Cindy's comments have stirred up a bunch of good reflection and information.
  The power of 'anecdotal information' is unbelievable -- that's why
anecdotes are used by health care professionals so often.  When Cathy Liles
interviewed a pediatrician about what he says when a mother refuses an
immunization, he said he used guilt, more guilt, and education to convince
her to immunize.  His 'more guilt' was what he calls his 'dead baby'
stories.  He does the same when teaching classes at the university and
trying to convince people not to birth their children at home -- he tells a
story about the one baby who was born at home and had problems and died.
What he doesn't tell the students is the statistics showing that homebirths
are not any riskier than hospital births, and he doesn't tell them 'dead
baby' stories about babies that died in the hospital because of procedures
done to them there.  And he doesn't tell patients about the risks of formula
because he doesn't want to 'badger' them or make them feel guilty.

He has a patient who had meningitis as an infant and was left with cerebral
palsy.  Now 9, he will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.  He was
not breastfed.  Breastfeeding might have made the difference for him.  Most
formula-fed children don't get meningitis, and not everyone who gets
meningitis is permanently handicapped from it.  But all children deserve to
start life with normal nutrition, normal immune systems, normal brains.

It is a difficult process to truly understand and accept epidemiological
thinking rather than anecdotal thinking, because the anecdotes are so
powerful -- especially if they apply specifically to us or someone we know.

My father would never use seat belts because he knew someone who went off a
bridge and drowned, supposedly because he panicked and couldn't get his seat
belt undone.  Logical?  No.  Powerful?  Yes.

Another impediment to truly understanding and accepting the harm that
formula does to people is that we have come to accept the level of health
that formula-fed people have as being normal.  We think it is normal for
children to get lots of ear infections, to have lots of colds, and fevers,
and generally to be sick several times a year.

I know a family where every winter the son gets sick several times -- he
misses several days of school each time with high fever and vomiting.  He
was breastfed for only a few months.  His parents think this is perfectly
normal and standard -- it's the same pattern his older sister has (also
breastfed for only a few months).  My son of the same age never gets very
sick.  Never.  He may run a low fever for a day and throw up once, every 3
years or so.  That's it.  He was nursed for 5.5 years. He doesn't get colds,
he doesn't get strep throat.  Every time the pediatrician sees him, she has
to be reminded who he is, because it has been YEARS since the last time she
saw him.

So many children are formula-fed from birth, or breastfeed only a few months
-- they get sick often, but since they form the majority of people in the
US, people think it is normal to get sick this often.

I hope that Cindy will stick with us, and realize the power of the research
that shows that formula does make children sick and lower their IQ scores,
on average.  Yes, individual children may escape relatively unscathed -- but
until the person has died of old age or an accident, we won't know for sure.

When people say to me "My kids were formula fed and they are fine," I point
out that they still have many years ahead of them during which they may
develop asthma, diabetes, coronary heart disease, multiple sclerosis,
cancer, or one of the other later-in-life diseases for which formula
increases the risk.

Using formula when you COULD perfectly well have breastfed, which accounts
for the vast majority of all formula-feeding in the US, is gambling with
your child's future.

Kathy Dettwyler
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