humanmilkpatentpending

Mosaic of life... bacteria 'R' us

2012-01-22T08:34:00.000-05:00

Watching waves in the quiet of the morning hours, I find my peace. The waves were clear and crisp; an icy blue-green. Perfect surfing waves. Surfing a wave is learning to live with the world around you. You are the ocean and yet you are not the ocean. You are the ocean for one brief moment in time, all wet and salty. Your senses take in the warmth of the sea, the taste of salt and seaweed. You share your wave with a host of sea animals. In the distance there may be dolphins playing in the waves, too. Sometimes, you get a close encounter with a black-tipped shark plying the waters for food. Hopefully, you are out of bite-range. You may step on a little crab or step on the mighty manta ray. Overhead the pelican soars and splashes hard, right near where you want to be to catch some waves. The laughing gulls are making a mighty racket today. I think they are laughing at me, the old woman thinking she can play at their beach. You play in the ocean and you begin to respect the lives around you. Live and let live, let's all enjoy our moments on this planet called earth.

Watching the ocean is never as good as being in it. Although who hasn't been mesmerized by the sea. Enchantment. That enchantment never ends and is replayed and replayed on the faces of our children. Watch a child play by the sea. They bury themselves in the sand, and some even eat the sand. Then they run to the ocean to wash it off. But the ocean does not so easily wash off. It enters your pores and creates a memory that never dies. You walk to the beach as an adult and that memory comes back to sooth your soul.

We are the ocean, we are the earth. We are the bacteria of our environment. We cannot escape our environment. Life is out there but life is within us. Scary but not so scary. Our bodies know what to do, if our immune system is in working order. We live in balance with the pathogens in our environment. The problem is when our bodies cannot maintain that balance. When our immune system is no longer able to cope with the pathogens in our environment.

With the human infant the balance is preserved by breastfeeding. Breastfeeding, is a river of life. This river of life protects the infant from being overwhelmed by the pathogens in the environment. Humanity cannot live in sterile settings, not possible. We can try. We can sterilize everything and anything but that does not protect us from the world. We live with microbes, the good and the bad ones. We can sterilize our foods, we can sterilize our environments, but that doesn't protect us from disease. In fact it may make us more vulnerable to disease. We now know that we need good bacteria in our bodies, that good bacteria works in our digestive tracts. Sterilizing everything makes us more vulnerable, when the next pathogen emerges.

Infant formula usage is predicated on the ability to sterilize the water, sterilize the equipment, and sterilize the food. And for good reason. A human infant that is not breastfeed is in a state of immune compromise. They are not getting a substance that is alive with antibodies and protective factors against bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. Instead the formula-fed infant is being served a dead substance. A substance that, if it has anything alive in it, is pathogenic to that infant. If there is a bacteria in that food, the formula-fed infant may not be able to muster an adequate defense. And the more vulnerable the infant (born by C-section, premature, hospitalized, medical issues), the more likely that infant may succumb or become damaged by a pathogen. Infant formula has to be sterile but there is a recognition by industry that formula-fed infants need bacteria, the good bacteria, that breastfed infants acquire and keeps them healthy. The question is how do you put a live substance in a food that needs to be sterile (devoid of life)? I don't think it can be done. Maybe its time to admit, that breastfeeding in this day and age (with antibiotic resistance and new virulent pathogens) is a matter of public safety.

How should a nation spend its public resources? We, humans, think we can circumvent nature, that liberation is about choice in infant feeding. Yet this choice seems foolhardy. Society will spend a fortune in trying to keep infant formula a safe product. But if the premise of choice is based on an illusion of safety, then we will continue to invest in a product that cannot build a fully functioning immune system. We risk the health of our children, our future. We are our environment. Our bodies are a mosaic of all the things we encounter while we go about our daily lives. Babies who are breastfed have a live substance, that works to protect them on a daily basis.
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain

PS: Cronobacter is a gram negative bacteria that seems prevalent in our environment. They have cultured it in hospitals, powdered infant formula, feeding equipment, a wide variety of foods. Enterobacter sakazakii (Cronobacter) has been found on air filters in a manufacturing plant for powdered milk protein. This study makes for interesting reading for those who are interested in the problems of PIF (Powdered Infant Formula).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2565973/

This article is entitled, "Dissemination of Cronobacter spp.(Enterbacter sakazakii) in a Powdered Milk Protein Manufacturing Facility," by N. Mullane et al (Appl Environ Microbiol. 2008 October; 74(19): 5913-5917.
"Air is a potential source of hazardous microoorganismsand one conclusion they draw, "Appropriate air filter maintenance along with surveillance for Cronobacter spp. would contribute to reducing the dissemination of these pathogens in the food chain."

