Bovine leukemia virus is a cancer-causing microbe in cattle.
Just how many cows have it?
The US Department ofAgriculture reports that nationwide, 89 percent of herdscontain cows with BLV. The most infected region is theSoutheast, where 99 percent of herds have the tumor-causingbug. In some herds across the country, almost every singleanimal is infected. A 1980 study across Canada uncovered alower but none-too-reassuring rate of 40 percent.
BLV is transmitted through milk. Since the milk from allcows in a herd is mixed before processing, if even a singlecow is infected, all milk from that herd will have BLVswimming in it. Citing an article in Science, oncologistRobert Kradjian, MD, warns that 90 to 95 percent of milkstarts out tainted. Of course, pasteurization — when done the right way — kills BLV, but theprocess isn't perfect. And if you drink raw milk, odds are you're gulping down bovine leukemiavirus.Between dairy cows and their cousins that are used for meat (who tend to be infected at lowerrates), it appears that a whole lot of BLV is getting inside us.
A 2001 study in Breast CancerResearch detected antibodies to the bovine leukemia virus in blood samples from 77 out of 100volunteers. Furthermore, BLV showed up more often in breast tissue from women with breastcancer than in the tissue from healthy women. Several medical studies have found positivecorrelations between higher intake of milk/beef and increased incidence of leukemia orlymphoma in humans, although other studies haven't found a correlation. No hard evidence has yet linked BLV to diseases in humans, but do you feel comfortable knowing that cow cancer cells are in your body?
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