Valerie and others,
In the absence of clear conflicts of interest, I think we need
to be very careful when questioning the motivations of individual
public health researchers who speak out about breast milk
contamination.
Large research institutions are not monoliths. While conducting my
own research on breast milk contaminants, I spent four years at
Cornell University, where bioengineering and genetic modification
projects are common practice. I oppose such research. As I
biologist, I think the ongoing hijacking of science by private,
for-profit companies is a terrible development. At the same
time, I would not want to be judged by the kind of research that my
colleagues in other departments engage in.
Dr. Phil Landrigan is a champion of children's environmental health.
He has risked his career fighting lead paint companies and exposing
the industry-sponsored studies on lead's effects on children's brain
development. These conflicts of interest, for decades, prevented
this country from taking meaningful action on lead. He has headed up
inquiries into Gulf War Syndrome, risking the wrath of those in power
who seek to deny its existence. He has advised the U.S. government
on the issue of pesticides in the diets of infants and children and
was a major force behind the Food Quality Protection Act. Most
recently, he has been trashed by an industry-front group for daring
to chair a conference that explored the links between prenatal toxic
exposures and risk for late-life neurodegenerative diseases, such as
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
In the various public statements about breast milk contamination that
I have heard Landrigan make, he has always expressed his enthusiastic
and abiding support for breastfeeding even as he challenges the lax
environmental regulations that allow the ongoing contamination of
mother's milk with toxic chemicals in the first place.
Here are excerpts from the first two paragraphs of the chapter
entitled "Human Milk" in the American Academy of Pediatrics, HANDBOOK
OF PEDIATRIC ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH, published in 1999. Landrigan is
one of the book's several authors:
"Nursing infants feed from the top of the food chain. This exposes
them to bioconcentrating pollutant chemicals, especially persistent
halogenated pesticides and industrial chemicals dissolved in the fat
of their mothers' milk. These residues are present in the breast
milk of women without occupational or other special exposure. Infant
formula is free of these residues because the lipid comes from
coconuts or other sources low on the food chain. Dairy cows do not
have much exposure; in addition, a cow makes tons of milk during her
lifetime production, keeping concentrations of pollutants in any
given volume low.
"Breastfeeding is good for infants. The American Academy of
Pediatrics and the World Health Organization have considered the
problem of environmental contaminants in human milk and continue to
recommend breastfeeding. So far, despite a literature that is now
almost 50 years old, there are very few instances in whcih morbidity
has occurred in a nursling from a pollutant chemical in milk. There
is good evidence that no such morbidity is occurring from the
commoner and well-studied chemical agents...."
[my note: Dutch studies published since this book indicate that
infants whose mothers have higher levels of PCBs in their milk show
subtle cognitive deficits when compared with infants whose mothers
have lower levels. Citations from these studies have already been
posted on LactNet and can be found in the archives.]
--
Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D.
Distinguished Visiting Scholar
Division of Interdisciplinary Studies
307 Job Hall
Ithaca College
Ithaca,NY 14850-7012
[log in to unmask]
www.steingraber.com
--
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