Hello to All,
Today was the second day of hearings in the Lane County Circuit Court on
the custody of Felix Tyson, born in Dec. 98, and whether his HIV+ mom has
the right to make the decision to breastfeed him.  I did not make it to
the first day of the hearings, due to a committment at my daughter's
school.  Today's witnesses included Tom Roe, a local pediatrician, Paul
Lewis, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and researcher from OHSU
in Portland, and David Rasnick, a scientist who helped develop the
protease inhibitor medications like AZT that are used to fight HIV,and
whose recently published work seeks to refute that the HIV virus is the
cause of the syndrome known as AIDS.
  Testimony from both sides was lengthy, tedious at times, and highly
charged at others.  I was chewing my tongue when I heard testimony from
one of the physicians who stated that from a worldwide point of view
breastfeeding is significant in reducing infant and child mortality, but
in our country, breastfeeding reduces morbidity, but not mortality.
Tomorrow's witnesses will include our own Jack Newman (by phone), and
George Kent, author of the paper HIV and The Nutrition Rights of Infants.
 I will do my best to keep you updated on this fascinating and disturbing
case.
  It's the only thing right now that could pull me out of my garden on my
days off.
Yours Truly,
Martha Johson RN IBCLC
Eugene Oregon
___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html