Transcript of Fox TV Chicago Story 6 November 2007

See http://www.myfoxchicago.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=4854183&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.5.1
 

This is a transcript I made from the video on the noted web site. Any errors of transcription are mine.


From acupuncture to the Almighty, people will try anything to overcome cancer. One of the newest curing concepts is milk -- but not this kind of milk [picture of cows]; this kind of milk [picture of woman nursing a baby].

According to new experimental research, if you want to be disease free, you have to ask yourself one question: Got milk?

[Howard Cohen] "I never had any symptoms, I never had any overt complaints."

Howard Cohen could be the country's greatest advocate for alternative medicine. Diagnosed with prostate cancer eight years ago, he swears drinking mothers' milk saved his life.

[Howard] "None of the ultrasounds or the magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging have found signs of cancer."

The idea came from Swedish research on lab rats. Cohen originally experimented with milk from a former coworker. A couple of months later, he was cancer free. Now, what started out as two ounces a day is down to two bottles a week.

[Howard] "It doesn't taste like cow milk because of the oleic acid. It often can have an oily undertaste. When I've travelled I've taken it along and drank it straight. Usually I mix it with fruit, tofu, ..."

[Margaret Shortridge, medical reporter] But is it so far fetched? The American Academy of Pediatrics says that human milk is the preferred way to feed all new borns. Studies have shown that breast fed babies are less likely to contract a number of diseases, including heart disease and cancer, by age 15.

[Gerald Chodak, MD] "One person means zero in terms of whether this is working or not."

Urologist Doctor Gerald Chodak has a warning for his patients: Don't believe everything you hear. He says there are too many variables to prove if Cohen's milk theory is a glass half full or half empty.

[Dr Chodak] "The fact that his cancer didn't get worse and he was taking breast milk says nothing about whether the breast milk was working or he just had a cancer that wasn't life threatening."

He also worries about the side effects, especially since most people don't know how much to drink or how to make sure that it is safe to drink.

[Dr Chodak] "It needs to be studied in a proper scientific manner. Without that, it's like hocus-pocus."

[Pauline Sakamoto] "I think its something we really need to look at."

As Executive Director of Mothers' Milk Bank in San Jose, Pauline Sakamoto, has seen plenty of hocus-posus. Today, she has 60 clients, incluing Howard Cohen, who buy breast milk for medical reasons. The going rate -- ten dollars a bottle, but you must have a prescription.

[Pauline] "A lot of individuals now who are advocating breast feeding and breast milk and will tell you that there are live issues in the milk that cow's milk does not necessarily have."

[Don Suttenbach] "This is intriguing. We could all learn from this."

Before Don Suttenbach [sp?] was cured of cancer, he would never have considered drinking breast milk, but now he knows, when you're facing death, you'll do anything to stay alive.

[Don] "If you're of the mindset to live with the cancer -- and there are many, many people living with the cancer -- and be vigilant and monitor what goes inside their body."

Which is exactly what Howard Cohen feels. The way he sees it, breast milk beats the alternative.

[Howard] "There's nothing lethal about it. It's not like chemotherapy, it's not like radiation, it's not like surgery."

He likes to think that he's living proof that milk really does a body good.

[Howard] "What I can do is present my, quote, anecdotal, experience and say, hey, there's something here, we need to look at this for the benefit of millions and millions of people."


For more information, see my prostate cancer web site, http://www.cohensw.com/mvpcsg_nov99_text.html

Howard J. Cohen   (howard@cohensw.com)