Science Friday - Gun Violence, Baby Formula, Monkeypox, Milk Banking, Wondrous Sharks. May 27, 2022, Part 1

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

Gun Violence Is A Public Health Issue As illustrated by the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas this week, gun violence is a pervasive issue in the United States. The entire Science Friday team extends our condolences to everyone affected by this tragedy. One reason gun violence is so difficult to understand is that for a long time, there was a federal freeze on funding gun-violence research. That was due to the “Dickey Amendment” which was instated in 1996. This rule barred the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using funds to fund research into gun violence, with the reasoning that research into this area would “advocate or promote gun control.” The 2020 federal omnibus spending bill reinstated funding for this research for the first time in more than 20 years, opening up research into gun violence. This comes during a time where healthcare professionals, including pediatricians and epidemiologists, have elevated their voices to say that gun violence is a public health issue. Firearm-related injury is now the leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the United States. Joining guest host John Dankosky to discuss gun violence as a public health issue is Roxanne Khamsi, science writer based in Montreal, Quebec.   Don’t Panic About Monkeypox Yet, Says Expert This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it was investigating five cases of purported monkeypox that had been found in the United States. This is a disease that’s endemic to parts of central and west Africa, and is rarely seen outside of those regions. The small number of cases here in the U.S is unusual. Monkeypox can spread from person to person through skin-to-skin contact or respiratory droplets. Its most striking symptom is an active rash and lesions in the mouth, though can also present as flu-like and include fever, headache, and soreness. As we’re still grappling with our COVID world, many people are concerned about this new illness. Dr. Anne Rimoin, professor of epidemiology at UCLA’s School of Public Health in Los Angeles, California, joins guest host John Dankosky to explain what’s going on with this wave.   Baby Formula 101: Feeding During A Shortage If you’re the parent of a newborn, you’ve likely experienced how difficult it’s gotten to find your little ones’ favorite baby formula. In February, Abbott Nutrition, a major manufacturer of baby food and formula, shut down a factory in Michigan. This came after the FDA began investigating serious—and even fatal—bacterial infections in infants who were fed formula from the plant. This one factory produces around a quarter of the United States’ baby formula, so closing it has left store shelves empty and parents scrambling to feed their babies. In a desperate state, many parents have resorted to switching their babies’ formula, seeking out donated breast milk, and even making formula at home. Guest host John Dankosky speaks with Dr. Bridget Young, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester and founder of Baby Formula Expert, about the makeup of baby formula, why it’s so important, and how parents can safely feed babies during the ongoing shortage. Breast Milk Banks Are Struggling To Meet Demand The nationwide shortage of baby formula is also impacting Hoosier families. More than 40 percent of retailers across the country reported being out of formula stock during the first week of May, according to Datasembly, a firm that collects data from grocery stores and other retailers. The Milk Bank is an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that provides donated breast milk to babies in the neonatal intensive care unit and babies with medical needs who benefit from human milk. Advancement Director Jenna Streit said the organization is seeing an increase in requests from families desperate to feed their babies. Read more at sciencefriday.com.   Diving Into The Deep World Of Sharks Sharks are some of the longest-enduring residents of our planet—there were shark relatives in the oceans before Earth had trees, and before the planet Saturn got its rings. But now, many species of shark are threatened, mainly as a result of unsustainable fishing practices. Dr. David Shiffman, marine researcher and social media shark advocate, writes in his new book Why Sharks Matter: A Deep Dive with the World’s Most Misunderstood Predator about people’s fascination with sharks. He shares some amazing shark facts—did you know that Greenland sharks can live for 400 years, and some have been found with the remains of polar bears in their stomachs? Shiffman joins John Dankosky to share his shark lore, and to talk about the role of sharks in the ocean ecosystem, safety around sharks, threats to their survival, and what individuals can do to help protect these powerful, yet misunderstood, creatures.   Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.     Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm John Dankoski in for Ira Flato. As usual this week, we're going to bring you a full range of science stories that we hope will inform you, enlighten you, and entertain you. But it's been hard to think about anything this week, except for the mass shooting in Texas. All of us at Science Friday are thinking about those affected by this tragedy, and we're sending love to our friends at Texas Public Radio and the statewide Texas Newsroom, who've been serving their listeners during this terrible week. Gun violence is one of the nation's biggest public health problems. The raw numbers are staggering. According to CDC data released earlier this month, more than

