Hello everyone!  The problem with the address was that it didn't include the
"t"  of tamu.edu.  Thanks for the great response!

Concerning iron deficiency, the physical anthropologist who co-edited the
breastfeeding book with me is Patricia Stuart-Macadam.  She published
another co-edited volume a few years ago with Susan Kent and Eugene Weinberg
about re-thinking iron deficiency.  Recent research (the past 10 years)
suggests that iron hoarding by the body is similar to generating a fever --
both are responses of the body to infections and parasites, to keep the
bacteria from reproducing well, and therefore help fight the infection.
Bacteria need lots of iron to reproduce well, and the body keeps it away
from them by lowering its availability in the blood, and also generating
fevers, as fevers prevent iron uptake by the bacteria.  So both iron
hoarding in the cells and fevers are the body's adaptive response to
infections and parasites.  That's why so many sick kids or kids with
intestinal parasites are "anemic" and giving them more iron only makes them
sicker.  The contributors to this volume conclude that current standards for
normal iron are set way too high, and that the natural iron content of
breast milk, which results in babies seeming to be "anemic" is in fact the
appropriate level.  The addition of iron-fortified cereals or formulas is
therefore not necessary, and may be counter productive if the child ever
gets a bacterial or parasitic infection.

        About breastfeeding as a feminist issue -- I think many feminists
want to deny that "biology is destiny" and see childbearing and lactation as
tying them down.  This also comes from a cultural context that has taught
people to think that bottlefeeding is totally equivalent, if not superior,
to breastfeeding.  They see bottlefeeding as this wonderful liberator from
biological limitations.  Sigh.  Anthropologist Penny Van Esterik has written
several wonderful pieces on this, including something in Journal of Human
Lactation (Lessons From Our Lives: Breastfeeding in a Personal Context is
the name of that article, I think).