Tom, it's a pleasure and a learning experience to read everything you write. I've been asked many times over the past 20 years about this issue and have gradually built up some arguments that apply at the public health level. This is of course different than the advice one might give to an individual who suspects she has been heavily exposed to something. But, like you say, this is probably rare and need not scare most women into worrying about their milk. My main argument is that breast milk must be replaced with something. In developing countries and Eastern Europe, in places where breast milk is likely to polluted, so is cow milk and locally produced modifications of it. In fact, DDT and other pesticides are sometimes sprayed directly on cows. Even in the US we cannot know what kinds of pollutants might be creeping into processed milks. Each time a horror story rolls up, the companies claim they have it solved and we can NOW feel secure about using their products. Presumably lead, cadmium, etc. no longer enters milks from cans or processing equipment. There was a great article back in the 70s in a medical journal about a routine check for cow milk that found high levels of dioxin. Milk deliveries from a large part of New York State were stopped until the exact farm where it was coming from was located. It took more than one visit by befuddled experts before they finally figured out what it was. A farm hand pointed to a pile of hay in a corner of some barn and said, "They sometimes eat from here." That little pile contained so much dioxin that it had polluted milk for many households for some time. Think how often that kind of thing can be going on without public health authorities discovering it or formula companies knowing. Even if they know, laws often don't require them to say. I recall in the late 70's when there was a scare over a spill of PCBs I think in the northern midwest. Only once several studies had assessed what the levels were in breast milk in the area did the companies reveal the levels in their formula, which of course were lower. I wonder if they would even have been asked otherwise how much they had. They certainly do not volunteer information when they know their levels ofe new chemical for which there are no regulations. Tom, would it not be correct to say there there are also several potential pollutants that breast fed babies are protected from? At least where people use local water for babies, several horrors are possible, such as nitrates in ground waters, heavy metals from leaky hot water heaters, asbestos, etc. which presumably would not come across into breast milk in high levels even if the mother drank the water. Ted Greiner, PhD Senior Lecturer in International Nutrition Unit for International Child Health, Entrance 11 Uppsala University 751 85 Uppsala Sweden phone +46 - 18 515198 fax +46 - 18 515380 home phone +46 - 8 191397 (can be used as fax also)