Pat,  The woman featured on 20/20 is Christine Maggiore who wrote the book,
"What if everything you thought you knew about AIDS WAS WRONG?"  It is a book
a highly recommend reading.  Her book opens the door and lets some light onto
a subject that people are too afraid to discuss publicly.

It is ironic that we think of ourselves as a free country and yet we are only
free to believe what the people in power believe.  We talk about
evidence-based medicine. Yet we have a medical system that refuses to see
anything but what the drug and infant formula industry influences us to see.
If we had a medical community that truly practiced evidence-based medicine,
then breastfeeding would never have been discouraged for women who were
hiv-positive.  The evidence points heavily in the direction that it is far
better for women in any country-rich or poor to breastfeed--breastfeed
exclusively.

Why has our breastfeeding community accepted this situation?  Initially the
CDC made the decision in 1985 to "discourage" breastfeeding in developed
countries based on 2 letters written to Lancet (letters not peer-reviewed
studies).  These 2 letters were based on 4 cases total (Thiry et al and
Zieglar et al).  Now I read in the new HHS Blueprint for Action on
Breastfeeding that hiv positive women "should not" breastfeed.  So now we
have gone from discouraged to should not ( a step more prohibitive than a few
years ago).  But based on what?  The Nduati study?  The Nduati study not only
was unethical from the beginning (randomization of infant feeding is
unethical--Riordan Auerbach, Breastfeeding and Human Lactation).  But the
Nduati study is so poorly done that it is unbelievable that anyone in the
medical community would accept it.

We have patents on human milk components to inactivate hiv (not genetically
engineered but the real components).  Who owns those patents Snow Brand Milk
Products owns a patent on human lactoferrin to treat and prevent hiv/aids.
Snow Brand of Japan has merged with Nestle of Japan.  So one might assume
that Nestle has this patent now.  John Hopkins has several patents on HMFG to
treat and prevent hiv/aids.  Hm....so we are suppose to believe that women
who are hiv positive and breastfeed their own babies are risking them in some
way?  Give me a break.  So we are suppose to tell women who are hiv positive,
don't breastfeed but here take this lactoferrin tablet for your disease and
give your baby infant formula spiked with human lactoferrin to prevent
hiv/aids.  Heaven forbid you use the real thing because it isn't going to
make money for our government-backed drug and infant formula industries!
Bravo to Christine Maggiore for standing up and speaking out!
Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

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