>Someone kindly sent me an e-mail with studies that are supportive of
>breastfeeding despite toxins in the environment.  There is a web site
>http://dir.niehs.nih.gov/direb/rogan.htm  of Dr. Walter Rogan, an
>epidemiologist from the National Institute of Environmental Health
>Sciences, whose studies showed that toxin exposure is transplacental not
>lactational.

a correction: it's not that there is no lactational exposure, (in fact the exposure via
breastfeeding is pretty high), but that the lactational exposure didn't cause negative
effects on the children, while the toxins in uterus did cause negative effects.

from the above mentioned webpage:
" Although the primary hypothesis of this study was that PCBs and DDT (as DDE) in breast
milk might produce toxicity in nurslings, Rogan and his co-investigator, Beth Gladen
(Statistics Branch, NIEHS), showed that transplacental but not lactational exposure to
PCBs produced small but persistent delays in motor development detectable from birth to
age 2 years. "

Unfortunately the Dutch studies did show additional negative effects of toxins from human
milk (those kids with the highest exposure of toxins in breastmilk felt back to the level
fo formula fed children). The researchers thougth the difference with other research (eg
Rogan's research) was caused by the higher exposure of dioxines (instead of PCB's) in
Dutch children .

see: http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/abon/bf_toxins.htm

regards,

Annelies Bon
counsellor of the Dutch bf organization Borstvoeding Natuurlijk

             ***********************************************
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