Milk on Trial as Cornell Expert Testifies at Fired Teacher’s Hearing

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Milk on Trial as Cornell Expert Testifies at Fired Teacher’s Hearing

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/24/9846

 

Published on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

Milk on Trial as Cornell Expert Testifies at Fired Teacher’s Hearing

by Martha Rosenberg

 

The life expectancy of National Football League players might have as

much to do with teaching art as the factory farming fired middle

school teacher Dave Warwak is accused of teaching.

 

But it formed the backbone of Cornell University Professor Emeritus

Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s testimony at the Board of Education hearing

into the middle school teacher’s dismissal in Fox River Grove, IL,

population 5,000, in April.

 

NFL players are only expected to live to 56 because “they are dying of

cancer, heart disease, diabetes and diet related illnesses,” testified

Campbell in defense of Warwak’s classroom charge that animal foods

will shorten lives.

 

Campbell, Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry, is author,

with son Thomas M. Campbell II, of the 2005 nutrition bestseller, The

China Study, which links premature death and many diseases to diet and

was called the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology” by the New York Times.

 

After reading The China Study, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Tony Gonzalez

dropped animal products from his diet. testified Campbell, and “this

past season he broke the all-time record for the most catches, the

most touchdown passes and the most yards gained of any NFL tight end

in the history of the National Football League.”

 

The China Study also converted Minnesota Twins pitcher Pat Neshek to

an animal free diet says a June ESPN report which also cites vegan

diets of Detroit Lion Desmond Howard, Miami Dolphin Ricky Williams,

former St. Louis Ram D’Marco Farr, Milwaukee Brewer Prince Fielder and

Atlanta Hawk Salim Stoudamire.

 

Forty-five year old middle school art teacher Dave Warwak was

dismissed last fall from the District 3 school system where he had

taught for eight years for, “turning his classroom into a forum on

veganism,” abandoning the art curriculum and asking students to keep

it a secret from their parents according to school board documents.

 

What began as a simple be-kind-to-animals project approved by

administrators who even participated–marshmallow Easter “Peeps” were

made into “pets” to be cared for–got out of hand when Warwak put the

“pets” in cages, pots and pans and between slices of bread.

 

“The problem was when it turned into a PETA advertisement and it was

against the school lunch program,” testified Fox River Grove Middle

School Principal Tim Mahaffy at the Illinois Board of Education’s

three day closed hearings into Warwak’s dismissal conducted at the Fox

River Grove City Hall in April.

 

Despite hearing officer Barry Simon’s repeated admonishments that the

case was not about whether veganism, “is right or wrong or good or

bad,” feeding children animal products was the 300 pound Peep in the

room as Warwak, acting pro se, questioned Mahaffy.

 

Q: Would you say the school lunch goes against humane education?

 

A: I disagree. I don’t see the connection.

 

Q: The humane education says be nice to all things; the school lunch

says, well, not animals?

 

Robert E. Riley (counsel for District 3): Objection. Arguing with the

witness.

 

Q: Does the school promote meat and dairy one-sided or do they allow

other viewpoints on it?

 

A: The school is committed to following both the State and federal

guidelines for serving school lunches.

 

Of course Fox River Grove Middle School is paid to be one-sided.

 

Like 45,000 other public middle and high schools in the US and 60,000

elementary schools, it only receives reimbursement from the National

School Lunch Program when it pushes milk and life-size Milk Mustache

and “Body By Milk” posters adorn lunchroom walls.

 

This is the program that served children downer dairy cows, at risk

for mad cow disease, until the January recall of Hallmark beef,

observes Warwak in a recent memoir about his termination, Peep Show

For Children Only, found on lulu.com.

 

Yet the pro dairy message on the school posters–which feature sports

figures and popular musicians and arrive unsolicited from the National

Dairy Council–is misleading and harmful testified Dr. T. Colin

Campbell on the basis of decades of his National Institutes of Health-

funded research.

 

“The consumption of dairy, especially at the younger ages, is a

problem,” said Campbell which includes health consequences like higher

risks of prostate, uterine, breast and endometrial cancers,

osteoporosis and a “threefold higher risk of colon cancer.”

 

The health promises about strong bones and healthy bodies on the

posters are written by a USDA dietary committee, said Campbell, whose

members were found by a court to have conflicts of interests after

refusing a Freedom of Information request.

 

“Six of the eleven members of the committee including the chair had an

association with the dairy industry,” said Campbell. “And the chair

himself had taken more money without telling the public about it than

he was allowed under the law.”

 

The animal rich diet the Fox River Grove’s District 3 defends to the

point of firing a tenured teacher might mean kids won’t live longer

than the sports heroes they admire, summarized Campbell.

 

Arbitrator Simon has yet to make a ruling about Warwak–or the posters.

 

Martha Rosenberg is a cartoonist for the Evanston Roundtable in

Evanston, Illinois.