Pushing Infant Formula in Africa and the Results...

It was reported that in Nkange, Botswana, a step to cut AIDS proved a formula for disaster (by Craig Timberg Washington Post ForeignService, Monday, July 23, 2007)
AID$ INC. dissuaded  HIV positive African women from breast feeding and instead, feed their infants' baby formula. This resulted in a 20 fold increase in infant mortality compared to breast-fed controls.
“Doctors noticed two troubling things about the limp, sunken-eyed children who flooded pediatric wards across Botswana during the rainy season in early 2006: They were dying from diarrhea, a malady that is rarely fatal here. And few of their mothers were breast-feeding, a practice once all but universal.”
“After the outbreak was over and at least 532 children had died (20 times the usual toll for diarrhea) a team of U.S. investigators solved the terrible riddle.”
“A decade-long, global push to provide infant formula (as a substitute for breast feeding) to mothers with the AIDS virus had backfired in Botswana, leaving children more vulnerable to other, more immediately lethal diseases, the U.S. team found after investigating the outbreak at the request of Botswana‘s government.”
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In Botswana, Step to Cut AIDS Proves a Formula for Disaster, by Craig Timberg, http://www.washingtonpost.com
Washington Post Foreign Service, Monday, July 23, 2007; A01

Croft Woodruff, PhD – writer, lecturer and broadcaster is a nutrition and health researcher with over forty years experience in the natural health industry. Croft also has numerous awards, including an honorary Master Herbalist’s Certificate and an honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from the COLLÈGE DES NATUROPATHES DU QUÉBEC.