Hi, all: I had posted a question about the statement * It takes 135 million cows to replace the milk produced by the India women.......* a few weeks ago. Thanks for all the input. Below is my answer(These figures came from a paper published in 1993): It*s assumed that an Indian mother would produce about 600ml/d during the first 6 months,500 ml/d during seven to 12 months and 400ml/d during 13 -24 months. The number of surviving children from 0-6 months old is 25 million, from 7-12 months old is 23.5 million and from 13-24 months old is 22 million. (0.6L x 25) + (0.5L x 23.5) + (0.4L x 23.5) comes the annual theoretical breastmilk volume 8,075 million Liters. Though the figure is only 1/100 of what the cows produce, but not one volume cow*s milk could produce one volume of formula milk. I agree with what Alison from IBFAN said *Why we should fall into industry's trap by bending over backward to provide fool-proof references? Does anyone ask industry to check their figures?* And I asked our people in my article "Why we discard the breastmilk produce by our women if she is full supported by the community to well practice breastfeeding and pay more than 120 million NT dollars a year to import the infant formula?* Chao-Huei Chao-Huei Chen, M.D. < [log in to unmask]> mailing address: 160, sec 3, Chung-Kang Rd, Department of Pediatrics, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung 407, Taiwan Tel 886 4 3592525-5909, 5971 Fax 886 4 4619990