Alleged number of baby deaths is laughable

Victoria White’s rant on the ‘evils’ of infant formula [Irish Examiner, October 23] contains a breathtaking claim.

She says twice that 830,000 babies die each year from a lack of breastfeeding, but provides no source for that figure. The UN’s ‘Population and Vital Statistics Report’ says that the annual number of deaths of children under the age of one is 1,376,000. So White is claiming that 60% of infant deaths are the result of failure to breastfeed and not the result of malnutrition, disease, or war? That’s laughable.

William Sjostrom