45,000 people died in America in 2020 from gun-related causes, and guns have become the leading cause of death for children aged 1 to 19. But the impact that guns have on our health is difficult to understand because for a long time there was a federal freeze on funding gun violence research. Joining me to talk about the state of research on gun violence in the U.S. is my guest, Roxanne Kamsi, is a science writer based in Montreal, Quebec. Welcome back to Science Friday, Roxanne. Hi, John. One thing that's been really noticeable over the last few years and certainly throughout this past week is an increased number of health care professionals getting pretty vocal about gun violence as a public health issue. What can you tell us about that? Well, as you mentioned, there was this recent

study in the New England Journal of Medicine outlining how gun deaths have surpassed motor vehicle deaths. And I think that that is key to showing that scientists and doctors are looking at the data and getting involved in the conversation. You might recall that back in 2018, in fact, the National Rifle Association had sent out a tweet saying that someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. And in response, there was a hashtag that emerged from pediatricians and emergency doctors saying, this is our lane. And since then, they've been quite vocal about saying we want to be involved in the research. So let's get into the research on this and how the Dickey Amendment, as it's called, made things pretty complicated back in the 1990s. What can you tell

us about this rule? Sure. The story kind of began in 1993, again with this journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, where scientists and researchers had published an influential paper funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And that study found that keeping a gun in the home was actually really increasing the rate and risk of homicide rather than protecting people on average. And so the National Rifle Association, again, spoke up and said, we don't like that the CDC is funding this kind of research. And we want to call for the elimination of the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention. And so as a result, Congress included an amendment brought forward by Jay Dickie, a Republican congressman from Arkansas, that said the CDC and government shouldn't use funds to, quote,

advocate or promote gun control. And then there was a twist a few years ago that undid some of that blocking of federal funding for gun violence research. So the Dickey Amendment has largely been done away with. Does that mean that more gun violence research has been able to be funded by the federal government? What happened was in 2018, Congress clarified that the federal dollars for, advocacy didn't include research. And the next year, it allocated $25 million to the National Institutes of Health and the CDC. But, you know, 25 million split between two institutions doesn't actually end up being that much money. They funded 16 studies, which I could tell you about. But, you know, I think other organizations are saying we need to fund even more research. Yeah. I mean, one of the disconnects here is the size of the problem that we outlined with the raw numbers and the amount

of funding it gets. Roxanne, there are so many diseases that kill a relatively small number of people that are funded far more than gun research. Yes. In fact, it's calculated that between 2009 and 2018, for every life lost to gun violence, there was only $46 of federal funding for gun violence research, which is nothing. So how far does the research need to go? What are people calling for now? So there's been a statement by the Association for Prevention, Teaching and Research saying we need 35 million at least for federal funding for gun violence research. And ultimately we need $100 million for research. And I think the point is that the more scientists look at this problem, the more researchers and pediatricians and emergency physicians look at this problem and provide real data will be able to kind of have a logical way out of this problem that we're all really struggling with to say, how do we, how do we, how do we stop this from happening? That being said, I think we're already living in an experiment because the U.S. has such a different rate of gun violence than other countries. So one could argue that the data is a little bit already there. So I'll let listeners kind of decide what they think about,

about how much more research we need. That's all the time we have. Roxanne Kamzi is a science writer based in Montreal, Quebec. It's always great to have you on the show, Roxanne. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks, John. We're going to shift gears now to another story that's been in the news all week, monkeypox. This is a disease that's endemic to parts of Central and West Africa and is rarely seen outside of those regions. The CDC is investigating a small number of cases here in the U.S., which is unusual. Monkeypox can spread from person to person through skin-to-skin contact or respiratory droplets. As we're still grappling with our COVID world, many people are concerned about this new illness,

so to help us understand monkeypox and how concerned we should be is someone who has studied it for decades. Dr. Anne Ramoyne, Professor of Epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health in Los Angeles, California. Welcome to Science Friday. Thanks so much for being with us. It's nice to be here. Thank you for having me. As I said, you've studied monkeypox for decades now. What is your level of concern about this increase in cases? I think it's important to be concerned because we're seeing a virus spread into populations and in geographic regions where we've never seen it, we're seeing new patterns. When you see new patterns of a disease, that's when you need to be concerned.

But I think the issue of concern should not be conflated with alarm. And that's very important to remember. How serious a disease is this? Well, monkeypox can be a very substantial disease, but it also can present in much milder forms as well. You know, I've been working in the Democratic Republic of Congo for two decades. and the monkeypox clade that is seen there, the version of it that we see in DRC, is much more severe than the West African clade. And that West African clade is what we're seeing associated with these clusters of cases.

And that is a much milder form of disease. But, you know, that's not to say that you can't be serious in individuals, in particular individuals who may be immunocompromised. So do you know why these cases are on the rise right now? Well, one of the major drivers of these importations of monkeypox from Africa is that, you know, we had this amazing achievement of the eradication of smallpox. And when smallpox was eradicated, we ceased vaccinating the vast majority of the world. So as time has gone on, the world no longer has any immunity to smallpox or any other related viruses. Monkeypox is a cousin of smallpox. And therefore, when you have a population that has no immunity to a virus and is exposed to a virus, we're likely to see spread.