Little Miss Muffet rewrites history while sitting on her tuffet, eating her gmo curds and whey

2012-01-15T08:58:00.001-05:00

Remember Little Miss Muffet who sat on her tuffet (eating her curds and whey)? As a child, I wondered what was she sitting on? What's a tuffet? I thought it was another word for butt but just today I learned that tuffet is a low stool. Yep, I am still learning new things at 60. Was I a dumb little kid? Or did I just not care because curds and whey wasn't a food I knew? Sounded pretty awful to me. And when I learned it was cow's milk...well that really grossed me out. Of course, you have to understand I have an aversion to cow's milk (I now know it is an food allergy, among the many I am collecting). My mom switched me to orange juice when I was a baby because I seemed to have a problem with evaporated milk and karo syrup. Never got mommy's milk. Mom said she didn't breastfeed me cause it didn't work for my older brother. Wonder if I would be different, if I was a breastfed baby?   How did I survive? Great genes? Maybe I had the gene for orange juice? Maybe my body knew I would eventually live in Florida? Maybe it's the reason I moved to Florida? The mysteries of life will never be unraveled. A person's history is so easily rewritten by forgetfulness, wishful thinking, and sometimes outright lies. So much like how countries rewrite history to suit the current politics. Or how the biotech/food industries are rewriting their history.

Shall we talk about how food industry/biotechnology rewrites history? Only someone my age who has been looking at this information since the 1990's can see the rewriting of history regarding our food technology. I have been trying for the past 2 weeks to find an article I saw some years ago which gave a history of genetic engineering. In that article I distinctly remember them stating that 1985 was the year that genetic engineering of enzymes went commercial. Do you think I can find that article now? Nope. Is my memory fading fast as I age? Maybe, but I have a pretty good memory for odd bits of information. Of course I cannot remember my kid's birthdays and one of my children reminds me of that fact from time to time. Red with embarrassment for being such a terrible mother, I sometimes remind her that I breastfed her. I am hoping that will compensate for my memory loss of birthdays.

So one can wonder whether or not I really saw that little fact about enzymes being genetically engineered commercially in 1985 or is history being rewritten? What I am finding now across the internet is the information that the FDA approved the first enzyme that was genetically engineered in 1990. That enzyme was chymosin (rennet) used in the production of cheese, manufactured by Pfizer. Yes, I see ears perking up. Pfizer is not only a drug company, but also in the past few years bought out the infant formula division of Wyeth. Later on I found information that Chr. Hansen marketed the enzyme for Pfizer in 1989.
http://www.ehow.com/about_6555224_history-chy_max.html

Chr. Hansen is a global supplier of cultures and dairy enzymes, probiotics and natural colors. They describe their ingredients as "natural." Yet they did market chymosin genetically engineered for Pfizer and still seem to be developing and marketing this genetically engineered enzyme. Their website shows a video of a baby being bottlefed with formula that has probiotics.
http://www.chr-hansen.com/about-us.html

The Pfizer patent on the genetic engineering of calf rennin was filed in 1984, published in 1990. It was entitled, "Expression plasmids for improved production of heterologous protein in bacteria," patent number 4935370, inventor Arthur E. Franke, owned by Pfizer. The bacteria they were using was e.coli. In the US, it is near impossible to obtain a cheese made with the real enzyme (comes from a calf's stomach). Our food coop tried some years back to obtain cheese that was not processed using the genetically engineered enzyme. We could only find cheeses from Europe that were so costly (importing adding to the cost) that we gave up.

