Exposure to Soy-Based Formula in Infancy
- Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MPH
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Environmental Health Sciences
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Md
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National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Research Triangle Park, NC
- Shanna H. Swan, PhD
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Department of Family and Community Medicine
University of Missouri
Columbia
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
To the Editor: Dr Strom and colleagues1 found no differences in later pubertal maturation or growth between infants who had been fed soy-based vs milk-based formula. However, this does not prove that soy-based formulas are safe. In fact, the authors found that infants who had been given soy-based formula later used more asthma and allergy medications (P = .047 and .08 for female and male subjects, respectively). This important observation was not mentioned in the abstract, which stated that "[n]o statistically significant differences were observed . . . for more than 30 outcomes."1
This conclusion contradicts the findings of both human and animal studies. A retrospective epidemiological study by Fort et al2 found that children with autoimmune disease were significantly more likely to have received soy formula as infants than were healthy siblings or control subjects. A recent study from the National Toxicology Program found that rats …