We've seen increasing cases in Africa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Nigeria. And so it makes sense with increased travel and trade. Eventually, we're going to see importations of these cases of monkeypox that are occurring on the ground in these endemic countries. And when somebody else comes in contact with a person who has monkey, pox, it's a perfect opportunity for spread. Does the smallpox vaccine protect against monkeypox? The smallpox vaccine does provide protection against monkeypox. My early work on monkeypox documented a large rise in the incidence of monkeypox 30 years

after cessation of smallpox vaccine. And this, we felt that one of the major drivers of this was this rising proportion of the population that had no immunity. and we saw very few cases in people that had been vaccinated. Now, there's a question of how long the vaccine is going to hold out. And if you have a significant exposure, you know, you still very possibly could become infected. But it's very probable that the vaccine would provide some protection, even in terms of reducing the severity of disease. So we haven't been vaccinating against smallpox in the U.S. for about 50 years or so.

there's a sense that with climate change, deforestation, closer proximity to wildlife, there are chances for more diseases like this, and certainly global travel, to jump from animals to people, to jump from one part of the world to another part of the world. Should we be getting vaccinated against smallpox and other poxes? I think at this point, that's not really something that we need to be concerned about or have on the table in terms of discussion. Pox viruses that were concerned about as a threat to humans are generally only endemic in places like sub-Saharan Africa. And even there, the disease is still reasonably rare, rare enough

that these governments are not really considering doing any kind of mass vaccination. The threat is reasonably low. The risk is reasonably low in general. That said, I do think that when you see increasing cases, we do need to consider options of using vaccine for people who have been exposed, people who are at high risk of exposure, but we're always weighing the cost-benefit and also the availability of this kind of vaccine. And so I think it's just important that this is something that will be considered for certain populations at risk, but is certainly not something that is going to be needed on a mass population level. When you see news coverage of lesions and sores and people worried about monkeypox coming

to the United States and to North America, what do you tell people? What are you looking for? And what is your thought as you see this coverage? I think that there are different levels of concern for different groups of people. Now, I think we have to differentiate the concern or for a high. health care worker, for example. A health care worker who may come in contact with cases may be more concerned and be more cautious, be on the lookout for unusual rash or a history of travel to a monkey pox endemic area in the last month. And I think that that's a different category. Now, when we think

about this on a global level or on a policy level, I think it's really important to remember that an infection anywhere is potentially an infection anywhere. And that if the current COVID-19 pandemic has not driven that home, I think that these clusters of monkeypox cases really should, that we need to have excellent disease surveillance. We need to have the capacity to be able to do case investigations, contact tracing, and really get to the bottom of what's happening. This is certainly a situation that requires attention, focused intervention, and a real evaluation of, what needs to be done in terms of preventing pandemics before they start. Dr. Anne Ramoyne is Professor of Epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health in Los Angeles,

California. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. It's my pleasure. We've got to take a break. When we come back, parents of newborns are worried about the baby formula shortage. We'll talk about why formula is such an important source of nutrition for millions of babies. This is Science Friday. I'm John Bankosky. If you're the parent of a newborn, you've likely experienced how difficult it's gotten to find your little one's favorite baby formula. In February, Abbott Nutrition, a major manufacturer of baby food and formula, shut down a factory in Michigan. Now, this came after the FDA began investigating serious and even fatal bacterial infections and infants who were fed formula from the plant.

This one factory produces around a quarter of the U.S. baby formula supply, so closing it has left store shelves empty, and parents are scrambling to feed their babies. Here to tell us more about formula and what parents can do during the shortage is my guest, Dr. Bridget Young, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester and founder of babyformulaexpert.com,

which is based in Rochester, New York. Bridget, welcome back to Science Friday. Thanks so much for being here. Oh, John, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. So formula has helped to feed millions of babies over the years. What exactly is in baby formula? So baby formula is this very unique food that we sometimes refer to as sole source nutrition,

meaning it's one of those rare food items that you can feed to an infant exclusively that will grow a baby appropriately. And it's really that or breast milk for infants under six months who are unable to have other food. So it's the perfect blend of macronutrients, your protein, fat, and carbohydrate. Everybody's heard of that. And the micronutrients, all the vitamins. and minerals in the exact amount that a human infant needs to grow. But the other component of formula that's often overlooked and that we're really dealing with now is this safety component. So the FDA has a lot of regulations and parameters that also ensure that formula is safe.

Formula is the safest food product in the United States because the manufacturing plants are inspected. The batches are tested for bacterial contamination. That's what resulted in. in this recall you just referred to. And that's because young infants immune systems aren't developed. And so they're much more susceptible to becoming ill from foodborne pathogens than an adult. So not only is formula nutritionally complete in that delicate balance recipe, but it also goes through all these extra safety measures to ensure that it also doesn't include things that we don't want to be in there like bacteria.

So that tight regulation in your mind has really worked in order to keep the baby formula supply safe for children? Yes. This is certainly an unprecedented situation we're in with an actual shortage. But the shortage originated because we already had supply chain issues from the pandemic that aren't exclusive to formula. Every industry is experiencing it. Then this massive recall on top of it. So the recall happened to protect infants, but now we're seeing the downstream ramifications of not having a backup plan when you close down one of the five infant formula plans in the U.S. And obviously it's been pretty devastating. Not all baby formulas made the same. And some formulas don't work as well for some babies. We heard from Vanessa Semegel, who told Texas Public Radio that she couldn't find her regular formula anywhere. So she had to go get something different through the San Antonio Food Bank.

