Oh man, she also doesn't think that obesity causes disease....it's true that correlation is not causation but when the direction of all results is in the same direction you have got a case! She accepts that smoking causes cancer but she needs to understand that it was decades and decades of research to prove that and that for a long, long time there were some making the same arguments that she is making with regards formula feeding.
She also doesn't understand the whole body of research and how it interacts. So Chen and Rogan's study of infant mortality and formula feeding is dissed because infants were more likely to die in accidents- how could formula feeding cause accidents??? Well that's a question that only someone who is not familiar with the research could ask because they didn't know that formula feeding affects maternal behaviour such that women who are formula feeding on average spend less time with their babies, have more negative interactions with their babies and are more likely to neglect their children (and the most recent research uses functional MRI to look at how formula feeding affects maternal brain function). 
The social determinates of health is serious business but Joan Wolf just muddies the waters. Instead of recognising that there are real barriers preventing disadvantaged women from breastfeeding and that this is adversely affecting the health of their babies she wants to say that these barriers are unimportant because breastfeeding is unimportant. Sheesh!
Karleen Gribble
Australia

-----Original Message-----
From: Lactation Information and Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Shannon Sanford, IBCLC
Sent: Thursday, 28 April 2011 4:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: the science of breastfeeding

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.  

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome