IGF-1, Milk and Cancer

Alternative Health promoter Samuel Epstein and his Cancer Prevention Coalition claim that Europe and Canada have banned milk from the United States due to IGF-1 and cancer concerns. Dr. Epstein, who was rated by the American Association for Cancer Research as the LEAST credible scientist on environmental cancer, fails to note that each year Europeans and Canadians import and consume millions of pounds of these American dairy products. A related European Commission report notes: “The quantities (of IGF-1) present in the daily human consumption of milk and dairy products are much lower than the total amount of IGF-I secreted daily in the gut (saliva, gastric juice, jejunal chyme, bile, and pancreatic juice)… And Health Canada’s evaluation of this issue by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada states: “there is no biologically plausible basis on which to conclude that rbST-associated changes in human exposure to IGF-1 will lead to any immune response, change in neonatal intestinal growth and development, or cancer risk in recipients of milk or food products from treated cattle… there is no evidence to suggest that oral intake of IGF-1 is carcinogenic.”