Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

"A study of more than 800 nursing mothers in North Carolina has uncovered three patterns that make this question an urgent one. Researchers found that the concentration of organochlorine chemicals in breast milk increased with the age of the mother, increased with the amount of fish consumed, and decreased dramatically over the course of lactation and with the number of children nursed. The first trend indicates that our bodies are still amassing fat-soluble contaminants faster than we can eliminate them. The second attests to the ongoing contamination of our rivers, streams, and lakes. The third fact is the most ominous one. Organochlorine contaminants are not easily expunged from our tissues. Their sharp decline in concentration over the course of breast-feeding, therefore, represents the movement of accumulated toxins from mother to child. It signifies that during the intimate act of nursing, a burden of public poisons insect killers, electrical insulating fluids, industrial solvents, and incinerator residues is shifted from one generation into the tiny bodies of the next."