And that was hard because his digestion system, he was throwing up. He was consipated. It was just, it was really bad. Eventually, he was able to digest it and keep it in. So it took about a month for his body to get used to that formula. What do we know about how some babies are able to digest some formulations of formula, but not others? Yes. Oh, my heart goes out to her.

And honestly, I think the vast majority. of formula feeding families are in this scenario where in this current state of availability, most families are facing a formula change, which is terrifying to families. So here's why some infants tolerate one formula better than another. It's a little mixture of biology and a little mixture of we don't know. So when an infant is especially exclusively consuming a formula, that's the only thing they're eating. And there is variation in formula, which we'll probably talk about. So they're eating a specific set of ingredients, and that's all they're eating. So their body becomes really well at producing the enzymes needed to digest those specific ingredients. And if you change it overnight,

and now maybe you have a different oil included in the fat blend, or maybe you move from way predominant cow's milk to a casein predominant cows milk, those are all of a sudden really new things that the baby has to digest. And that can result in exactly what you just said, this transition period, when the digestive system has to adjust and adapt. And that can happen much more slower in a baby because they're younger and also because it's the only thing they're eating. So when the change happens and it's kind of a cold turkey formula change, it's a massive change for them because their entire diet has shifted.

So I just my heart goes out to those families. Normally when I'm working with a family, we suggest to stretch a formula change out over at least several days in order to ease that transition to the baby. But of course, a lot of families are in a situation where that's just not possible right now if they're unable to find their normal formula and they're forced to make a change quickly. And just so that I understand, is this about children physiologically preferring some type of formula versus another? Or is this really just about a young digestive system that would be able to tolerate almost any kind of formula, but it's the change that is causing the problem? Oh, John, what a great question. I think the answer is yes.

It's likely both. That's just my opinion. The other thing is, anytime you're changing a formula or the baby is going through transition, they're also getting older. So they're, you know, aging each and every day and each and every day their digestive tract becomes more mature. So that's the third factor that's happening with every day they age. They are also more likely to tolerate things better. Now, I do want to be clear, especially in a situation, the vast majority of infants, with the exception of diagnosed medical condition like allergy or severe intestinal disease, can really handle any infant formula on the market. They may have a couple rough days with maybe gas or some discomfort during the transition, but it's safe for them to have any infant formula. It's not dangerous,

but they may face this a little bit of a turbulent transition time, but it is absolutely safe again for healthy, the vast majority of babies. So I don't want parents to be concerned about that. Among the things, though, that you say are not safe, this idea that parents, if they're desperate, could be making their own formula from some recipe at home. What do you tell people about that? Gosh, it certainly seems popular on social media. I myself have seen lots of recipes floating around. And you're absolutely right that we 100% advise families, please don't make homemade formula. here's why there's no way to guarantee that what you're mixing into the cow's milk base or whatever the base of this recipe is actually nutritionally adequate.

If you're using some kind of supplement, which almost all these recipes do, supplements are not regulated by the FDA. So for example, if it's a vitamin supplement and you think you're adding a very specific amount, there's no way of knowing actually what's in that supplement. It could be dramatically less. It could be dramatically more. and it could also contain other ingredients that aren't on the list of ingredients. Fillers that could be dangerous to a young infant.

And then any time you're adding other ingredients, you're also potentially introducing sources of bacterial contamination, things that can make the baby physically sick very quickly. And so for those reasons, homemade formula can go bad fast. And so we are strongly recommending parents not to do that. So what advice can you give parents right now who are just at their wits in? They can't find any formula or they can't find the right type of formula that their baby has been able to tolerate. What are you telling them?

Yes. Oh, I'm so glad you asked. So I would like to emphasize, again, if your infant is not consuming a hypoallergenic or an amino acid formula, this is going to be the vast majority. Any infant formula. Any. It could even be soy formula. So the quote unquote infant formula is the term on the can. That means it's gone through all these safety measures.

Any of those are fine and safe for your baby. Places that you can look for formula that you may not have thought, of course everyone checks their grocery stores and large stores like Target or Walmart. Other places you should check. Number one of any rule, call your pediatrician. They will likely have connections with local resources. They may also have samples of formula on hand. Also, I really encourage families to consider generic grand formulas.

