Dear all:

I want to explain where I think the fear of bottles may have originated because I've 
worked in those environments.  And why the original boycot against Nestle had logo of an 
emaciated baby inside a bottle.  If you are in an environment where you not only don't 
have clean water, but even worse don't have enough water --- you cannot clean food 
recepticals.  A common practice in some areas where I worked in Africa was to simply 
rub sand in the food dishes to "cleanse" the food off the dish.  

In some areas there are not even latrines -- so fecal contamination is even more 
concentrated than where we do have toilets.  (The Myth Busters had a show that proved 
what I knew from the enviromental engineers at Hopkins --- fecal contamination is 
everywhere even in clean developed country kitchens no matter how many times you use 
your clorox wipes).  

A bottle is an enclosed container and has a teat --- both of which are much much harder 
to clean than open containers.  I still remember vaguely the studies that Kathleen 
Rasmussen PhD, summarized in her maternal and child nutrition class about bacterial 
growth in bottles under varying conditions.

In an area without potable water, without latrines and without enough water, bottles most 
decidedly do kill.  Cups still can be contaminated but are far preferable.  During 
emergency conditions when sanitary systems are disrupted, all babies and children who 
are not exclusively breastfed should be fed with cups, not bottles. 

If you have spent a lot of time in hospitals in developing areas of the world, you don't 
have to think twice about the morbidity and mortality coming from using bottles, even if 
it is not formula that is put into them.

Quite frankly, after witnessing how some parents drag bottles around with them for 
extended periods of time, I'm not sure that a thorough study of actual practices with 
bottles would not yield findings of far more contamination than parents realize --- and I 
would say even in the breast milk bottles.

Best regards, Susan Burger

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