Mr. Knox writes: "Could my breastfed daughter write in 'I was breastfed and hospitalised with pneumonia and bronchiolitis and now have eczema and asthma'? Perlease!" Perhaps if she had been bottle-fed, she wouldn't be alive today. And how long was she breastfed? The minimum of six months of exclusive breastfeeding recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization? The minimum of continued breastfeeding of one year (AAP) or two years (WHO) or the 3-7 more typical of our species? Or was she only breastfed for a few months, and then not excusively? No one has ever claimed that breastfeeding prevents all diseases, Mr. Knox, and you know that. No one has ever claimed that all bottle-fed children die from bottle-feeding. We are dealing with relative risk. This is an epidemiological approach, rather than an anecdotal approach. Anecdotally, one can say: "Hey, I've driven drunk, and I never hit anybody with my car." "I drank during pregnancy and my child doesn't have fetal alcohol syndrome." "My great-uncle smoked 3 packs a day for 40 years and died while swimming in the ocean from a shark attack -- therefore, smoking doesn't cause cancer." And yes, there are still people who argue that smoking doesn't cause cancer, and HIV doesn't cause AIDS. All of these arguments that you raise, Mr. Knox, are the typical naive arguments of someone who has not read the research and hasn't spent the years of experience that most of us on LactNet have thinking about these issues. If you are interested in becoming better educated, by all means, please stay and read and learn, and go seek out other sources of information such as "Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives," and "Milk, Money, and Madness," and Dr. Newman's book, and Riordan and Auerbach, and on and on. If you are only interested in antagonizing people and raising specious arguments, perhaps another hobby would be more productive?? Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition Texas A&M University "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. No one is entitled to their own facts." --- Arthur Schlessinger _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html