They are equally, the quality is equally as high and they are equally as safe. Other places that sell formula, but that wouldn't be your first place to look like health food stores, whole foods, smaller local shops can often still have some formula on hand. And lastly, I've been really touched and impressed by seeing a lot of local community resources rise up around this. So there's been a lot of social media local parent groups that are doing formula exchange. So lots of families have formula in the house that they're not using. So connecting families with formula that other families have that's not going to use. That's another great place to check. But I would just remind everyone from a safety standpoint that you never want to

take an opened can from someone else. You would want to be sure the formula is unopened. The can is undamaged and it's non-expired. And lastly, you can also talk with your doctor about potentially donor milk. Donor milk banks have made pasteurized, safe donor milk available in the quantity that they have and whether or not that's available to you is going to depend on where you are geographically in the United States. And you will need a pediatrician prescription to access it. But talking to your doctor about that is another potentially great way to acquire a safe formula substitute. And we'll be talking about milk banks more in our next story coming up. I'd like to thank our guest, though, Dr. Bridget Young, is assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester and founder of

Baby FormulaExpert.com. She's based in Rochester, New York. Thank you so much, Bridget. Oh, it's my pleasure, John. Thank you. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. As we've heard, desperate parents are seeking out food for their babies wherever they can find it. And one of those places might be a milkbank, a facility that collects donations of breast milk and distributes that milk to babies who need an extra boost. To learn a bit more, let's check in on the state of science. This is KERNO. St. Louis Public Radio News. Iowa Public Radio News.

Local news stories of national significance. There are about 30 accredited milk banks in the U.S., which are experiencing a higher demand due to the current formula shortage. Here to tell us more about this is Darian Benson, a health reporter for side effects Public Media based at WFYI in Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to Science Friday, Darian. Hi, thanks for having me. Well, we just learned about the formula shortage and what it means for babies,

but desperate parents are also turning to another source, these milk banks. So tell us, first of all, how exactly does a milk bank work? Yeah, so a milk bank is a tissue bank. Donors who donate milk that they might be producing. They might have an extra supply of milk, or they might have been a surrogate or something So they're donating their milk, and that milk is then pasteurized, much like the milk that we might drink, it's then pasteurized to make sure there's no harmful bacteria or anything like that, and then it's donated to babies in need. The milk is primarily for babies in the NICU or babies who might medically benefit from breast milk.

Maybe a mom's milk hasn't come in yet, or maybe the baby is adopted and might benefit from breast milk. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. We're talking with Dary and Benson, a health reporter for Side Effects Public Media from WN. W-F-YI in Indianapolis, Indiana. So, of course, right now with this formula shortage, people are looking for baby food, all sorts of places, and this might be one place that they're looking to buy. If you were a parent looking to buy breast milk,

is it easy to purchase? Unfortunately, it's not that easy to purchase. You can't really just walk into a milk bank and purchase milk like you would at a store. Because the milk is primarily for the NICB babies or the sick babies, There's a very limited supply of milk that people can just purchase, right? It's also kind of expensive. At the milk bank in Indianapolis, there's a processing fee of $4.50 for an ounce of breast milk.

Now, there is a sliding scale based on income, and sometimes, you know, there's grants or, you know, donations for people to kind of offset that cost. But it is still pretty costly. a breastfed baby needs anywhere between 19 to 30 ounces of milk a day. So if a baby drinks about four ounce bottles seven times a day, that's about $126 a day. My goodness. So that is quite an expense. Even before this current shortage, though, you reported back in February that milk banks were seeing a bit of a rise in demand. I assume that that rise in demand has just increased within the last couple weeks? Yeah, so I spoke with Jenna Strite, who's the advancement director of the milk bank in Indianapolis. She said that they're seeing an increase in request for donor milk. We're hearing

from across the region, across the country that families are searching, spending a lot of time driving around and trying to find formula options that just aren't in stock. We're now fielding a lot of calls from somewhat desperate families who are searching for a way to feed their baby. They want to help, right? They don't want any baby to go hungry and they're trying their best, but their supply is limited to the amount of donors that they have and the amount of milk that they do have. And you've been talking to a lot of parents. I'm wondering how they're coping with this shortage and what exactly you're hearing from people who might be seeking out milk from milk banks now? Parents are desperate. They're trying to find ways to feed their

baby. If their baby is formula-fed, they can't find formula, right? The shelves oftentimes are empty, and it's a really big problem for babies who might have a dairy allergy or needs specialized formula. So parents have joined, you know, groups online on primarily Facebook of people who are, you know, either swapping formula or swapping donated milk. A lot of moms and parents are looking for donors who are willing to, you know, donate some milk for their baby. But for the babies, but for the babies with allergies, some parents are asking, you know, is there a donor who might be dairy-free? I spoke to one mom who is pumping extra just so she can increase her supply to donate more milk to babies who might have some allergies.

She's eliminated dairy and a few other common allergies just so she can help these babies who are sick. Just to be clear, Derry, and when you're talking about this sort of person-to-person exchange or people finding milk through a Facebook group. This is a very different thing than going through a milk bank. I assume that this comes with some pretty substantial risks. Yeah, I think it's important to say, you know, a parent is going to do what's best for their baby.

And at this point, I think a lot of parents are thinking, I need to find some way to feed my baby. My baby cannot go hungry. And formal sharing isn't new for centuries. You know, people have had wet nurses or people sharing milk to others. but the FDA does not recommend informal milk sharing. They do ask, you know, regardless if a parent is going to a milk bank or finding milk through a friend or online, that they speak to a doctor first.

