This week's (Sept. 22) edition of Science News has a cover story
entitled "HIV dilemma: bottle versus breast." The full article doesn't
seem to be available online (www.sciencenews.org) but it basically
covers the history of what's known about HIV transmission through
breastmilk, and how recommendations have changed in Africa where there
isn't safe and secure access to formula to exclusively breastfeed
instead. I was intrigued by the magazine's choices of some picture
captions and headlines, including:

"The Breast Solution: Nature's nutrition keeps HIV at bay."
"Although breast-feeding can transmit HIV, in poor countries it often
poses fewer other health risks than formula feeding."
"Breast milk [on its own] is not really that transmissive." -- Nigel
Rollins, University of Kwazulu-Natal
"We can honestly say with certainty that breast-feeding in comparison
to formula feeding saves lives." -- Nigel Rollins, University of
Kwazulu-Natal

My favorite quote from the body of the article:

"The newborn gut is meant to only have breast milk and is not really
meant to see anything else." This is from Wendy Holmes, an HIV
researcher at the Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and
Public Health in Melbourne, Australia.

Lisa Mandell, MBA, IBCLC
Havertown, PA USA

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