Biotech entrepreneur A2 Corp has approached tobacco companies to discuss their funding research into links between ordinary milk and heart disease.
A2 Corp chief executive Corran McLachlan said last night that he would be willing to take funding from a tobacco company if the New Zealand Government decided it was notin the national interest to research health issues related to different types of beta caseins in milk.
In an interview on Australia's ABC television Four Corners current affairs programme, he said such a step would be a "last resort".
The attraction for tobacco companies would be that if research showed A1 beta casein in milk in most developed countries contributed to heart disease, the companies could argue their liability for increased heart disease attributed to smoking in high-profile court cases in the United States and Europe should be reduced.
Dr McLachlan has claimed the beta casein A1 found in most cows' milk sold in New Zealand "has been linked with the development of coronary heart disease, childhood diabetes and also implicated with autism and schizophrenia".
Food manufacturers are legally barred from making therapeutic claims for their foods - such as being capable of curing illness - unless they substantiate the claims with scientific testing and register the food as a medicine. But there is little to stop them from disparaging rival products.
Between 20 per cent and 45 per cent of dairy cows on both sides of the Tasman already produce A2 milk, with the remainder producing either pure A1 milk or a mix of A1 and A2, but the various milks get mixed when combined at bottling plants.
A2 Corp plans to make its money out of providing tests for farmers to genetically identify their cows producing A1 and A2 proteins, so that herds can be licensed to produce A2 milk.
