 The Shelf Life
Jodi Rich is the Publisher of Natural Products Marketplace Magazine. She has been working in the Natural Products Industry for almost five years and has an extensive background in sales, marketing, and promotions. She graduated with a communications degree from Arizona State University, which isn't surprising because she's quite a talker. She embraces a healthy lifestyle by mastering crazy yoga poses and spending all of her hard earned money on the latest and greatest products from SunFlower Market. Steve Myers managing editor, has been in the natural products industry since 1997, spreading news and information, and wielding his trusty red pen. Despite a degree in English literature from Arizona State, he is a closet science geek and is attracted to the blips and bleeps behind natural health. "Invincible" in college, Steve later realized pizza and beer does not make a healthy diet, and figured some serious diet change and natural remedy were order--especially liver detox. |
Battle over Soy Infant Formula
Posted in
Blog
A veteran product of natural foods stores, soy is recent an embattled nutrient, taking hits over its role in breast cancer and infant formula.
The National Toxicology Program (NTP) Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) created a fourteen-member committee to evaluate the risk of soy infant formula. In its most recent gathering on the subject, the panel voted to issue a “minimal concern” rating for soy in infant formula, foregoing requests to require warning labels on soy formula or make it available only by prescription (monitored by a physician). Only Ruth Etzel, MD, PhD, from George Washington University, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, voted against majority that soy posed “some concern” to infant safety.
The panelists reviewed about seven hundred studies, including some industry-funded reports; opponents of their ultimate decision complained the panel ignored many other unbiased published studies (as well as numerous NIEHS, NIH, and FDA negative soy reports) that repeatedly conclude soy phyto-toxicity, especially during developmental exposures. This includes Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, who reportedly testified the FDA Toxic Plant Database lists almost three hundred studies showing toxicity of soy, in addition to providing the committee with studies showing severe thyroid and mucosal damage in infants fed soy formula.
According to Westin Price, the portion of formula-fed babies has declined from 22.5 percent to 12 percent over the last ten years, claiming it indicates growing anxieties over the safety and risks of soy-based formulas.
The group also said the risks affect minority mothers and babies more often, especially those on government food subsidies, and said the panel weighed too heavily many industry-supported studies. They said soy formula is full of toxins, and its phytoestrogens can have negative effects on infants that might not surface until their toddler or reproductive ages. They argued the research the panel used was full of problems (dosing etc.), many of which were allegedly explained away by the panel as design flaws.
Westin Price further argued the amounts of soy protein in infant formula equate to as much or more than an adult would get daily, and even suggested there could be a link between soy and autism rates.
Of course the coy industry lobbied against the harsher conclusion of some concern. What is your opinion? I don’t have and never have had kids, so I am not up to snuff on infant formula matters, aside from awareness of DHA-fortified formulas for infant brain development. Do you think soy formulas pose risks and dangers to babies?