TY - JOUR
T1 - From folklore to fact
T2 - The rhetorical history of breastfeeding and immunity, 1950-1997
AU - Koerber, Amy
PY - 2006/9
Y1 - 2006/9
N2 - This article examines the recent construction of human milk's immune-protective qualities as scientific fact, demonstrating that long-standing controversies about human milk's immune-protective effects have not been resolved by a particular scientific discovery. Rather, experts' consensus on how to respond to this uncertainty has been transformed, and this transformation has had as much to do with a change in the metaphor that governs interpretation of evidence about immune protection as it has with discovering new evidence about either human milk or the antibodies in it.
AB - This article examines the recent construction of human milk's immune-protective qualities as scientific fact, demonstrating that long-standing controversies about human milk's immune-protective effects have not been resolved by a particular scientific discovery. Rather, experts' consensus on how to respond to this uncertainty has been transformed, and this transformation has had as much to do with a change in the metaphor that governs interpretation of evidence about immune protection as it has with discovering new evidence about either human milk or the antibodies in it.
KW - Breastfeeding
KW - History of medicine
KW - Immune system
KW - Medical discourse
KW - Metaphor
KW - Rhetoric of science
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33748171019&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10912-006-9015-8
DO - 10.1007/s10912-006-9015-8
M3 - Article
C2 - 16858648
AN - SCOPUS:33748171019
SN - 1041-3545
VL - 27
SP - 151
EP - 166
JO - Journal of Medical Humanities
JF - Journal of Medical Humanities
IS - 3
ER -