Scary News about Dangers of Soy Formula and Industry Pressure

SOY FORMULA PANEL CAVES TO INDUSTRY PRESSURE
Another Generation of Children Condemned to
Allergies, Thyroid Disease, Learning Disorders and Infertility


ALEXANDRIA, VA. December 28, 2009: In response to soy industry revelations that a vote indicating “some concern” would be highly damaging to soy’s image and industry profits, a National Institutes of Health expert panel voted that the health risks of soy infant formula are “minimal.”

The panel, which came out with its findings on December 18, 2009, also ignored requests to require warning labels on soy formula, or to make it available only by prescription with physician monitoring.

The fourteen-member committee, convened by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR), was swayed by representatives from the formula industry and panel member Dr. Jatinder Bhatia from the Medical College of Georgis.

Ruth Etzel, MD, PhD, from George Washington University, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, was the only panel member to dissent from the majority, concluding that several of the studies the committee had reviewed provided enough evidence of soy toxicity to require a finding of “some concern.”

The fourteen panelists looked at almost seven hundred studies, of which a portion were industry-funded reports, while ignoring a multitude of 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.

Gail Elbek of Santa Barbara, California provided the panel with a compilation of over seven hundred additional studies showing extensive physiological, reproductive and neurological adverse effects caused by soy phyto-estrogens, especially during developmental exposures. Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, noted in her written testimony that the FDA Toxic Plant Database lists almost three hundred studies showing toxicity of soy; she also provided the committee with studies showing severe thyroid and mucosal damage in infants fed soy formula.... (continued)

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