Barbara Wilson-Clay wisely suggested I squawk to the editors of Medscape
about their recent eye-roll-inducing blurb about rheumatoid arthritis. So I
did! My e-mail to their site:
Imagine my distress, as an International Board Certified Lactation
Consultant, when my eyes were drawn to the (lovely) picture of a mother
nursing her baby ... next to a teaser hinting that this quintessential
motherly act exposes the baby to a greater risk of getting rheumatoid
arthritis. The study was even published in the distinguished British
Medical Journal, and reported through Reuters! Yikes!
The headline itself, and the blurb that follows, read thusly:
"Perinatal Factors May Influence Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis Later in Life
"Birth weight, breastfeeding, and paternal occupation appear to influence a
neonate's risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in adulthood,
according to a report published in the May 17th issue of the British Medical
Journal.
Reuters Health Information 2003"
Boy. I couldn't believe my lactation-profession-trained eyes: was
breastfeeding a bad guy?
I followed the link to the Reuters article. I did not even need to read
the full BMJ article to immediately recognize the real culprit here: the
editors at Medscape.
Right there, in paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 of the Reuters article (the one you
chose for synopsis on your site), we learn that:
(1) Babies born at 4000 grams + had an increased risk of RA in adulthood;
(2) "Compared with in-hospital initiation of breastfeeding, delaying such
feeding until after discharge was associated with 90% increase in the risk
of RA, the authors state." (That is the entire 4th paragraph.)
(3) Babies whose fathers were manual laborers had an increased risk of RA
in adult life.
If I had been editing Medscape on May 16th, my lead sentence would have
read, "High birth weight, delayed breastfeeding, and paternal occupation as
manual laborer appear to influence a neonate's risk of developing rheumatoid
arthritis (RA) in adulthood ...."
I rely upon Medscape to collect pertinent medical articles I haven't the
time to find. You are no longer credible if you can't do this accurately.
It took me about two minutes of clicking and reading to see that Medscape
had taken the lazy way out, merely parroting Reuters' grossly
mischaracterized findings of this study.
Your picture editor probably took more time selecting and inserting that
photo of the nursing mother. This was a powerful -- and wholly inaccurate
-- message you sent. You would have better characterized the Reuters
article (and study) by showing a fat baby, being offered a bottle of
formula, by a man wearing dirty overalls.
Surely you realize most readers won't "look further," as I did. I look
forward to your response.
Liz Brooks, JD, IBCLC
Wyndmoor, PA, USA
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