"Pesticide Exposure Deprives Yaqui Girls of Breastfeeding -- Ever"

"SONORA VALLEY, Mexico – The problems began ominously with the Yaqui pueblo peoples who accepted pesticide practices in the 1950s so-called Green Revolution.

The intensive industrial agricultural pesticide approach was born in the Yaqui homeland in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora's Yaqui Valley. ...

Long-term research led by Elizabeth Guillette, Ph.D., of the University of Florida found compelling proof that pesticides acted as endocrine disruptors and produced negative health impacts over the years to the exposed Yaqui indigenous communities.

Endocrine disruptors or EDCs, endocrine disrupting chemicals, include DDT and other pesticides.

Guillette's latest research finds that some pre-adolescent daughters of mothers exposed to pesticide spraying will never be able to breast-feed their babies. With others there is uncertainty. Although there is breast growth, some daughters lacked development of the mammary tissue needed to produce milk, or developed a minimal amount."

Terri Hansen reports for Indian Country Today February 28, 2010.