake up eventually.

    ACRES U.S.A. Its happening withoutgovernment, without incentive or pres-

    sure, its just happening because theconsensus is shifting that way in NewZealand?

    WOODFORD. Its happening because alot of dairy farmers are saying, Hey, wecan actually convert our herds at mini-mal costs. It wont cost us a lot if we hadto suddenly be 100 percent A2 tomor-row, we couldnt do that, but if we onlyuse bulls that are A2, we can actually get

    Its also important that people understand that

    all other mammalian species are essentially A2.

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    our herds across to being pure A2 withinabout 10 years. So they just say, Hey,lets do it!

    ACRES U.S.A. Why not!

    WOODFORD. And a large number offarmers are in fact doing it.

    ACRES U.S.A. Is there a connection toother psychotropic maladies, such asbipolar illness or chronic depression orschizophrenia?

    WOODFORD. We dont have clear evi-dence of that. Its amazing as time goesby that this BCM7 seems to be associ-

    ated with more and more diseases, butbecause we dont have what I regard asproof for those diseases, Im not goingto make any claims. The one I wouldlike to mention is that theres very clear

    evidence that BCM7 is associated withheart disease. Once again, the countriesthat have high levels of heart diseaseare the countries that have high levelsof A1 beta-casein intake. We also knowfrom trials that if you feed one groupof rabbits A1 and the other A2, thenthose fed the A1 will get arterial plaquewhereas the A2 rabbits dont. Therespretty strong evidence there.

    ACRES U.S.A. This is a really nasty littleprotein.

    WOODFORD. It is a really nasty littleprotein! The biochemistry is pretty clear.We know its a strong opioid. Whenwe go for a run we produce our ownendorphins, which are weak morphine-like substances, but whats good in smalldoses isntnecessarily good in big doses.It seems unbelievable that one little pro-tein could be implicated in so manydiseases, but it all makes sense when weunderstand that all of the diseases are

    actually autoimmune diseases. Theyreall basically friendly fire diseases, andthat includes Type 1 diabetes, the bodyturning on itself. We now understandthat heart disease is also essentially anautoimmune disease caused by inflam-

    mation in the arteries.

    ACRES U.S.A. If you consume dairyproducts regularly, youre getting a rel-evant quantity of it over time?

    WOODFORD. Thats right. A key issueis that its going to affect some peoplea lot differently than it will others. Thekey issue is whether or not you have aleaky gut or leaky intestines. There are

    a whole range of conditions wherebypeople do have leaky guts and by thiswe simply mean that a digestive systemwhere peptides can get through into thebloodstream without being fully broken

    down. Some of those conditions includestomach ulcers, celiac disease, Crohnsdisease, ulcerative colitis. If people havebeen on antibiotics theres a fair chancethat they will have a leaky gut for someweeks thereafter, and of course littlebabies all have leaky guts, thats the onlyway the colostrum can get through. Thekey issue is that in some people its goingto get through the leaky intestine muchmore efficiently than in others. Werealso now finding that some people havethe genetic capacity to excrete the BCM7quickly, excrete it through their kidneys,

    quite possibly broken down in the liverand out through the urine, whereas oth-ers dont.

    ACRES U.S.A. Even if the citizens ofNorth America and Europe are not awareof the issue, the large food companiesmust have taken note of this, and it mustbe terrifying for them. The potentialhealth claims could run in the billions.

    WOODFORD. They have huge files onthis, yes, and to date they have been quiteeffective in keeping a lid on the issue.What I say is, look, the evidence is allout there in the international journals,and in my book what I set out to do

    was to bring all that evidence togetherand actually present it to people so theycould make their own conclusions. Inthe book I try not to hammer my ownviews, rather I just try to present all ofthe evidence as succinctly as possible,including the counter-arguments madeby the mainstream dairy industry. I hap-pen to believe that those arguments arebased on self-interest and fudging theissues, but I try and present it all sopeople can make their own decisions.

    ACRES U.S.A. We could expect that the

    food industry will try to delay this issueas long as possible?

    WOODFORD. Absolutely.

    ACRES U.S.A. How long has the a2Corporation of New Zealand been inoperation, and how has it fared?

