I'm sure most of you remember hearing about the December 2010 release of Texas A&M's assistant professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Joan Wolf's book, "Is Breast Best? Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood" (New York University Press, 2010).  Over the past two months, I have attended two local presentations featuring Dr. Wolf.  Obviously, her work generated some national interest.  She has been billed as, "...taking on the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, doctors, and many, many parents. Not to mention the La Leche League."  After reviewing medical studies over the past three decades, she has asserted that, "I was shocked to discover just how weak most literature is.  There is no scientific reason to prefer the breast to the bottle. The evidence is unclear, the relation between cause and effect in statistical studies murky, and the biological mechanisms by which breast milk supposedly provides benefits cloudy. There really is no compelling evidence that breastfeeding makes a medical difference for most babies in the developed world.  And, this is completely contrary to what we are all told."  She has further explained how public health campaigns and advocacy groups have relied on flawed infant–feeding research to exaggerate any health risks associated with using infant formula.  She  has further stated that when social class, better education, and race is filtered out of the research, the less important the breastfeeding evidence becomes and that there will always be problems when measuring the behavior only after the message has been delivered.  And, most concerning of all to me is the reported comment that, “Many people were and remain very angry with me,” she says. “Perhaps more surprising has been the number of women, including some lactation consultants and women who successfully and happily breastfed, who expressed gratitude that I was challenging what they believed to be the excesses of breastfeeding advocacy.”  She has asked, "Is health nothing more than the result of social privilege and the ease of blaming the victim?"  Dr. Wolf has been, and continues to be, included in local CME events that include breastfeeding topics, some of which I have been invited to particpate in.  I have my own responses to her ideas but am curious to hear yours.  One frustrating factor is that she does not oppose breastfeeding per say, but the "unfair burden and guilt" placed on mothers "blaming" them for their child's poor health outcomes.  Grrrrrrrrrr          Shannon     

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