As the old saying goes, “No news is good news.” It is a joking-but-not-really expression. If nobody came rushing up to you today saying, “Did you hear about… (some horrible thing),” then today was a good day. Since yesterday, no disaster has happened, and to be aware of that is, in its way, “good news.”
But lately, the expression “No news is good news” has taken on a whole different meaning. It’s pretty much all bad news. None of it could be classified as good. At least that’s how it looks on some days, doesn’t it?
Just to illustrate the point, here is a very recent headline, along with its subtitle:
“Dangerous hormone-disrupting chemicals found in US breast milk samples”
Study of mothers in Seattle underscores ‘widespread, systemic problem’ of chemical contamination, experts say
The journalist is Tom Perkins, who goes on to clarify: “Breast milk samples from mothers in Seattle contain alarming levels of dangerous hormone-disrupting chemicals.” Amongst those substances are BPA, BPS, and melamine, all of which perform the useful service of allowing food products to slide unhindered from their packaging materials.
BPA is associated with obesity, and so is BPS. Between them, they have a lot to do with an estimated 100 million (probably a lot more) cases of obesity worldwide. Apparently, the detection of melamine in breast milk is a fairly recent occurrence, but never fear, it is unlikely to disappear. In fact, Perkins reports, “Congress is considering gutting the nation’s laws around toxic chemicals.”
Further information is added by Ryan Babadi, senior scientist at a nonprofit called Toxic Free Future and a lead author of the pertinent study. He also affirms that this gunk being found in mothers’ milk represents a “widespread, systemic problem” for which we need “stronger protections […] not rollbacks.” His work explains what nobody in a civilized world should have to explain; namely, why and how the stuff makes its way into the mouths of infants “who are undergoing rapid stages of development that are orchestrated by the endocrine system.”
It’s not brand new
Previous studies have found endocrine disruptors, like, for instance, flame retardants, in mothers’ milk, which indicates trouble not only for those mothers and their children, but for the entire societal structure of “adults, workers, and communities.” This currently discussed study is one of the recent ones in which melamine is showing up for the first time.
Out of 50 specimens of mothers’ milk tested in this study, about 92% of them contained one or more of the substances the technicians were looking for, which are known to be “harmful at very low levels of exposure” — especially to a fetus, a possibility that should not even be conceivable outside the script of a horror movie. The news is all bad, because…
The chemicals have been found in epidemiological studies to have a wide range of developmental and reproductive harms.
How could those mothers let this happen? What were they thinking? And yet, we are assured that many of the study participants were intelligent, educated women, some of them even able to afford the highest quality groceries. In their defense, Babadi notes that the harmful chemicals are so universally present in edible products that the very concept of trying to avoid them is a joke. Consumers can’t just “shop their way out of this.”
The study also found cyanuric acid and triclosan, but they are old news at this point. Along with the breastfeeding hazard, these substances and others equally bizarre are found in commercially available baby formulas.
The Perkins piece leaves us with a thought that, after all this, is not actually very inspiring:
Babadi emphasized that breastfeeding remains the healthiest choice for infants when possible, because it is the most nutritious and generally the safest option.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Dangerous hormone-disrupting chemicals found in US breast milk samples,” TheGuardian.com, 06/14/26
Source: “BPA Exposure Linked to 127 Million Global Metabolic Disease Cases,” AJMC.com, 11/20/25
Image by K3IST/Pixabay
FAQs and Media Requests: 
