单项选择题

In 1997, Kelley Scanlon, an epidemiologist, and her colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control received a call from Georgia health authorities with disturbing news. The parents of two infants had weaned their babies onto soy-and-rice-based milk substitutes, even though both can lack crucial nutrients found in fortified cow’’s milk and formula. As a result, the children were suffering from diseases that had all but disappeared in the United States: rickets (a severe deficiency of vitamin D) and kwashiorkor (protein deficiency). Without intervention, the infants could have grown up with bone or brain damage. Soy and rice drinks continue to grow in popularity because they’’re safe for adults and low in fat and cholesterol. But what some parents don’’t know is that the drinks, if given to infants as primary sources of nutrition, can lead to health problems associated with kids in Third World countries. While national numbers aren’’t available, doctors are reporting nutrition-deficiency cases — many linked to rice and soy milk — in otherwise healthy kids in the United States and Canada. Recently, the medical journal Pediatrics published an article citing two cases of "severe nutritional deficiency" linked to the beverages. The problems associated with rice and soy milk are most pressing in kids younger than 2 because they don’’t eat as wide a variety of food as older toddlers. (The American Academy of Pediatrics says infants younger than 6 months should get 210mg of calcium, mostly from breast milk, each day.) "We’’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg," says Scanlon of the CDC, who estimates that up to 80 percent of kids with milder cases of malnutrition may not be properly diagnosed. "[Parents] don’’t recognize that something that’’s called milk is not necessarily infant formula," adds Bob Issenman, chief of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at McMaster Children’’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. Rice milk is chiefly made from brown rice and sweetener. The drink is often fortified with calcium, iron and B vitamins, but it’’s usually low in protein. Without enough protein, says Albert Yan, babies’’ skin becomes like "flaky paint" and their hair, lacking enough melanin, gets lighter. More seriously, they develop tissue swelling (edema) and their bodies fail to produce crucial immune factors. Soy milk, by comparison, contains about the same amount of protein as cow’’s milk, but not all brands are fortified with vitamin D. Breast-feeding moms are sometimes advised to use supplements, too, since breast milk doesn’’t contain much D. And vegan moms’’ milk can be low in another vitamin, B12. The good news is the nutritional problems are often reversible. Talk to your pediatrician and check your child’’s diet against the American Academy of Pediatrics’’ recommendations (aap.org). After all, it’’s your job to do their body good. The following statements are correct except________.