http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/press-twisted-my-words-says-academic-in-breastmilk-row-1766147.html
"Few topics are more emotive than breastfeeding, that rite of passage
into motherhood. Witness the furore that erupted over a story purporting
to rubbish claims that breast milk provided newborns with a protective
shield against an array of illnesses or allergies.
Mums everywhere entrenched their positions on either side of the
breast-milk divide when they leapt on the alleged assertion made by a
leading professor of paediatrics and breastfeeding adviser to the World
Health Organisation and Unicef. Michael Kramer was reported as saying
that much of the evidence used to persuade mothers to breastfeed was
either wrong or out of date.
Those in the anti camp were particularly ecstatic. "It was all I could
do not to dance around the room whooping with joy.... Thanks for
vindicating all the mums who dared to challenge the sanctimonious
breastfeeding orthodoxy in 'discussion' forums," wrote TheJasMonster on
Mumsnet after reading the article in The Times. Conversely, those
pro-breastfeeding, from new mums trying to do the right thing to
anti-formula campaigners such as Baby Milk Action, were left devastated
that someone as respected as Kramer, who has studied evidence on
breastfeeding since 1978, could perform such a massive U-turn.
Especially on the eve of World Breastfeeding Week, which kicked off
yesterday.
Or did he? Not a bit of it, says the professor, who is renowned for a
groundbreaking study that found an IQ advantage to breastfeeding even
after you'd stripped out the natural advantages that being the sort of
mum who breastfeeds would give her child. Rather, he is spitting tacks
at how his comments had been so "grossly misrepresented" for the second
time in almost as many months. (The first was in the respected American
magazine, The Atlantic, in an article entitled "The case against
breastfeeding", which ignited the original media storm on the subject.)
"Journalists certainly have the right to express their own opinions, but
not to misquote experts they choose to interview in order to support
those opinions. That sort of sensationalist journalist would not
surprise me from the tabloids, but I had expected better from The
Atlantic and The Times," Kramer said last night.
The Times quoted Kramer, who is based at McGill University, Montreal, as
saying there was "very little evidence" breastfeeding reduces the risk
of a range of diseases from leukaemia to heart disease. Yet, what he
actually said was: "The existing evidence suggests that breastfeeding
may protect against the risk of leukaemia, lymphoma, inflammatory bowel
disease, type 1 diabetes, heart disease and blood pressure." All he did
concede was that we need "more and better studies to pursue these
links", a common cry from academics lacking in funding.
As for the article merely casting him "in the camp that believes that
breastfeeding will turn out to have a slight effect on brain
development", well, that hardly squared with his life's work, he said
yesterday. "There is an IQ advantage to breastfeeding by as much as
three or four points. It's not the difference between Einstein and a
mental retard at an individual level, but it means having a smarter
population on average, fewer children with school difficulties, and more
gifted children."
He added: "There really isn't any controversy about which mode of
feeding is more beneficial for the baby and the mother, but when you
read the article in The Times it sounds like there is." Furthermore, he
points out: "I'm not aware of any studies that have observed any health
benefits of formula feeding. That's important, and any mother weighing
the benefits of breastfeeding vs formula feeding needs to know that."
His only note of caution, which was flipped on its head by both
publications, was that breastfeeding advocates don't need "to overstate
their case for issues that are more controversial", such as the link
between breastfeeding and protection against obesity, allergies and
asthma. "Public health bodies don't have to exaggerate the benefits in
order to be very comfortable about supporting breastfeeding," he added.
Some solace for campaigners such as the WHO, keen to use World
Breastfeeding Week to increase global breastfeeding rates and save up to
1.3 million children's lives a year. Worldwide, fewer than 40 per cent
of mums breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of their baby's
life, as recommended: in the UK only 3 per cent are still breastfeeding
exclusively at five months."
----
Morgan Gallagher
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