Just thought this worth reading.  Note they will be genetically engineering 
the component from breast milk to use in cancer treatment and yes, of course 
to use in infant formula.  (quite a few patents-200 or so- in the US Patent & 
Trademark Office on human milk components to treat and detect various 
cancers) Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

http://www.bcaction.org/Pages/SearchablePages/2000Newsletters/
Newsletter058J.html

"Intriguing new developments indicate an even broader role for breast milk in 
assaulting cancer. In 1992 a Swedish graduate student, Anders Hakansson, 
accidentally observed mothers' milk bring about cancer cell death in his 
laboratory4.
Hakansson, his professor Catharina Svanborg, and their colleagues have since 
studied and resolved the means by which breast milk kills human cancer cells 
of all kinds. Synthesizing the critical components, the researchers are 
working on ways to develop usable treatments for cancer and bacterial 
infections. Svanborg is a physician immunologist at Lund University, and her 
primary interest has been in fighting communicable diseases.
The process that Hakansson observed is a hot, relatively new object of study 
in biology known as apoptosis, the systematic process by which cells, 
responding to environmental signals, self-destruct. it is the natural 
mechanism the body uses to recycle material that is not needed for 
functioning, a means of maintaining order. When apoptosis is initiated, the 
cell dries out and shrivels, and its genetic material becomes shredded so 
that the cell can not duplicate itself. With cancer cells, apoptosis is 
inhibited, allowing rapid growth of. dysfunctional cells.
Funding for Svanborg's work has been hampered by skepticism from American 
scientists, who dominate cancer research. Hers is a small operation in a 
foreign country, and its focus on apoptosis represents a relatively recent 
shift in their research, emanating from Hakansson's fortuitous discovery. 
Their first research paper on this topic was published in 1995 5, which led 
to a $200,000 grant from the American Cancer Society-the ACS's only foreign 
grant at the time. Hakansson continues to work with Svanborg, and their group 
is now collaborating with researchers from Stockholm's Karolinska Institute 
and Oxford University in England.
Unfurling the Mystery
The collaborative's research focuses on a protein known as alpha- 
lactalbumin, dubbed alpha-lac for short. When alpha-lac's amino acid chain is 
folded completely—its usual configuration—it assists in the production of 
lactose, the sugar found in milk.
As alpha-lac unfolds, however (and scientists are unclear as to what prompts 
it to do so), it ignites the process of apoptosis in cancer cells. The 
unfurled version of alpha-lac is termed HAMLET, an acronym for human 
alpha-lactalbumin made lethal to tumors.
Svanborg's team has figured out how alpha-lac transforms into an executioner 
of cancer cells, and has characterized and genetically engineered HAMLET. The 
protein requires an acidic environment to make this change, along with a 
component from breast milk that the team has identified but is keeping 
confidential (presumably for commercial reasons).
Preliminary animal testing suggests that mice given large doses of HAMLET 
experience few observable side effects, a rarity in cancer treatments. The 
research group is optimistic that HAMLET can be made into an effective cancer 
combatant with little deleterious impact for humans. But the process of 
testing the substance in animal tumors, and then in human safety and 
effectiveness trials, could take years.
The isolation of HAMLET as a trigger for apoptosis in cancer cells gives 
further weight to the value of breast milk as a natural means of 
strengthening the human body. Pediatricians and other child and-maternal 
health advocates enthusiastically endorse breast-feeding, despite evidence 
that breast milk is widely contaminated by pesticides and other chemical 
pollutants in the environment. Most international studies of human milk have 
detected DDT and other organochlorine pesticides in human milk. In 
Sweden—where use of chlorinated phenols as pesticides has been 
prohibited—the concentration of such pollutants in breast milk has declined 
over time.6
Because breast milk is at the head of the human food chain, its toxins are 
more concentrated than those in animal-based foods. Walter Rogan, a 
researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, points 
out that breast milk does not meet the Food and Drug Administration's 
standards of purity required of infant formula.7
There are very few studies of, the damage this may cause a child who has been 
nursed, and because of the known benefits, public health promoters continue 
to urge new mothers to nurse their offspring. Biologist Sandra Steingraber, 
author of Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer 
and the Environment, believes that rather than choose between tainted breast 
milk (with all of its benefits) and nutritionally inferior but less 
contaminated formula, we need to eradicate the environmental toxins that 
inevitably wind up polluting our breasts.8
Approximations of mothers' milk and its components, such as infant formula 
and genetically engineered HAMLET, serve significant and potentially 
wonderful functions, but we also need to keep our attention on the 
fundamental work that preserves a nourishing and healthy environment for 
human beings."
1 Shu, X.O. et al., "Breast-Feeding and Risk of Childhood Acute Leukemia," 
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 1999, vol. 91, no. 20, pp. 1765-72.
2 Davis, M.K. "Review of the Evidence for an Association Between Infant 
Feeding and Childhood Cancer," International Journal of Cancer (supplement), 
1998, vol. 11, pp. 29-33. 
3 Radetsky, P. "Got cancer killers?" Discover, June 1999.
4 Labbok, M.H. "Health Sequelae of Breast-Feeding for the Mother," Clinics in 
Perinatology, June 1999, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 491-503.
5 Hakansson, A. et al., "Apoptosis induced by a Human Milk Protein," 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1995, vol. 92, pp 8064-68.
6 Anwar, W.A. "Biomarkers of Human Exposure to Pesticides," Environmental 
Health Perspectives, 1997, vol. 105 (supplement 4), pp. 801-06.
7 Rogan, W.J. "Pollutants in Breast Milk," Archives of Pediatric and 
Adolescent Medicine, 1996, vol. 150, pp. 981-90.
8 Steingraber, S. "Human Breast Milk Contamination." The Ribbon, Fall 1999, 
voll. 4, no. 3, pp. 8-10.
    


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