Breast Milk Sold Online Found to be Contaminated with Cow's Milk Puts Infants Lives at Risk

• 10% of breast milk sold online contain significant amounts of cow's milk intentionally added by seller
• Three-quarters of human milk sold on the internet contains bacterial or viral contaminants
• Science Daily directly examines results of the study and gives readers clear and concise information

For a long time, breastfeeding has been proven to be the best way to feed a newborn child. Breastfeeding protects babies from many different illnesses and infections. It can help prevent allergies as well. It is confirmed that breastfeeding has the best nutritional value for infants.

There is a popular belief that "breast is the best" milk for newborns.

Due to the increased benefits of feeding infants human milk new mothers who are unable to breastfeed have been searching for ways of getting milk from mothers in excess of it. The number of websites where this interaction occurs is growing. Women in need of human milk are purchasing it online from other mothers with some to spare.

1 in 10 human milk samples sold on the internet contain high amounts of cow's milk. 

However, a new study published in the journal Pediatrics by Dr. Sarah Keim, investigator at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, found that "10% of breast-milk samples purchased on the Internet contained significant amounts of cow's milk or formula based on it." The study states that 11 out of the 102 samples they purchased online contained human and bovine DNA. The 10 samples with bovine DNA contained high amounts leading researchers to believe it was an intentional addition.

Jessica Firger, a health and wellness reporter for CBSNews.com, writes that "there are currently 55,000 women in the U.S. participating in the selling, purchasing or exchange of breast milk via the Internet." The downfall to introducing this cow's milk to an infants diet is that it is too low in iron, too high in protein and minerals, difficult for infants to digest and causes allergic reactions.

Most breast milk sold online has bacteria causing diseases such as E. Coli or Salmonella.

In another study done by Dr. Keim, she found that more than 75% of milk purchased online contained bacterial or viral contaminants. This confirmed the Food and Drug Administration's warning in 2010 about impurities in human milk obtained from sources other than the baby's mother. 

The three sources I analyzed information from were The Wall Street Journal, CBSNews, and Science Daily. The WSJ was the most biased of the three due to the focus of the writer, Melinda Beck. This article brought in another expert, Joan Y. Meek, head of breastfeeding at the American Academy of Pediatrics, to talk about the danger in buying breast milk online. Meek states that "spoiled milk, adulterated milk, contaminated milk, or even a substance that looks like human milk but is not milk are too risky to feed to a young infant." We see here that the article shifts to talking more about not trusting the website or any source of milk for that matter. Instead of speaking directly about the study and other experts opinion about milk contamination from online sources she discredits all other sources of milk that are not from the mother herself.

CBS's article written by Jessica Firger, also brings in much more information than the study entitles. She goes into detail about the number of women selling, purchasing or exchanging breast milk online. Going off of that, she includes survey statistics on the percentage of women who have considered milk sharing or actually taken part in the process. It is clear that she wanted to add points like this to give readers a better background and to put more detail and support in her article.

Science Daily includes specifics from the studies and provides all details concisely.

It is not necessarily a poor choice to add extra background and information to your article but it is interesting to see the article by Science Daily in comparison. Science Daily cuts to the chase and straightforwardly examines the facts of the study and its effects.  It uses more quotations from the actual study and focuses less on opinions and more on direct statistics than the WSJ and CBS articles.

In my opinion the primary purpose of each article was to discuss the results of the study. In this case Science Daily did the best job of doing this concisely. I also thought they presented the information well by having a short summary at the top discussing the main points in the article. This would've been even better if it was in bulleted form. I also thought this article was the best because it gave us all the numbers that the study had used in the experiment. For every data collection it discussed the specific details of the experiment results but in a succinct manner. Also, if the article did include an opinionated argument from Dr. Keim they made sure to directly quote her so we knew exactly what she said. Otherwise, when paraphrasing an opinionated statement the meaning could easily change.

The only critique I have about the Science Daily article would be that its title is not very informative. The title reads, "Cow milk is added to some breast milk, sold to parents online, study finds." I understand that they had the intent of leaving the reader hanging. I wish they would have added intentionally to the first phrase to make it read as 'Cow milk is intentionally added to some breast milk' because then people would know right away that the parents buying milk online are being cheated.

CBS's article gives knowledge to the reader as early as the title by telling us that the breast milk was contaminated by cow's milk.

The CBS article has the best article title because it tells us exactly what happened by stating, "Breast milk sold online often contaminated by cow's milk." After reading this title it is clear that I have learned something already. The use of the word contaminated gives people the sense that it was wrongly put into the breast milk.


Ideas for improvement of Wall Street Journal's article

• Change title so readers can learn something before reading the entire article
• Shorten the video so readers will take the time to watch it or delete it completely
• When giving statistics from the study use quotations so we know for a fact it was taken directly
• Use less opinionated statements and focus on the issue at hand which is the study and its effects

Although none of the three articles were particularly bad I believe that the WSJ could improve its article. The title reads, "Cow's Milk Found in Breast Milk Sold Online". Although this title isn't terrible I am not receiving the knowledge I would if I knew that the cow's milk was added purposely or wrongly. Also, the article opens with a two minute and 50 second video, which I don't think most people would have the time to sit and watch. When the article states statistical data taken from the study I think it would be beneficial to use quotations because they are key details and should be accurately written. Lastly, going back to what I said earlier I believe that the WSJ included too much information beyond the scope of the article. After reading the article I felt like there was nowhere for mothers to turn to who couldn't breast feed themselves. However, Science Daily reports that Dr. Keim suggests consulting a pediatrician if you are a mother seeking human milk. It is also suggested in this article that women with excess milk could donate their milk to a non-profit milk bank instead of selling it online. These options were given directly in the study and therefore add specifics to the study itself.