Doctors urge cancer warning labels to be put onto cheese

Imagine seeing that sticker on any packet of all dairy cheese products in your local supermarket or delicatessen. Far fetched? Well not if the PCRM has anything to do with it. This 12,000 doctors strong group would happily ensure that such warnings are one day as ubiquitous as warnings on cigarette packets.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is dedicated to saving and improving human and animal lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. It is petitioning the FDA to do exactly this.

The science is relatively straightforward according to the PCRM. Estrogen from cows are contained in daily products but when milk is converted into cheese, the concentration levels increase significantly. This increases breast cancer mortality rates.

The petition has been timed to coincide with the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness month. Breast cancer is currently, according to the Centers for Disease Control, one of the most common causes of death of women in the USA.

According to the Life After Cancer Epidemiology study women who had previously been diagnosed with breast cancer had should steer clear of high-fat dairy products. It found that such women consuming one more daily servings of cheese, high-fat milk and ice cream once or more daily, had a 49% greater risk of breast cancer mortality compared to women who consumed less than one half a serving daily.

“Instead of cheese manufacturers like Kraft slapping a pink ribbon on products like Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Macaroni & Cheese, as they have done during previous Breast Cancer Awareness Months, they should be adding warning labels,” says Neal Barnard MD president of Physicians Committee. “We want women to be aware that dairy cheese could put them at risk of dying from breast cancer.”

Dr Barnard is also the author of The Cheese Trap and Your Body in Balance.