Putting breasts to an interesting use

I think a sign you are reading a good magazine is when you continuously read articles that surprise you, are relevant to everyday life, and are about topics that have not been otherwise publicized or discussed (and that you've never once given any thought to).  Wired magazine never seems to disappoint me in that regard. This evening I read a really interesting article about a growing community of woman that are selling their own breast milk to other mothers.  I'm so conflicted on this one;  on one hand I understand the tremendous benefits of feeding breast milk to infants and the general market need.  On the other hand, the idea of buying very expensive breast milk from some random woman on the internet who could be inflicted with one of many infectious diseases or sustaining herself on nothing but beer and cigarettes scares the daylights out of me.

What amazes me about the world in general is how wide the gap can be between people about a certain topic and how strongly they can feel about their particular stance.  I mean, on one extreme parents are feeding their newborn bodily fluids from a perfect stranger with no testing, pasteurization, or really any other systematic precautions.  On the other extreme, parents are refusing to give their children vaccines that have been around for many years and have been proven over time to have more or less eliminated diseases that used to plague infants (read another great Wired article here from 2009).  And yet, despite the passion of the two extremes, infant mortality keeps decreasing and the average lifespan continues to grow higher.

For now, I'm going to keep worrying about more relevant issues (and less stressful), like do I choose to go golfing or bike riding this coming weekend.