One of the things I have learned from looking at patents and their filing dates and publication dates that once a big company files a patent it usually becomes a product in the market place. So I would suggest to readers that the filing date of Pfizer suggests that this became commercial in all probability in late 1984 (October) or 1985. Can a food product go into the market place before FDA approval? It looks that way to me. So 1990 is the date when the FDA approved the first genetically engineered food product for humans.
("Gene-altered Item Approved by F.D.A.," by Martin Tochin, The New York Times, March 25, 1990)

"When genetic engineering was developed in 1973, it was recognized as a more efficient method of replacing an array of industrial processes, from plant breeding to animal husbandry to the development of new pharmaceutical products and bulk foods."

Why am I fixated on dates? Most websites, even those opposed to genetically engineered foods, state that genetically engineered foods entered the marketplace in 1995 with the genetic modification of soybeans, corn. etc (food crops). Yet the real truth is that at least 5 years previously (if you believe that 1990 is the date, I believe 1985 is the true date), genetically engineered foods entered in to marketplace in the form of a new enzyme. This enzyme was manufactured with the pathogen e.coli. Genetic engineers originally used e.coli because at that time it was known as a benign pathogen, not harmful. Strange how that has changed over the years and now we know of people who die from a vicious form of e.coli. I find it stranger that many people do not connect the new virulence of pathogens (antibiotic resistant--genetic engineering uses antibiotic resistant genes) to our new technology. We just believe that it is a natural mutation.

It seems to me that if the public is kept in the dark about when genetic engineering happened, then it is easy to dismiss the issues of antibiotic resistance, more virulent pathogens as just normal mutations. It's easy to fool the people, when you change history. It's just minor variations of the truth, right? Or is it? Take for instance the argument I got into with a food safety expert (employed by industry and government) regarding Enterobacter sakazakii. She states categorically that J.J. Farmer did not discover Enterobacter sakazakii, he just renamed it. Yet a paper written in the International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology of July 1980 is entitled, "Enterobacter sakazakii: a New Species of 'Enterobacteriaceae' Isolated from Clinical Specimens." In this article from 1980, Farmer et al. state, "The proposed change in the classification of this organism is based on differences between E. cloacae and E. sakazakii in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)-DNA hybridization, biochemical reactions, pigment production, and antibiotic susceptibility." This is renaming a species, not discovery? Why would someone in industry refuse to accept that a new pathogenic species has emerged? Was it natural mutation or have our food technologists created this nightmare in their labs? By rewriting the history of E. sakazakii (we are being lead to believe that this organism existed in 1959), who benefits? And who do you believe?

So how important is the genetic engineering of some little enzyme, called chymosin? Well, chymosin is used in the production of cheese. One of the by-products of cheese production is whey. Whey goes into infant formula. In fact one of Nestle's selling points regarding its infant formula is that is 100% whey protein, other companies use less. Whey is suppose to be easy for babies to digest.

"Enzymes used in the processing of foods do not have to be listed on product labels because they are not considered foods." from Genetically Engineered Enzymes see
http://www.safe-food.org/-consumer/enzymes.html

"Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey, along came a spider and sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away." Is there a moral to our childhood story? Beware of hungry spiders? Let me see, I think I will rewrite that story...the genetically engineered spider, glowing in the dark saw Ms. Muffet because he had eaten his DHA for dinner last night....Ms. Muffet couldn't see the glowing spider....because she didn't eat last night....
Yeah, humor me....
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain

Powdered Infant Formula (PIF), intrinsic contamination?

2012-01-08T08:59:00.002-05:00

~photo by Mariah McClain~

I found myself browsing the internet, cruising around various papers to think about our standard belief that the only risk of powdered infant formula in developed countries is the risk of unsafe water in reconstituting the powder and/or unsafe hygiene practices in preparation of the formula. We cannot fathom that the product itself might be unsafe, that we might have cases of intrinsic contamination. We have such faith in our industry, in food manufacturing that we can only believe that the caregivers or hospital environment must be at fault, if a baby sickens from enterobacter sakazakii or salmonella. Certainly, that is a real possibility. Parents may fix formula by methods that put their infant at risk for pathogens that sicken or kill their infants. Hospital environments are known for their mix of virulent pathogens. Yet, no one seems to get their heads around the idea that a food product itself could be the vehicle of pathogens.

