Our very existence, our survival at one time was dependent on breastfeeding.
Infants were raised under all kinds of conditions and survived because human
milk protects against pathogenic organisms.  Breastmilk, a living fluid,
works to protect the infant from bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites.  Our
existence now is because women back then had no choice but to breastfeed
their babies.

But why is it so hard for people in modern times to believe that
breastfeeding is more than nutrition?  Why am I still getting the same calls
I got 16 years ago when I first started working with breastfeeding mothers.
That call and its many variations is that the mom is sick and she has stopped
breastfeeding or plans to stop breastfeeding or thinks she needs to pump and
dump. E.coli  falls into one of our many variations of illnesses that mothers
and some HCPs believe means weaning from the breast.

Yet we have numerous studies that shows us that human lactoferrin inactivates
e.coli and yes many patents that say so, too.  So we want to err on the side
of caution--pasteurize the milk.  What is mostly killed by such
methods--lactoferrin.  Of interest is that the US meat industry is utilizing
lactoferrin.  They will be using lactoferrin on all their meat to protect it
from e.coli. It will be genetically engineered human lactoferrin but based on
what human milk lactoferrin does--kills e.coli.  (dairy cow's produce very
little lactoferrin, so they use transgenic cows to produce the human
lactoferrin)  Why should we tell mothers to stop breastfeeding?  How does
weaning or ingesting milk devoid of lactoferrin help?  I look at it as
another nail in the coffin for breastfeeding.  Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

article on use of lactoferrin in the meat industry:
http://www.meatnews.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&artNum=2040

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given activated lactoferrin
Generally Recognised as Safe (GRAS) status. This puts it one step closer to
being approved as an additive for foods, including meat products. Activated
lactoferrin is a naturally occurring milk protein that inhibits growth of
pathogenic bacteria such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and Campylobacter
."FDA's recognition of activated lactoferrin as GRAS brings us one step
closer to using this new food safety technology to protect fresh meat
products from harmful pathogens," Eric Hale, president, aLF Ventures LLC, a
partnership between Farmland National Beef Packing Co. L.P. and DMV USA LLC,
said. Activated lactoferrin will now undergo review by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) before fresh meat produced using the technology becomes
available in the market. aLF Ventures, LLC, holds the worldwide exclusive
rights to activated lactoferrin for use in food safety. Dr. A.S. Narain
Naidu, a medical microbiologist with more than 20 years of experience
researching antimicrobials, patented the technology and now leads,
N-terminus, aLF Ventures' new research laboratory in Pomona, California. He
most recently directed the Centre for Antimicrobial Research at California
State Polytechnic Institute, Pomona. Web posted: October 31, 2001
Category: Food Safety"

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