Most infant formulas have a very high vitamin A content. Most of the nutrition labels that I checked report having about 300 IU per 5 oz. Some brands are even higher.
Let’s do the basic math on this. A 10 lb infant can consume ~ 25 – 32 oz of formula per day.
Now, for an adult that is about 10X the RDA and is absolutely a toxic dose by established guidelines. But the current NIH listed RDAs for infants is:
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminA-HealthProfessional
Let’s convert this 400 mcg RAE back into IUs.
400 mcg RAE × 3.33 IU/mcg RAE = 1,332 IU
So, although a formula fed infant is getting ~ 30% more than their RDA, it’s still in the ballpark. That is until you factor in their actual body weight.
Then, it’s more than 10X the equivalent RDA amount for an adult. Although, body weight-based dosing is common in most pediatric medications it looks like that does not apply to a known to be toxic vitamin. Maybe the FDA and the NIH have just assumed that an infant somehow needs the equivalent of 10X the daily vA dose of an adult. Or maybe this was someone’s mistake in doing basic math? Either way, it shows a huge and complete disregard for safety. Especially so when you consider that an infant has a tiny and developing liver and therefore are less likely to quickly store that large dose.
It’s no wonder the USA (the leader in “medical science”) has the highest rate of infant mortality in the world. And one of the highest rates of autism too.
Anthony Mawson reported in one of his paper’s formula feedings is associated with a 13-fold increased risk of autism. A coincidence? I think not.
I got dermatitis from an infant formulas, apparently.
Do you know of any data tracking the rise in formula and baby food feeding of American kids for the past century? I wouldnt be surprised to see this spike upwards in the 70s and climb ever since. Which would put it in line with vaccines, ultrasound, roundup and plastics for contaminants that exploded onto the scene in that decade, potentially confounding our ability to isolate a single cause of autism if there is just one.
Thankfully this is one of the easier ones to test as people are less emotionally attached to formula and jars of baby food than the others.
Can anyone give me advice about what to feed a new baby born via surrogacy? I think there are groups that provide mother’s milk in some places but even so, there will surely be a need for backup.
Judy, for my adopted babies I used a homemade formula that was 2 c. fresh raw goat milk, 1 c. ro-filtered water, and 1.5 Tablespoon lactose to mimic human milk macros. I added a weekly baby b-vitamin supplement per pediatrician’s advice. It worked great! They are all healthy strong teens now with no allergies or issues. Yes goat milk has plenty of “A” in it but perhaps it’s much better in whole raw form (plus it’s diluted). You can switch to straight milk by 12 months, then eliminate when you feel like the nutrition is adequate (mine still had a cup or two to age 3-4)
@ggenereux
The vitamin A RDA for infants is only based on what amount is commonly found in natural breast milk. The infant RDA for vitamin A is completely stupid from any rational view point.
@ggenereux
I looked a bit into what the backing there was for vitamin A RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance). I found out that there weren’t none up to 2004 according to a WHO (World Health Organization) report. Here is a text summary
I found this WHO (World Health Organization) report from 2004 (second edition); first edition was from 1998.
The report is called “Vitamin and mineral requirements in human nutrition – Second edition
https://web.archive.org/web/20210330005215/https://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/micronutrients/9241546123/en/ [original link gone]
The report is massive with 341 pages in total but I will just add a telling paragraph about the RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) for vitamin A which can be called RNI (Recommened Nutrient Intake) like in this older report.
The most telling quote from the page 35 is them telling that there is no adequate data behind the RDA for vitamin A and there shouldn’t be a RDA:
“For most values the true mean and variance are not known. It should be noted that there are no adequate data available to derive mean requirements for any group and, therefore, a recommended nutrient intake cannot be calculated.”
Please also noted that in table 2.4 on page 35 the “Mean requirement” column has been almost simply doubled for the amounts in the “Recommended safe intake” column and these values seem to be the basis for the vitamin A RDA in many countries. Information from the World Health Organization is used by governments around the world as an authority on food and health, which means this RDA information is THE main source for many decisions by nations to set RDA for vitamins and minerals.
As for doubling the amounts in the “Mean requirement” column, in engineering a “safety factor” of around 2 is common when there is a lot of uncertainty about how something will be loaded (and it doubling also accounts for some fatigue of the material during use). Just the fact that the “Recommended safe intake” column is doubled without any explanation is a sign that these nutritional values are based on nothing as was mentioned in the previous quote from the 2004 WHO paper.
@ggenereux
Information from the World Health Organization (WHO) is used by many nations as an authority and nations use the WHO information as a basis for setting RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) for vitamins and minerals. To show that this is the case I attach a table comparing older recommendation for vitamin A published by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) from around 2005 since the newest source the cite is from 2005. The report published by the USDA is produced by the “Food and Nutrition Board” and “Institute of Medicine” which both are part of the “United States National Academies”. This seemingly older USDA report is used since the WHO report is from 2004 and I believe the two reports (WHO and USDA) are from around the same time.
Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs): Estimated Average Requirements for Groups (usda.gov) from around 2005:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210209002004/https://www.nal.usda.gov/sites/default/files/fnic_uploads/recommended_intakes_individuals.pdf [original link gone]
Please note that the “Recommended safe intake” from WHO (2004) is about the same as the USDA (~2005) when accounting that they use different measurements RE (Retinol Equivalent) versus RAE (Retinol Activity Equivalent) where RAE values provitamin A (mainly beta-carotene) count as twice as that of the RE measurement. This explains the main difference between the two reports since infants are eating mostly retinyl esters (breast milk/milk) making the RE and RAE values equal. While adults eat a higher amount of beta-carotene meaning the RAE value (from USDA) should be closer to twice that of the RE values (from the WHO) for the adult ages.
Both the WHO and the USDA reports are also using different wordings for the term RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) which might make it seem on the surface like the USDA values (~2005) are independently reached instead of being mostly copied from the WHO report (2004) if we had the data (beta-carotene and retinyl ester amounts) to account for them using two different types of units (RAE vs. RE).
Thank you.