Salmonella? I didn't realize until I read a paper called, "Powderd Infant Formula as a Source of Salmonella Infection in Infants," by Sarah M. Cahill et al in Clinical Infectious Diseases medical journal 2008 that salmonella is another serious pathogen found in powdered infant formulas.
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/46/2/268.full

There seems to be the same problems regarding this pathogen as enterobacter sakazakii. The low levels of the pathogen make it difficult to detect in powdered infant formula. Vulnerable infants are the most likely to sicken and die. Both pathogens in outbreaks have low levels in the product samples making it difficult to detect. This contamination is sporadic and it is believed that there is an under-reporting of these infections.

The journal article on salmonella in PIF makes the following statement, "In the United States, the incidence of salmonellosis (from all sources) among infants (121.6 laboratory-confirmed infections per 100,000 infants) was ~8 times greater than the incidence among other age groups." and

"In terms of public health, it is worth noting that other pathogenic bacteria also contaminate PIF and may cause disease through consumption of PIF (table1)." and,

"A review of peer-reviewed literature revealed several large recent outbreaks of Salmonella infection among infants that were attributable to contaminated PIF, resulting in diarrhea and, in some infants, bacteremia and meningitis. Such outbreaks occurred even when the consumed PIF appeared to be in compliance with current international standards."

In Kokuritsu Iyakuhin Shokuhin Eisei Kenkyusho Hokoku. 2006;9124):74-9. authors H. Toyofuku et al.

"Experts from two FAO/WHO Expert Consultations, held in 2004 and 2006, concluded that intrinsic contamination of PIF with Enterobacter sakazakii and Salmonella has been a cause of infection and illness in infants, including severe disease which can lead to serious developmental sequelae and death."

In an article in Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal in 2007 entitled, "Two consecutive large outbreaks of Salmonella enterica serotype Agona infections in infants linked to the consumption of powdered infant formula," with authors C. Brouard et al,

"Powdered infant formulas are not sterile products and may contain low levels of Salmonella. Routine microbiologic controls are insufficient to detect a low-grade contamination, which may cause serious illness and outbreaks among infants."

One would suppose that some people might question their whole-hearted faith that the risks of infant formula are for those infants who reside in developing nations. How easy it is to blame a parent for mixing the formula wrong. I once read that even the well-educated (college degrees) measure powdered infant formula wrong, sometimes over scooping the powder and sometimes under scooping it. The consequences can impact an infant's health and well-being.

I think the main tragic thought that I mull over in these early hours of the morning is the statement in the paper from Clinical Infectious Diseases
under Risk Management, "Although the World Health Organization recommends that infants should be exclusively breast-fed for the first 6 months of life to achieve optimal growth, development, and health, there is recognition that this is not always feasible..."

I believe it could be feasible. I have this hope, this faith that we can turn this around. Society must make a 360 degree turn and decide to create birth environments that support breastfeeding. Birth environments that empower women who are the ones giving birth. Birth environments that respect the infant and its needs for skin-to-skin contact. Birth environments that give mothers and babies and their families privacy. Greater access for all women to midwifery care and breastfeeding assistance. Mothers need to feel supported and comfortable nursing in public. And society needs to give mother and babies more time together (financial support in the early days so that our future, our children have more human contact with people who are emotionally connected to them). May this New Year bring more thought and action into supporting mothers and babies.
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain

Testing, testing, testing for Cronobacter sakazakii in powdered infant milks

2012-01-04T09:14:00.005-05:00

According to an article written by Punendu C. Vasavada, Ph.D., written in August of 2005, "A mere two years ago, the food industry did not have a method to test for E. sakazakii..." [what we now have renamed Cronobacter sakazakii courtesy of researchers employed by the University of Zurich, Switzerland, Nestle Research Center, and University College of Dublin, Ireland]
Dr. Vasavada writes about the difficulty of determining how E. sakazakii gets into infant formula. He mentions how it has been isolated in very low concentrations, "and even at these low levels, exposed at-risk infants have suffered serious injury and death." In this article, he describes 3 methods of isolating and enumerating E. sakzakii from powdered infant formula: the European Method, Canadian Method and the FDA Method. These methods are all slightly different. Then he discusses newer methods using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) for rapid screening of infant formula samples. He states, "In collaboration with Nestle Research Centers in Switzerland and the U.S., Dupont Qualicon developed and introduced in 2003 a PCR-based assay for rapid detection of E. sakazakii in infant formula, dry dairy and soy ingredients samples."
http://www.foodsafetymagazine.com/article.asp?id=434&sub=sub1

