Give Milk, Give Life, Give Love.
About the Film
Synopsis
This R&D trailer for the documentary film, Mother's Milk, tells the story of the underground evolution of human breast milk therapy for treatment of cancer. It emerged from a groundbreaking scientific discovery made by a young scientist while working on his doctorate in a lab in Sweden at Lund University in 1994. Dr. Anders Hakansson is now a Tenured Professor of Experimental Infection Medicine at Lund University, as well as a highly accomplished medical research scientist who has been widely published in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals, he's contributed to academic textbooks that are used by the medical research scientists of today, and his original research has been cited in the works of almost 5,000 future studies.
In 1994, Hakansson’s doctoral mentor, Catharina Svanborg, had given him an assignment to test whether human milk might kill bacteria. In order to carry out the experiment, the bacteria would have to be attached to a cell. The cell Anders chose was a lung cancer cell. When he performed the experiment, the bacteria did indeed die: but so did the lung cancer cell. He repeated the experiment and kept getting the same result. Anders Hakansson had serendipitously discovered that human breast milk consistently kills cancer cells.
Svanborg's pharmaceutical company in Sweden, based on Hakansson's discovery, has been trying to create a cancer drug using molecules extracted from mothers milk to form a protein complex called “HAMLET.” The original researchers gave it this name using an acronym for, “human alpha-lactalbumin made lethal to tumours.” 25 years later, Hamlet Pharma has shown that HAMLET on its own can successfully defeat cancer... the first time around. But so far, HAMLET has been unable to prevent cancer from returning. Unfortunately, Catharina Svanborg declined to be interviewed for the documentary.
In the meantime, Hakansson published his thesis about his discovery in 1999, and the news made the cover of Discover magazine, popularising the news (see bottom left of photo to the left), although Svanborg got the spotlight of the article despite that the research wouldn't exist but for Hakansson's original discovery.
The first known person to have discovered Hakansson's research right around the time of his prostate cancer diagnosis in 1999, and then went on to make the bold decision to simply drink donated human milk (rather than wait for a drug), to see if it would work to defeat his cancer is Howard Cohen. Cohen is a software engineer and prostate cancer survivor in Northern California. Howard kept meticulous health records in relation to the amount of human milk he consumed and published the results on his website. After only a month of drinking the milk, Howard's blood test results for prostate cancer came back negative.
When cancer patients in the US are diagnosed, many seek out alternative cancer treatments to the traditional methods of cancer treatment: surgery, chemo, and radiation, which can leave bodies devastated even if cancer is defeated. Their aim is to defeat their cancer without defeating the rest of their bodies. Traditional oncology so far can devastate the body, while human milk actually nourishes the body instead. Over the years, over a thousand patients have reached out to Dr. Hakansson to ask if human milk might work to treat their cancer. Thousands of cancer patients have found Dr. Hakansson's research, and Howard Cohen's website, and followed in Howard's footsteps. These patients get the benefit of all of the thousands of molecules found in human milk aside from alpha-lactalbumin, the main ingredient in HAMLET, including other molecules known to have tumoricidal effects, such as lactoferrin. The research for this film included interviews with hundreds of former-cancer patients who have taken this path and attribute their victory over cancer to human milk. The results have been so promising that doctors are using words like, “shocking,” “stunning,” and “unbelievable!”
The anecdotal evidence is undeniably compelling, as are the laboratory and patient trials of HAMLET conducted in Sweden, (despite HAMLET's inability to prevent cancer from returning).
Given what’s at stake, the public must demand that governments fund clinical trials, as pharmaceutical companies won't fund such studies if the cure for cancer turns out to be human milk. It is of crucial importance that medical science recognises human milk therapy as a treatment cancer, if not as an actual cure, at the very least as an adjuvant treatment method to improve patient quality of life, which has been proven in the context of patient trials.
Since a drug company won't pay for the clinical trials, and governments dismiss human milk as treatment for cancer, writing it off as a novelty, will it be up to these filmmakers to find out if the milk of our mothers could heal the world?
Director
Mother's Milk is directed by Nichole Goluskin, who learned of human milk therapy as treatment for cancer in 2005. For 9 years she researched the effects of human breast milk on cancer cells and cancer patients in her spare time, until 2014 when she began pre-production on this film. Two car accidents in 2016, which took place only 5 months apart from each other, left her disabled until the completion of her 3rd and final spine surgery in 2021. In 2022, she is finally in a position to finish what she started, and that's what she intends to do. She holds it close to her heart that at the end of this long investigative journalistic endeavour, there could be a force with the power to heal the world, and she won't rest until that journey is complete.
About Us
Julian Milo: film editor
NICHOLE GOLUSKIN: director, writer, producer
NICHOLE GOLUSKIN: director, writer, producer
Julian Milo is a wildly, brilliantly, talented film editor, and an incredibly creative story editor, whose invaluable insights have pointed this ship in the right direction many many times.
NICHOLE GOLUSKIN: director, writer, producer
NICHOLE GOLUSKIN: director, writer, producer
NICHOLE GOLUSKIN: director, writer, producer
Nichole Goluskin has been making media since the first music video she ever conceived of and produced aired on MTV in 2007. This is (technically) her first non-fiction work.
STEVEN STARR: Executive producer
NICHOLE GOLUSKIN: director, writer, producer
STEVEN STARR: Executive producer
Academy award-nominated, UN Grand Jury Prize-winning filmmaker (The Garden, F.L.O.W.: For Love of Water), Steven Starr, knew Nichole was a filmmaker before she did. She's forever grateful.
Scientific Consultant
Professor Anders Hakansson, Ph.D.
Anders Hakansson is an established research scientist who 27 years ago made the groundbreaking scientific discovery that human breast milk kills cancer cells. Hakansson has since focused his career on understanding the anti‐cancer and antimicrobial activities of human milk and their potential to treat patients from disease. In this role, he has been in contact with over 1,000 cancer patients who have used human milk as their only, or adjuvant therapy to treat their various forms of cancer. He is currently a Tenured Professor of Experimental Infection Medicine at Lund University in Sweden. He has published over 50 articles in the field, winning him several awards, and his innovative research has been highlighted in Nature, Science, Scientific American and Discovery magazines.
Contact
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Mothers Milk Documentary
