This is not an easy book to read, but it may be the most important one I've read.But first, let me diverge from the book.
I'm not really a conspiracy theorist, and I am not against big business at all (I work for a big business, I read the Wall Street Journal daily, and I invest in a variety of businesses - including pharmaceutical firms). And even so, I find it quite easy to believe that the US government is not sincerely advancing our health, that drug firms dominate current medical research and thinking (through their sponsorship of research, advertisements in medical journals which lead to a financial dependence relationship, and through repetition of commonly accepted wisdom to generations of physicians).
As a proof point, consider the US food pyramid. Most folks imagine that this represents the US government's guidance to all Americans for the healthiest possible diet. Far from true. The food pyramid is provided by the USDA (Department of Agriculture), whose mission is to increase the business of agriculture. The pyramid doesn't come from the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) or the NIH (National Institutes of Health) - although it isn't clear these folks would do any better given their own biases towards drugs, radiation and surgery.
So what's the metric of success for the USDA, authors of the pyramid? Increased economic value - financial success - of America's agriculture industry. Which means, by the way, meat, poultry, and dairy producers. So guess what? The pyramid features meat, poultry and dairy.
Now I'll get off my soapbox and back to the book. With this background, though, you can see why I found The China Study so believable: the fact that mainstream medicine doesn't align with Campbell's work means nothing to me.
Importantly, Campbell's research shows that genetics aren't the final answer. Even if one has a hereditary genetic predisposition to cancer, a diet avoiding animal proteins and dairy can be the dominant factor in the disease, and prevent it. This important statement, that our genes are not our fate, is also the thesis of the extremely well respected Dr. Dean Ornish; see, for example, his three minute video at TED talks.
(Dr. Ornish is a UT Austin grad, summa cum laude, who went on to Baylor College of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Mass General Hospital. He's one of the very few forward thinking physicians whose credentials are so superb and whose research is so impecable that the medical establishment can't just blow him off.)
So what's the bottom line: avoid animal proteins. Eat fruits and vegetables and some fish if you'd like. Avoid milk, cheese and dairy products.