But that's just because there are some risks, especially with informal sharing. There's bacteria if somebody's not storing the milk properly. Also, certain medications can be passed through breast milk that can be dangerous for a baby. So is there anything that milk banks can do to help more babies? Yeah, so I've spoken with people from a few different milk banks, and they are really trying to increase their donor pool right now so that they can provide more milk for babies, specifically for the babies who, you know, are being affected by this formula shortage right now. So people can, you know, donate milk. They can also, you know, do financial

contributions to their local milk banks, kind of offset that cost, that processing fee for the milk. Darian, thanks so much for sharing your reporting with us. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Darian Benson is a health reporter for Side Effects Public Media from WFY in Indianapolis, Indiana. Coming up after our break, we'll dive into the wonderful world of sharks. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm John Dankowski.

You know how it goes. As summer approaches and people head to the beach, you start to see more and more stories about people encountering sharks. But my next guest points out, every story with a headline like, big sharks spotted near beach, could also be written as fish, swims and water, it's home. Sharks have this kind of mythic status like an aquatic T-Rex, but our fascination with their

apex predator status leads to coverage that can be over the top, misguided, and sometimes even harmful to the goal of conserving and protecting threatened species. Dr. David Schiffman is a faculty research associate at Arizona State University and is the author of the brand new book Why Sharks Matter, a deep dive with the world's most misunderstood predator. Welcome to Science Friday, David. for having me, John. Well, we're going to get to why sharks are misunderstood in just a moment. But first, let's spend some time just marveling at them a bit. What's your favorite shark fact? Oh, man, there are so many fascinating facts about these animals. And like many kids, I had a shark thing when I was little that I never grew out of. Ask the eight-year-old in your life. And they probably know some

amazing facts of their own. But the one that I use when I just have one fact to blow people's mind, It's Greenland sharks, which are a deep sea Arctic species, they can live to be over 400 years old. They're the longest-lived vertebrate animal in the world, and they have been found with polar bears and reindeer in their stomachs. Isn't that incredible? It's probably scavenging of animals that are swimming from ice flow to ice flow and drown. But I like to think that a polar bear swimming from ice flow to ice flow is pretty vulnerable to getting slurped up from below. My goodness. 400 years? How does that even happen? Isn't that wild? And they're not considered reproductably mature

adults until they're in their 160s, which means that a Greenland shark born on the day that Canada was confederated as a modern nation is still a teenager. Oh, my goodness. Well, we're going to have lots more shark facts, and I'm sure people will want to hear more of them. One of the things I want to talk about for a second is shark skin. Now, I've never gotten to pet a shark myself, but I just assumed that the skin was smooth, and you write that it is kind of. Tell us about shark skin. Yeah, so sharks are covered in these amazing scale-like features called dermal denticles, which means skin teeth, and they are pointed backwards. So if you do touch a shark from nose to tail, it's incredibly smooth. But if you go the other way, it's incredibly rough, rough enough to cut your skin. Many marine

biologists I know have experienced something called shark burn, which is because of this. One time I was helping to work up a lemon shark for some of my PhD research, and I looked down in the back of the lemon shark was covered in hair, and I thought, that's weird, fish don't have hair. And then I looked and my leg was bleeding. So just from the skin, the shark did not bite me. It was safely restrained, but it just moved just a fraction of an inch, and that was enough to just shear a whole bunch of skin and hair right off me. My goodness. And, you know, and, You talk about how diverse a group of animals these are, these animals that we call sharks. Maybe you can explain a little bit about that diversity because there's not just one thing.

As you say over and over again in your book, the Great White from Jaws is not the only shark out there. Absolutely. There are actually over 500 known species of sharks. And there's a new species of shark, skate, ray, or chimera discovered on average about every two weeks somewhere in the world. and they come in just about every shape and size and color that you can imagine. The smallest is smaller than your forearm. The largest is larger than a school bus. Some are striped.

Some are spotted. Some have crazy long tails. Some have weird faces or weird snouts. One is bubble gum pink in color. So just about any place that you can imagine, there's sharks that live there. The U.S. Navy SEALs have a saying that if you want to test if there's a shark near you, you dip your finger in the water and taste it. And if it's salty, that means you're in the ocean, and therefore there's probably a shark near you.

And that's true, but it's also incomplete because some sharks live in rivers. And among all these various types of sharks, David, you say there's even one that glows? Yeah, there's a whole group of sharks that can glow in the dark that are called the lantern sharks. There's a lot of deep sea organisms that are able to bioluminesse or biofluoresce in some ways, because if you live in the deep sea, it's so dark there because the sunlight never reaches. So sometimes that's for signaling other members of your own species. Sometimes it's for attracting prey to come investigate what the weird light is. Sometimes it's for scaring away predators.

