This was the response I fired off to Miss Betty...

Betty-

I just finished reading the article you wrote as a response to the Danish
breastfeeding study results.  I highly doubt that the intention of the
article was to make anyone feel "bad," although that impulse is nothing to
pooh-pooh in a world in which doctors hesitate to emphasize breastfeeding for
fear of excluding those mothers who "choose" to formula feed when they have
two perfectly functioning breasts.  But what I'm wondering is this:  why do
you respond so vehemently and viscerally to this?  Surely you would agree
that we shouldn't feed our children McDonald's three times a day for obvious
health reasons, and I am certain that you wouldn't even think twice about a
study in which the cholesterol levels of McDonald's-fed children was
sky-high, or the obesity statistics or whatever.  Why can't this be like any
other scientific finding:  a public health announcement that is not
insignificant and is, in fact, quite valuable to us as a medical progression.
 Why do you act as if it is a conspiracy to make those who choose to
formula-feed feel bad?  And when did how people feel become a factor in a
scientific study?   Maybe you should write for the recovery-movement
journals, where "feeling justified" is paramount and everyone's "choice"
deserves a fair shake.  In spite of your below-the-belt jokes, you had
"victim" written all over you.

Your slippery-slope fallacy was entertaining, to be sure, but undermined the
study as an important one.  I'm sorry if you lost a child and I think you did
a valuable thing in adopting a child, and I do know firsthand that
induced-lactation is, quite frankly, a pain in the ass.  But your
trivialization and belittling of what is a very important piece of
information demotes your skills from journalistic to pseudo-comedic, at a
price that is hardly worth it.  I hope you enjoyed your laugh.

Heather Kelly,
New York City

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