So we have gone from no methods to test for this organism in powdered infant formula prior to the year 2003 to the development of rapid screening methods using PCR. Some of the same researchers (employed by Nestle) who renamed E. sakazakii to Cronobacter also wrote another paper called, "Development of a Novel Screening Method for the Isolation of "Cronobacter' spp. (Enterobacter sakazakii)," published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology in February of 2008 with one of the authors affiliated with Oxoid Ltd. (a company that sells rapid test kits for the food industry, government, for such pathogens as Cronobacter sakazakii).

Oxoid Ltd. developed a PCR assay for the DuPont Qualicon BAX system. Dupont Qualicon "collaborated with the Nestle Research Centers in Switzerland and the United States to develop a PCR-based assay for rapid detection of Enterobacter sakazakii in food and environmental samples."
http://www.rapidmicrobiology.com/news/603h55.php

Oxoid Ltd is one of the many partners to the CDC Foundation. Some of the many partners are Abbott Laboratories (Ross infant formulas), Bristol Myers Squibb Company (Mead Johnson formulas), Pfizer (which bought out Wyeth's infant formula division), Target (which sells its own brand formula), The Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation, many other drug and food companies like Cargill, Coca-Cola, GlazoSmithKline, Gilead. OraSure (hiv testing), Eli Lilly, Genentech, Merck). These partners work with the CDC Foundation's projects.
http://cdcfoundation.org/what/partners#category-299

As someone looking at this situation from a perspective of research funding and influences, I am rather concerned. You have a huge food corporation, Nestle, funding the research for testing of powdered infant formula and other powdered milk products. Or should I say you have researchers who are paid by Nestle to create testing kits for Enterobacter sakazakii, renamed to Cronobacter (renaming based on research done by some Nestle researchers). While I understand a food company's interest in the development of testing kits for food pathogens, I feel concerned about how in 2011 we cannot find this renamed organism in powdered infant formula. Yet, babies are still dying and being maimed by this organism. So should we believe that the infant formula industry has fixed the problem of contamination by this organism in powdered infant formula? And should we now believe that that the problem is in the environment, somewhere in the environment, either the parent improperly fixing the product or the hospital personnel improperly fixing the product? Legally for the infant formula industry, not finding this pathogen in powdered infant formula this year is financially beneficial. No lawsuits because they can prove by tests (that industry created) that the organism no longer resides in powdered infant formula. It leaves this situation in a terrifying muddle because parents cannot know exactly how to protect their infant, other than breastfeeding. And we know from the various infant formula blogging mommies that that isn't going to happen anytime soon. I would feel more comfortable about this situation, if the tests that were developed had no one from the food industry involved. And I would feel more comfortable about this situation if the CDC was not getting its "projects" funded by the CDC Foundation that partners with most of the infant formula, food, and drug industry. Why aren't we more concerned about the kind of influence and funding going on that impacts our health care system. Testing kits are becoming the bread and butter of our medical care, and yet their accuracy seems to go unquestioned. We use genetic engineering techniques for these tests based on the belief in the infallibility of the science. Yet from my perspective, it is akin to believing in the infallibility of the Catholic Pope. Medical science has become a faith-based system and all doubters are excommunicated.
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain

Emerging pathogen, enterobacter sakazakii in powdered infant formula

2012-01-01T09:58:00.002-05:00

A Reuter's article dated December 30, 2011 states: "U.S. health officials said they found no trace of potentially deadly bacteria that killed two infants in recent weeks in sealed cans of Enfamil baby formula, and a recall was unnecessary, providing relief for the product's manufacturer, Mead Johnson Nutrition Co." Providing relief... we seem to be only concerned about the relief for the infant formula company.

Later the article states, "Mead Johnson's name may be cleared, but the company will likely take some time to fully heal..." Fully heal from the falling of their stock shares by 10%.

