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CT: What is the status of any outside research to support the medical claims you've made in Preparation for Parenting and Baby Wise?

EZZO: I will tell you, there's now over 1 million Baby Wise Prep books that are out there. We feel with the American Academy of Pediatrics' condemnation of the family bed, which is part of the core of the attachment parenting, the very thing that we have been arguing against since 1986 has caused a lot of people to re-evaluate what we are saying. Obviously, the academy now is starting to agree with us with a number of issues. We're feeling pretty good about it.

I will just generally answer regarding our medical advisory board, you know, we can put together a board. The way we work with a board, we don't have weekly conversations. I have Dr. Robert Bucknam, obviously, if you want to get a pediatrician's word on the medical wisdom of Baby Wise or Prep, his name is on the book. He is a leading pediatrician in the Denver area. But the way we work is we will send, any time there's a revision, a major editorial revision, we send it to our advisory board.

Now there hasn't been one for two or three years, we haven't really needed one for I think two or three years, I think '98 as the last one. But we send it out to the advisory board, say we're going to re-do this book. If you come across anything, words, any medical issues, anything, anything that's changed in the medical community, please communicate that to us that we can incorporate the appropriate changes in the next edition. That's how we work it, that's what we do.

CT: Have you ever provided a list of the advisory board?

EZZO: Well, we would never do that. I mean the last time an attachment parenting LaLeche group got a hold of one of our advisory board members, and she's a professor of pediatrics at a university on the East coast, ... she got over 40 different faxes, which were each multiple pages. They got so bothered by these people.

Some of the nonsense that is presented that we would not give out our medical advisory board name or number to anyone. And if you have medical question, contact us, we'll send it to Bob Bucknam. You can call Bob Bucknam, I mean again, it's sort of like, why would we need a medical advisory board when we already have one of the leading pediatricians. And given the fact, and if all of these horror stories that have always been reported over all of the
years, all of these cases, which we have yet to find documented cases of the cause and effect between the two. If all of these things are true, you wouldn't have that million, well now nearly 2 million-plus happy parents.

And so, we're at a point, I think where the Christian worldview is beginning to have an influence on the non-Christian society. And to be very frank, I think that's scaring a lot of people. It's scaring a lot of people that Christians could actually have worldview that could be applied to early parenting. And there are a lot of happy people.

So I mean all of those continual repetition of just misquotes and purposeful misquotes, it gets a little weary because we have, I think, a less of a tendency to want to supply those who ask for names and address and phone numbers.

Be sure to read today's related Ezzo feature, "Is Gary Ezzo Unprepared to Teach Parenting?"

Visit Ezzo's Growing Families International homepage.

Read John MacArthur's comments on Gary Ezzo's break with Living Hope Evangelical Fellowship.

World Magazine ran a story on Ezzo's techniques, as well as a response from Roy Maynard to the attack Ezzo launched against him.

The BBC ran "Pro-spanking evangelists hit the UK" when Ezzo visited last October.

Here's a list comparing GFI and the AAP recommendations.

Read Annie Chickering's "Warning: Babywise Isn't."

Read Books &Culture's "No One Knows Best."

View reprints of past CT articles "The Brave New Baby," "and "Growing Criticism."

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October (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44