> Can anyone
>help me find the original document that said 4 out of 1000 infants die every
>year as a result of not receiving breastmilk in the US?

The reference that I'm aware of is Rogan WJ.  Cancer from PCBs in breast
milk?  a risk benefit
analysis (Abstract No. 612) Pediatr Res 25:105A, 1989.  But as I recall from
years back, that's not
exactly what he came up with.

The abstract itself is one brief paragraph, and I can't remember now why I
decided to trace the numbers in it further - they were presented in some
sort of odd way that sounded like one thing and actually was another (That's
cryptic, isn't it?).

Rogan et al produced a paper a couple years later, Should the presence of
carcinogens in breast milk discourage breast feeding? Rogan WJ, Blanton PJ,
Portier CJ, and Stallard E.  Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 1991;
13:228-240.  In it they refer to, "... the excess risk of postneonatal
mortality from forgoing breastfeeding, which we estimate to be 256 per
100,000 infants."  But they also estimate 245 cases of cancer among people
who were breastfed, precisely because they *were* breastfed.  Those are
cancer cases, not deaths, and the list of
risk factors he took into consideration in figuring deaths from not
breastfeeding isn't a comprehensive one.   They also came up with an
estimated decrease in life expectancy of less than 3 days from breastfeeding
for 9 months and about 70 days from not breastfeeding.  And they came up
with their figures "using a plethora of assumptions".

Darn.  I wish I could find my copy of the 1989 abstract.  Because there was
something intriguing in the reasoning that didn't jibe with the 4/1000
figure.
Ah well.  It's well worth tracking him down, or having a statistician friend

take a look at the abstract and/or article, before launching out with that
figure.  I have an address for Rogan as of ten years ago, if you want to
e-mail me privately.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, apologizing in Ithaca NY for not providing a
full story...

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