So, yeah, there are glow in the dark sharks. Sharks are, of course, fish, but maybe you could help me place them on the evolutionary tree. Sure. That's a question I get a lot, actually, that are sharks fish. The answer is yes, but they're a different group of fish from something like a tuna or a goldfish or a bass. Those are the bony fishes. They have skeletons that are made of bone just like ours. But if you crinkle your nose or crinkle your ears, you can feel that that's more flexible.

That's cartilage. And sharks, skates, rays, and chimeras are the cartilaginous fishes. Their skeletons are made out of cartilage just like that. And it is more flexible than bone. It's lighter than bone. It heals faster than bone. Is there something in the way that sharks are made that have allowed them to live so long, to be on this planet for such a very long time and thrive and survive?

Sharks are just extraordinarily well adapted to their environments. There were animals recognizable as shark swimming in the ocean, not only before there were dinosaurs on land, but before there were trees on land, and long before there were rings around Saturn. So this is a really ancient group of fish, which makes their modern-day conservation crises all the more tragic. Your message in the book is that sharks do matter.

Explain why they matter so much ecologically. Predators help keep the food web imbalance. It's really that simple. And when you lose predators, it can unravel the whole food web with wide-ranging and unpredictable effects that can be really, really ecologically disruptive. And for organisms, including humans, that depend on those ecosystems, that can be unbelievably bad. And when we're talking about the ocean, that is a series of ecosystems. that billions of humans depend on for food and for employment.

We very much want the oceans to be healthy. And for there to be healthy oceans, we need there to be, among other things, healthy populations of predators. But not all sharks are just predators. Some are food as well, and not just for humans. Absolutely. Some are the apex predators, the top of the food chain, that you may visualize when you hear about sharks.

But some are small, and there are sharks that have been eaten by birds. There are sharks that are eaten by bony fish. There are sharks that are eaten by seals and sea lions. One of my favorite photos from a few years ago was a bull shark that got taken out by a saltwater crocodile. So these animals can be fulfilling all sorts of important ecological roles. Could you explain how threatened sharks are? Sharks are some of the most threatened animals in the world. According to the IUCN Red List, which is an international group of conservation science experts,

about one third of all known species of sharks and their relatives are considered threatened with extinction. Frogs are in worse shape than that because of the chytrid fungus disease that's spreading through rainforests. One type of hard corals is in worse shape than that, and that's yet. When people hear about sharks in the media, there's this tone of danger and threat. I know that the numbers of people who are attacked by sharks, whether it's in the U.S. or globally, is nowhere near as much as the hype. But maybe you could put in some context the threat that sharks pose to humans.

The threat that sharks pose to humans is astronomically low. In a typical year, hundreds of millions of humans go in the ocean and 50 to 70 are bitten by sharks, not 50 to 70 million, 50 to 70. Many of those bites are so minor that they require a Band-Aid, not even stitches. In a typical year, more Americans are killed by flower pots falling on their heads from above as they walk down the street than are killed by sharks. And as a social media guy, my favorite one of those statistics is that more people in the world are killed, not paying attention while taking a selfie of the beautiful scenery and falling off cliffs than are killed by sharks. So why do you think it is that we have such a preoccupation with shark safety, with worries about swimmers being eaten by sharks? Is it just that movie Jaws or is there something else to it? Jaws is it a big part of it. Jaws really changed the world in how people think about sharks,

in that a lot of people didn't really think about sharks that much before that movie and the Associated Book. When my parents saw Jaws, they said they didn't even want to go swimming in their community pool. that summer. It absolutely terrified people. And when most people, when I say shark, what you picture is the shark from Jaws, even though we know that's not really how they behave or really what they look like. The same is true of dinosaurs. If I ask you to picture a T-Rex, you picture the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, even though we know that's not what they look like or a lot of how they behave. So Jaws played a major role, but there's also this inflammatory and fear-mongering media coverage that whenever anyone is bitten by a shark anywhere in the world, its front-page news, every.

My favorite analysis of this was done by my colleagues, Dr. Christopher Neff and Bob Heuter, and they found that in Australia, things that were reported as shark attacks, since this is audio, I'm doing very sarcastic air quotes when I say shark attacked. About a third of what was reported as a shark attack, the shark did not physically touch the human at all. It swam near the human in a way that the person interpreted as threatening. All this being said, you make it clear in your book that some shark attacks do happen and that you don't want to minimize the fear that people have. You don't want to minimize the fact that some people have been maimed or killed. Are there things that we can do to minimize the risk that does exist? Yeah, the risk is very

small, but it is real. I don't want to take away from anyone's suffering of tragedies do happen, but it's important to keep in mind these relative risks when we plan policy responses to a particular issue. Some things that you can do to minimize your risk if you are concerned about this is stay relatively close to shore around other people in the middle of the day, not at dawn or dusk when some species of sharks are more active. What I just said is notably the exact opposite of what most surfers do. They go far from shore by themselves either before or after work. And what that leads to is surfing being still relatively safe, but relatively less safe than just a typical beachgoer. You've talked about how threatened shark species are.

