"genetics is the loaded gun, but environmental factors pull the trigger"

[anastasiav]

This really interesting blog post is about some children known as the "Fultz Quads" - four daughters born to a black sharecropper and his wife (who was deaf and mute) in 1946.

There's a lot going on in this post, and a lot to be shocked by.

What I'm shocked by is the author's very casual full acceptance of the idea that feeding your baby formula causes breast cancer.

A little more on the Fultz Quads

Comments

[lumineaux.livejournal.com]

What I'm shocked by is the author's very casual full acceptance of the idea that feeding your baby formula causes breast cancer.

Grrr. Argh.

[anastasiav.livejournal.com]

Here's another one for you: Soy Formula Makes Kids 'gay' (scare quotes around 'gay' replicated from the original).

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Multiple births really brought out the freak-show mentality in people back then. Here's another example:

The Dionne quintuplets (born May 28, 1934) are the first quintuplets known to survive their infancy. The sisters were born just outside Callander, Ontario, Canada near the village of Corbeil.

The Dionne girls were born two months premature. After four months with their family, they were made wards of the King for the next nine years under the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act, 1935. The government and those around them began to profit by making them a significant tourist attraction in Ontario.

[anastasiav.livejournal.com]

Combine racism and multiples, and oh what an 'interesting' story.

My grandfather had a collection of Dionne stuff that he got as part of a box lot at an auction. I ebay'd most of it, but for some reason I hung onto the set of five spoons, each with a different girl on it.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

What I slso find somewhat disturbing in the blog post is the authors idea that OBVIOUSLY the wife of a poor man with six other children could *easily* breastfeed 4 infants at a time. Jeez.