What do breast milk and MDMA have in common? When you buy either purported miracle drug in an unregulated market, you never know exactly what it contains. “Buyers have no way of knowing even what they’re getting,” Ohio State assistant professor of pediatrics Sarah Keim told the New York Times. “It could be cow’s milk or formula.” Dr. Keim analyzed 101 breast milk samples from well-intentioned milk-sharing websites like onlythebreast.com for a study published in Pediatrics today. Sixty-four percent of samples were tainted with staph, 36 percent with strep, almost 75 percent with other bacteria species, and three had salmonella. Seventy-four percent of the samples would have been rejected by official milk banks. But then, those banks are expensive, the Times reports, often require a prescription, and pasteurize all milk, destroying some of its magical powers. For that good vegan stuff, moms in need can hit up Natalie Portman’s baby group or Alicia Silverstone’s Kind Mama Milk Share.