Let's talk through some of the major threats that they're facing. And I will say that almost every time that we do an interview on this program about threats to sea life, two things come up. Climate change and commercial fishing practices. And you say both of those things can play a role, but those aren't necessarily the biggest threats to sharks. Yeah, the biggest threat by far to sharks is unsustainable over fishing, which is different from fishing in general. There is sustainable fishing, both for marine life in general and for sharks specifically. Climate change is something of an emerging threat to sharks. We don't know exactly what it's going to do, but thus far it's considered a much, much, much

less major threat to sharks than unsustainable overfishing, by which I mean if we totally solve climate change, which we should do, it's a major threat to other things. But if we totally solve climate change but don't fix overfishing, many species of sharks are still in trouble. If we fix overfishing but don't fix climate change, many species of sharks will have their trajectories improved significantly. Explain how unsustainable overfishing harms sharks. We talked earlier about how sharks are so well adapted to their environment and have been around for hundreds of millions of years. But the problem is they're really well adapted to environmental conditions that don't really exist anymore. Sharks' life history is not designed for large

numbers of their species being killed. They have relatively few babies relatively laid in life, relatively infrequently. And every one of those babies is better able to survive than a larval tuna or something like that. But it means that their populations take a really, really long time to bounce back from being hit by something like overfishing. And that means they're especially vulnerable to overfishing. And also, sharks are, in addition to targeted fisheries for sharks, both for their fins and for their meat. Sharks are also commonly victims of what's called bycatch, which is accidentally catching a fish that's swimming near what you are trying to catch, which is unavoidable with large-scale commercial fishing gear. You fish for tuna with these long lines that have tens of thousands

of baited hooks on them. You're also going to catch sea turtles and seabirds and sharks. I'm John Dankowski, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. I'm talking with Dr. David Schiffman, who's the author of the new book, Why Sharks Matter. a deep dive with the world's most misunderstood predator. You can read an excerpt at sciencefriiday.com slash sharks. People want to help protect sharks. What are some things they can do? The single most effective thing that one person can do

to help the ocean in general, including but not limited to sharks, is to not eat unsustainable seafood. Notice I did not say we all have to give up seafood and all become vegans immediately, as has been claimed by some. If you want to do that, that's certainly a valid choice, but we're absolutely not at the point where the science says we all have to do that or the ocean is doomed. So you can eat sustainable seafood if like me you love seafood or if it's culturally important to you. It also can be very nutritious.

So don't eat unsustainable seafood is the biggest thing that people can do to help the ocean, including sharks. There are also some great environmental nonprofits that could sure use your support. I introduce readers to many of them in the book. But also I want to stress that there are some problematic nonprofits that do not actually do a whole lot to help. And the book also talks about ways that people are trying to help that are perhaps not especially helpful. Without getting into too many of those details, are there things that people are doing to try to help the oceans as a whole that maybe in the end can harm a species like sharks? There are some problematic practices done by some wildlife tourism operators. These are people who operate businesses where you can pay to go swimming with sharks scuba diving or snorkeling or something.

And that absolutely can be done in a way that is safe for humans and sharks, but it's increasingly done in such a way that it is bad for sharks and can be quite dangerous for humans. There are people who have swung the pendulum of shark misunderstanding too far in the wrong direction. It used to be this belief that the only good shark is a dead shark, and if you dip your toe in the bathtub, a shark's going to eat your whole family so we should kill them all. And we don't have that as a problem so much anymore. But now we have people who go too far in the other direction and say sharks are actually cute, innocent, adorable puppy dogs who just need love and hugs and kisses.

And there are people who hug and kiss and ride large, free swimming sharks. And they say they're doing conservation by doing this. I don't know what the heck that is, but it's not conservation. I can't leave this conversation without asking you, what's your favorite shark, David? My favorite shark is the sandbar shark. Follow hashtag best shark on Twitter and Instagram, and you will see years of me talking about how much I love my sandbar sharks. Why do you love the sandbar sharks so? Sandbar sharks are sort of the classic model shark.

If I ask you to visualize a shark, it's going to look an awful lot like a sandbar shark. If you've ever been to an aquarium, you've probably seen one. They're very common aquarium animals, which means that for millions of children around the world, a sandbar shark is the first shark they ever see in their whole life. and that can lead to a life of wanting to protect the ocean. Dr. David Schiffman is a faculty research associate at Arizona State University, and he's the author of Why Sharks Matter, a deep dive with the world's most misunderstood predator. David, thanks so much for being with us.

Thanks for having me. That's all the time. We have this hour. Here's Kyle Marion Viterbo with some of the folks who helped make this show possible. Annie Niro is our individual giving manager. Nehima Ahmed is our manager of Impact Strategy. D. Peter Schmidt is our digital producer, and I'm community manager, Kyle Marion Viterbo. Thanks for listening.

Thanks, Kyle. BJ Leatherman composed our theme music. IRIS back next week. I'm John Dankowski.