Jan Barger commented that the govt is in no position to do an annual
survey of breastfeeding practices and rates. However, the government does
lots of anuual or biannual surveys of health and mch related issues that
are in their interest to know about. A couple of carefully thought out
and well worded questions can probably be added to some of these surveys
to provide some information.
  I think that some of the Ross data is probably good, but we need to
convince ourselves and the govt that Ross has an interest in aksing
certain questions so that they get certain information, that's not necessarily
the same info that the govt needs to have.  As I said, I don't think the
govt would rely on data from the tobacco institute on smoking rates or
on data from the liquor industry on drinking rates. not becuase it's
"bad" data but because it is asking different questions than we are.
the problem is that breastfeeding just isn't that hight on anyone's
priority list.
  Naomi Bar-Yam