I know you are shocked, simply SHOCKED, to discover that the Daily Mail has erroneously sensationalized my press info/briefing/interviews on my AAAS talk (and the Guardian replicates those issues in their headline). I won't even link to their articles because eff them.

 Italics- "reporting"/headlining.

 "Dr Katie Hinde, from Harvard, says formula milk should be gender-specific"

  • NOT EVEN CLOSE. I said that there is emerging evidence that the "biological recipe" for milk for sons and daughters may be different in some species and at some times. This motivates doing more research to better understand what human infants may be adapted to expect in milk.

  • In humans there are FOUR total studies on milk for sons compared to milk for daughters, some of them show differences, some of them don't, so we need more research to understand differences in milk for sons and daughters. Without more research we can't know how formula could be improved.

  • "She also says some women produce such poor quality breast milk that their babies would be better off with formula milk" -DM

  • NOT in a million years would I EVER say this. I specifically corrected this statement during the interview when they asked this question. I directly said to the reporters that "I would NEVER say that. I might say that some mother and infant dyads, if infant growth is faltering, could benefit from supplementing with some breast-milk alternatives, as can be recommended sometimes in clinical practice." 

  • I am, always, an advocate for mothers having ALL the options, and that we should always be endeavoring to make the options better. That we should improve the science, the culture, and environment so that all mothers can achieve their breastfeeding goals.



    • I would like to think that this wasn't the reporter, but the editor making the title and bullet points click bait. Shame, shame on them.

    2-14-14 2:30 PM Update: The reporters I spoke with were not responsible for the title or the bullet points.

    Also here are some actually informative posts about milk for sons and daughters, here & here. And this really nice write up by Ed Yong. 

    & the press briefing, with my statements about milk for daughters and sons is here.

     2-15-14 6:AM Update: I have managed to get them to go from this headline (GAH!)
    to this headline:

    Due to the efforts of the journalist letting the editor know my thoughts. Some of text is still undermining to moms, babies, and families, which bums me out a lot. Folks who know me or know my work or know my message have been incredible. Thank you to everyone who helped spread the word.

     And today, instead of thinking about the UK coverage, I am going to celebrate the fact that the AP has the excellent Lauran Neergaard who wrote an accurate comma awesome article for the Associated Press that was picked up by my hometown newspaper! 
    MONKEYS! Photo by K. West (not Kanye)

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    1. You don't mention the Guardian, but it's piece on your research focuses on formula manufacturers and how this research will impact their product. I imagine rows and rows of pink and blue powder with a higher price point. It's heartbreaking to see such important research misused in such a way and by the Guardian, of all media groups. One isn't surprised by the Daily Mail.
      I was glad to have read it elsewhere, probably due to the AP.

      Good luck to you in your future work. This is very important. I guess lesson learned is that there are groups with tons of money to burn who will take your work and spin it for their own gain. Do what you can to get the science out there so we can read it and decide for ourselves There are still a few of us lay people who distinguish the science from the sensationalism.

      ReplyDelete

    I know you are shocked, simply SHOCKED, to discover that the Daily Mail has erroneously sensationalized my press info/briefing/interviews on my AAAS talk (and the Guardian replicates those issues in their headline). I won't even link to their articles because eff them.

    Italics- "reporting"/headlining.

    "Dr Katie Hinde, from Harvard, says formula milk should be gender-specific"

    NOT EVEN CLOSE. I said that there is emerging evidence that the "biological recipe" for milk for sons and daughters may be different in some species and at some times. This motivates doing more research to better understand what human infants may be adapted to expect in milk.
    1

    In mammals, females dissolve parts of themselves to feed their babies.

    Kristen Hawkes and Wenda Trevathan have organized an incredible symposium "Birth to Grandmotherhood: Childrearing in Human Evolution" at the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) next month.  Sarah Hrdy, Kim Bard, Sue Carter, Barry Hewlett, Hilly Kaplan, and Melvin Konner!  Luckily for me, I will be so riveted by all the other speakers I won't have the chance to get nervous about my talk.

    The talks are Friday afternoon, February 21st, 2014.

    I am currently polishing a manuscript for submission (hence the obvious necessity of working on a blog post, next I will clean my bathroom tile). Delving deep into the literature to precisely contextualize my results, I despair that I will never be able to read ALL the things. For example, entering two key search terms- ‘lactation’ and ‘glucocorticoids’- returns 24,800 results in Google Scholar.

    John Medbury (LAZY J Studios)

    Reading all that is just not going to happen.
    5

    Are you an anthropologist? Are you going to be in Chicago for the meetings in a couple weeks? Love lactation research? And most importantly, do you like getting up super early in the morning?

    MOTHERS, MILKS, AND MEANING: INNOVATIONS IN STUDYING LACTATION, INFANT FEEDING, AND DEVELOPMENTAL ECOLOGY in HUMANS AND NONHUMAN PRIMATES

    Thursday, November 21, 2013: 8:00 AM-11:45 AM

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    From the abstract: “The goal of this panel is to bring together a range of ant

    Fifty years ago Devorah Ben Shaul published the seminal paper “The Composition of the Milk of Wild Animals” (1963). She had spent ten years aggregating published papers of milk composition as well as directly analyzing dozens of species’ milks. 

    Haruo Takino

    Eyeballing the data from 101 species, Ben Shaul posited that the composition of milks--the percent fat, protein, and sugar--did not necessarily cluster by the evolutionary history of taxonomic groups (aka phylogeny).
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    Greetings from Namibia! Prof. Brooke Scelza, Department of Anthropology, UCLA and I just spent the last few weeks conducting research among the Himba people of Northwestern Namibia. 

    This has been a long-planned collaboration between Brooke and myself and it was fantastic to finally get the project well and truly launched.
    2

    Usually Mammals Suck… Milk! showcases recent scholarly publications from throughout lactation biology, usually emphasizing the evolutionary perspective. However, those journal articles, so meticulous, brief, and jargony, often obscure the months and years scientists spend doing the science.
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    Maternal nutritional conditions during pregnancy are known to have substantially affect infant development. This was most clearly demonstrated by research into the outcomes of infants from the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944. Because determination and differentiation of cell lines occur during embryonic development, nutritional conditions and other environmental insults early during pregnancy can substantially alter offspring phenotype, including behavior and general health.
    Welcome!
    Welcome!
    This blog will showcase and synthesize (pun intended!) the MANY awesome advances currently occurring in milk research from the molecule to the organism to the population to the taxon, with implications for nutrition, medicine, psychology, and evolutionary biology.
    About Me
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    Assistant Professor, Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University. I study how mother's milk influences infant development in rhesus monkeys. Opinions are my own. www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~khinde/
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