Interesting that the article fails to mention the stats on death as a result
of artificial feeding in these settings as a comparison.  Unfortunately,
people reading this article who do not see the daily suffering caused by
artificial feeding would have their belief that breastfeeding is dangerous,
unreliable, open to contamination reinforced by the way this abstract is
written.  When will we learn??
Nina Berry
Fighting prejudice, patriarchy and ignorance every day - just like you.
Australia

-----Original Message-----
From: Lactation Information and Discussion
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Liz Masth RN IBCLC
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 8:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Breastfeeding now safer for HIV infected mothers

I received this article from Yahoo Breastfeeding group.

Breastfeeding Now Safer For Infants Of HIV-infected Mothers

ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2008) - An antiretroviral drug already in widespread
use in the developing world to prevent the transmission of HIV from infected
mothers to their newborns during childbirth has also been found to
substantially cut the risk of subsequent HIV transmission during
breast-feeding.
See also: 
Health & Medicine
HIV and AIDS
Infectious Diseases
Sexual Health
Plants & Animals
Bacteria
Virology
Microbiology
Reference
Transmission (medicine)
Colostrum
Premature birth
Infant
In a study presented Feb. 4 at the 2008 Conference on Retroviruses and
Opportunistic Infections in Boston, an international team of AIDS experts
reports that nevirapine given once daily to breast-feeding infants from 8 to
42 days old decreased by almost half the rate of HIV transmission via
breast-feeding at 6 weeks of age. The decrease occurred in comparison to a
single dose of nevirapine given to infants at birth, the current standard of
care. 
At 6 months of age, the risk of postnatal HIV infection or death in infants
who received the six-week regimen was almost one-third less than the risk
for infants given only a single dose. The study was led by three teams of
investigators at The Johns Hopkins University in collaboration with
investigators in Ethiopia, India and Uganda.
Breast-feeding remains a leading route of HIV transmission in the developing
world. The United Nations World Health Organization estimates that
approximately 150,000 infants are infected through breast-feeding each year.
In the United States each year, fewer than 150 newborns are infected with
HIV at birth, mostly to mothers who did not know they were HIV positive.
The study, conducted from 2001 to 2007 and involving approximately 2,000
infants, is one of the first randomized controlled trials to show that a
drug can prevent HIV transmission to uninfected babies exposed to their
infected mothers' breast milk.
According to Johns Hopkins scientists, the results are highly significant
because the low-dose regimen of nevirapine was able to reduce transmission
or death in breast-feeding infants. They note that the extended-nevirapine
regimen appears to be as safe as the single-dose regimen.
The study is also significant, the scientists say, because it is the first
to show that an antiretroviral drug can prevent HIV transmission through
mucosal tissue.
This finding has implications for the potential value of antiretroviral
drugs for preventing sexual transmission of HIV.
The six-week extended nevirapine trial, or SWEN study, included more than
200 scientists and staff collaborating in many countries. The project was
directed by Johns Hopkins investigators J. Brooks Jackson, M.D., M.B.A., and
Laura Guay, M.D., with colleagues at the Makerere University/Johns Hopkins
University Research Collaboration in Kampala, Uganda; by Andrea Ruff, M.D.,
with colleagues at Addis Ababa University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; by
Robert Bollinger, M.D., M.P.H., with colleagues at BJ Medical College in
Pune, India.; and Lawrence Moulton, Ph.D., of Johns Hopkins, principal
statistician for the study.
The SWEN study was funded by the Division of AIDS at the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of the National Institutes of
Health. Nevirapine is manufactured by the German pharmaceutical company
Boehringer Ingelheim and sold under the brand name Viramune


Liz Maseth RN, IBCLC
Outpatient Lactation Services
Maternal Fetal Medicine
Akron Children's Hospital
(330) 543-4531
Fax (330) 543-4508
Pager (330) 914-0096
[log in to unmask]

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