    WOODFORD. That company wasformed about 2000, and the aim wasto commercialize A2 milk all aroundthe world. They have had the greatest

    success in Australia. If you go into anAustralian supermarket you will find A2milk there with its special labels. Youllfind it in absolutely every supermarket.Its still a niche product and it sells forabout double the standard milk in thosesupermarkets. Its very expensive butis a commercially successful product,sales are growing every month. In NewZealand they havent managed to marketthe product quite as successfully, butI buy it from my supermarket. Its theonly milk that I will drink, and it is avail-able here if youre looking for it. In the

    United States they have a joint venturethere with a company to sell throughthe Hy-Vee supermarkets in six or sevenMidwestern states, but the marketingissues are quite complex. How do youget the message out? You see, in foodmarketing you have to be very care-ful not to denigrate another companysproduct, and youre very constrained inwhat sort of claims you can make on thelabel. Theres a lot of scientific evidence,

    We also know from trials that if you feed one

    group of rabbits A1 and the other A2, then those

    fed the A1 will get arterial plaque whereas the A2

    rabbits dont.

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    more than 100 scientific papers, but itsvery difficult to actually communicatethis message, particularly when youvegot a mainstream industry that willcome down on you like a ton of bricksas soon as you make any negative com-

    ment about the ordinary A1 milk.

    ACRES U.S.A. The information has tocirculate on the margins of the main-stream discourse, and as people believein the evidence, the market demand willmaterialize over time. All you have to dois put it on the label without making anyclaims. Thats how it seems to work inthe USA.

    WOODFORD. Yes, well, their marketingworks in Australia. They dont make anyexplicit claims on the label, but word of

    mouth is amazing, so what weve got isa whole lot of people who cant drinkthe ordinary A1 milk but can drink theA2 milk. Most of these people thoughtit was because they had a lactose intol-erance. What were finding is that themajority of people who think they havea lactose intolerance dont have such athing at all what they have is an intol-erance to this A1 beta-casein. They candrink the A2 milk despite the fact thatits got lactose in it. The way the mes-sage travels in the modern world, sales

    just keep going up each month withoutany claims being made on the label. Ofcourse I can, as a university professor,discuss the science and occasionally geton television or radio talking about it,and that certainly doesnt do them anyharm, but the companies themselveshave to be very careful in terms of whatthey actually say in their advertising.Certainly I make it clear that I have nocommercial relationship with the A2companies. I stay totally independent.I undertake no paid consultancies inrelation to A2. Anything I do in this

    regard, I dont charge for, and I hold noshares in any of the A2 companies. I doundertake consultancies with a range ofagribusiness companies. I dont hide any

    of them, but I dont do any in relationto A2 milk because that would create aperceived conflict of interest.

    ACRES U.S.A. Aside from the mar-keting through Hy-Vee, do you know

    of any American dairy companies thatplan to market A2 milk?

    WOODFORD. At the moment, no.The issue is complicated becausethe a2 Corporation has patents andtrademarks, and this actually makesit difficult for other companies to getinvolved. The a2 Corporation has them-selves tried to market within the UnitedStates, but to date hasnt been particu-larly successful.

    ACRES U.S.A. Perhaps a partnership

    with an American company would bein order?

    WOODFORD. Absolutely. The chal-lenge for everybody is that all the exist-ing milk companies say, Hey, how dowe actually promote A2 milk but stillmanage to sell our A1 milk during thetransition process, which will go on forquite a few years before we can get allthe herds across to A2? So they preferto just hope that the issue would goaway. If we look back, say, 10 years ago,

    there was a chance that the issuecould

    just go away, but as the new researchkeeps coming through, and in my bookI refer to more than a hundred peer-reviewed scientific papers that buildthe evidentiary pathway, its just gettingstronger and stronger. To me theres nodoubt what the final outcome will be.The big question is whether were goingto reach that point of the final outcomewhere we all move to A2 milk within thenext five years, or is the battle going togo on for another 20 or 30 years? At themoment the anti forces are politically

    very strong. It is happening, but at themoment its happening faster on thisside of the world than on your side ofthe world.

    ACRES U.S.A. What can we expect whenthe issue breaks open in this hemi-sphere?

    WOODFORD. Some people in themainstream dairy industry will say

    things to me like, I think youre right,but we must not do anything that woulddamage the dairy industry, after all itis our most important industry here inNew Zealand. My response is, Oh yousound just like the tobacco industry!People are shocked when I say that, butits actually the same fundamental lackof understanding that is leading to thatperspective: We must not do anythingthat damages commerce.

    Keith Woodfords book, Devil In The Milk:

    Illness, Health and the Politics of A1 and A2Milk, is available from Acres U.S.A. See page 70of this issue for shipping information or visitwww.acresusa.com .

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