Tom, it's a pleasure and a learning experience to read everything you write.

I've been asked many times over the past 20 years about this issue and have
gradually  built up some arguments that apply at the public health level.
This is of course different than the advice one might give to an individual
who suspects she has been heavily exposed to something. But, like you say,
this is probably rare and need not scare most women into worrying about
their milk.

My main argument is that breast milk must be replaced with something. In
developing countries and Eastern Europe, in places where breast milk is
likely to polluted, so is cow milk and locally produced modifications of
it. In fact, DDT and other pesticides are sometimes sprayed directly on
cows. Even in the US we cannot know what kinds of pollutants might be
creeping into processed milks. Each time a horror story rolls up, the
companies claim they have it solved and we can NOW feel secure about using
their products. Presumably lead, cadmium, etc. no longer enters milks from
cans or processing equipment. There was a great article back in the 70s in
a medical journal about a routine check for cow milk that found high levels
of dioxin. Milk deliveries from a large part of New York State were stopped
until the exact farm where it was coming from was located. It took more
than one visit by befuddled experts before they finally figured out what it
was. A farm hand pointed to a pile of hay in a corner of some barn and
said, "They sometimes eat from here." That little pile contained so much
dioxin that it had polluted milk for many households for some time. Think
how often that kind of thing can be going on without public health
authorities discovering it or formula companies knowing. Even if they know,
laws often don't require them to say. I recall in the late 70's when there
was a scare over a spill of PCBs I think in the northern midwest. Only once
several studies had assessed what the levels were in breast milk in the
area did the companies reveal the levels in their formula, which of course
were lower. I wonder if they would even have been asked otherwise how much
they had. They certainly do not volunteer information when they know their
levels ofe new chemical for which there are no regulations.

Tom, would it not be correct to say there there are also several potential
pollutants that breast fed babies are protected from? At least where people
use local water for babies, several horrors are possible, such as nitrates
in ground waters, heavy metals from leaky hot water heaters, asbestos, etc.
which presumably would not come across into breast milk in high levels even
if the mother drank the water.

Ted Greiner, PhD
Senior Lecturer in International Nutrition
Unit for International Child Health, Entrance 11
Uppsala University
751 85 Uppsala
Sweden

phone +46 - 18 515198
fax   +46 - 18 515380

home phone +46 - 8 191397 (can be used as fax also)