Air Date: Week of May 24, 1996

Recent correspondence from Living on Earth listeners.

Transcript

NUNLEY: And now a quick look into this week's mailbag.

(Music up and under)

NUNLEY: "I am upset," writes Mary DeCoster about our recent story weighing the benefits of breastfeeding against the risks of toxic chemicals which concentrate in breast milk. Ms. DeCoster is a certified lactation consultant from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She says she'll now have to deal with lots of panicked, breastfeeding mothers calling for reassurance that it's okay to feed their babies. Ms. DeCoster continues, "the show could have discussed these issues in a much more reassuring manner, yet encouraged people to take action to personally and publicly reduce risks of environmental contaminants. Surely you realize how much mothers worry already."

Catherine Didgood, a listener to WMFE in Orlando, Florida, says we also should have been more careful in a recent news item. It reported on the relative ease with which terrorists could build disease-spreading bombs.

DIDGOOD: Someone has just been talking about how easy it would be to start biological warfare by just dumping out anthrax spores. There's too many kooks in the word; stuff like this ought to be kept quiet.

NUNLEY: And our report on efforts to build an 1,800-mile long seaway through Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, hit home for Ron Newall, who listens to us on KIOS in Omaha, Nebraska.

NEWALL: Just finished listening to your Living on Earth program about the Paraguay River, I believe it is, in South America, and they were talking about straightening it and dredging it out in order to make the river navigable. We live out here on the Missouri River and we know what kind of ruin's been done by that sort of thing.