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Fri, 21 Jun 1996 15:12:59 -0400 |
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>From: [log in to unmask]
>Date: Thu, 20 Jun 96 17:20:20 CET
>To: m.e.kennedy
>Subject: Breast feeding in Germany
>
> Dear Jim,
>
> It is somewhat overstated to say women are forced to have
> their breast milk test. I understood that some women's
> group had petitioned the EU Parliment regarding their right
> to have their breast milk tested. From my understanding,
> the situtation in Germany is the following:
>
>
>
> The quasi-governmental (then West) German Research
> Foundation Commission for the Assessment of Residues in
> Foods addressed breast milk contamination several times. In
> 1984 the Commission made a recommendation that babies be
> breast-fed exclusively for the first four months of life,
> and that women interested in breast-feeding for longer than
> four months should have their breast milk tested for
> presence of contaminants. The Commission based this
> recommendation on its balancing of diminishing additional
> benefits of longer periods of breast-feeding expected after
> the first 4 months against the health risks posed by breast
> milk contaminants, which it believed to constantly increase
> as the period of breast-feeding lengthened. Additionally,
> the Commission proposed "guideline values" for several
> organochlorine contaminants. The Commission suggested that
> the risks to infants resulting from levels in excess of the
> guidelines should be reduced by lowering the fraction which
> breast milk constitutes of an infant's diet and replacing
> it with supplementary food. In 1992 this recommendation was
> reconsidered by some of its original authors in the light of
> new data on the levels of dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans
> present in breast milk, and they reaffirmed it. The
> Commission itself, however, has been dissolved and the
> German government never endorsed the recommendations
> discussed above. The then German Federal Health Office
> (now Federal Institute for Consumer Protection and
> Veterinary Medicine) recommendation is that complementary
> feeding should be initiated between the 4th and 6th month
> for reasons of nutritional physiology.
>
> I hope this is useful.
>
> Gerry
>
>
>
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