<< I doubt that Iranian dairy farmers use a lot of antibiotics, and I assume
 that British vegetarians go to great efforts to get high quality milk not
 contaminated with antibiotics.  I see no evidence that the body produces
 B12 but do believe that the antibiotics could interfere with the production
 of intrinsic factor without which the body cannot absorb B12.  Below you
 will find excerpts from the British Vegan Society's information sheet on
 B12 which can be found in its full length at
  >>

Certainly this is true, I too doubt that Iran has the same low standards of
milk production that we do in the Western world. The main source there I
beleive is goats, not cows, which further complicates things, and most would
be family goats, as in the family milks and provides their own milk in many
cases. I would suspect that all thier milk is fresh and raw, which is better,
but has its own problems in that milk is a good vector for many diseases. I
have not seen the studies. It usually only takes a quick perusal of these
"studies" to find the flaws in data collection or conclusions. It is highly
unlikely that most western researchers would even ask if there were
antibiotics involved, or the source of the milk.

As to the English Indian vegetarians. I both lived and taught in India and
England at two medical schools and one alternative health care graduate
school.  I can assure you with an absoulte certainty that very few Indians
make any effort at all to check the sources of their milk for antibiotics.
They buy it at the local markets the same as the general population. A high
percentage of Indians are medical physicians and health care workers.  As such
they and their families are more likely to use antibiotics and precription
drugs than the general British population.  So this group of  non vegans would
be even more likely to have B12 deficiency than the general  vegetarian
population of that nation, if you add in these variables.

Thanks for the data from the British Vegan Society. The secretary of the
Association for a few decades was a personal friend. I have lived and worked
with those people. A marvelous group. I know that there are many different
approaches within the group. Most are not Vegan. They use milk, and as such
would be susceptible to B12 deficiency via antibiotic problems. Many
vegetarians that are vegetarians for health reasons,  so they may already have
problems which carry over and may be confused with vegetarians of  good
health. Being Vegetarian is a broad group of people. The ideas of what a
Vegetarian is is not well defined among vegetarians. Some skip meat ever other
Wednesday. Some are fish and chicken eating vegetarians. A large goup eat eggs
and milk products. Others eat no animal products at all.  So that
generalizations on all vegans needing B12 because some vegetarians do, is very
like saying all Americans need glasses, because some of us do.

Thanks. I wish I had my library availble. I would love to give you all the
research data.

thanks again for your input

Jerry