Then the even sadder news for Mead Johnson, "negative publicity has already damaged Enfamil's brand equity and could have cost the company one cycle of new parents." One whole cycle of new parents. I think we are a sick society,when our public concern is for an industry that loses its market shares over parents whose infants have died or been maimed by a product. A product that is considered a safe "choice" in our developed countries. Mead Johnson has become a person in the heart and minds of this PR campaign to protect an industry. As a corporation in the USA, it is a person. It must heal, it must be offered relief. What about the parents of those dead and maimed infants? Will they get relief? Will they fully heal from their grief?

This article adds a little surprise. "The death of a second baby, in Florida, was not known until an update from the US Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late on Friday following the testing of samples taken from the infected babies' homes and company facilities." What about the other baby girl, 25-day old Ivyionna Marie Pinnix of Grant City, Missouri who died? What is the explanation for her death? She is not mentioned in most articles I have read. And the Florida death, I live in Florida and I never heard about this.   Weird, its like there is a campaign of minimization of this tragedy. Who does this protect? Parents who might get upset that powdered infant formula is not necessarily a safe "choice." Or are we protecting industry from lost profits?

I found an interesting article dated April 20, 2011 from the Ottawa Public Health, an alert on Cronobacter Sakazakii. "Two infant cases of Cronobacter sakazakii meningitis were recently reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with onset dates March 25, 2011 and March 26, 2011. These cases originate from Michigan and Ohio. Typically, the CDC is aware of four cases annually." Well, 2011, is beating this average, because just by my count this brings it to 6 cases (not including the infant from Grant City), two deaths and 4 infants hospitalized. Infants who survive meningitis from enterbacter sakazakii often are brain damaged with long term health issues.

Today I found an article in Antara News (Jakarta, Indonesia) dated July 8, 2011 entitled, "All milk brands in RI found sakazakii-free."

"Six months after mothers made a public fuss about formula milk tainted by Enterobacter Sakazakii, the Health Ministry has once again announced that all milk brands in circulation were free from the dangerous bacteria." This article states how rare this pathogen is and that tests conducted in 2003 and 2006 found 20% percent of the samples were contaminated by Sakazakii bacteria..."the brands of the tainted milk have never been made public." I am impressed that mothers made a public fuss in Indonesia. Interesting that this organism cannot be found in powdered infant formula in 2011. Yet it was found in 20% of the samples back in 2003 and 2006. It's a miracle this organism that supposedly is everywhere in the environment can't be found in powdered infant formula anymore. I guess they have figured out a way to sterilize the powder (although that is not possible). So what's up with this? Maybe its the range of difficulty of testing this organism in samples. Maybe its the samples they get? Maybe its reclassifying the organism--strange how industry itself (Nestle) can set the guidelines for classifying a pathogen implicated in the contamination of their product. Rather interesting conundrum, the experts state that it is everywhere in the environment. Yet it is no longer residing in powdered infant formula. Can't be found. So we are left in confusion other than telling parents that make the choice to use infant formula, that they should probably use either liquid or ready-to-feed formula for their newborns (much more expensive) or be more careful about boiling water when using the powder (and making up formula one feeding at a time, since long holding times are risky). An article in a medical journal, Surgical Infections dated October 2008 entitled, "Enterobacter sakazakii: An Emerging Pathogen in Infants and Neonates," by Catherin J. Hunter et al. comes to an interesting conclusion, "We recommend a focus on simple preventative strategies such as the promotion of breast milk feeding, inclusion of warnings on powdered infant formula packages that they may be contaminated with ES [Enterobacter Sakazakii], and abstinence from the practice of re-warming of reconstituted formula."   Hm...that's a problem. Promoting "breast milk feeding?" How about promoting breastfeeding? This organism that is in the environment, probably adheres to equipment used in feeding infants. It would seem far better to promote breastfeeding (even with premature infants).   I am quite sure that no formula company will allow a label that states it's powdered formula may be contaminated with a pathogen.

I continue to read news articles that state that the risks of enterobacter sakazakii in powdered infant formula are small. Yet are we looking at the tip of the iceberg? We continue in the USA to promote "choice" because of a good PR system that makes the public believe that it is a balanced even choice between baby formula and breastfeeding. But when you are the parent of a baby that died from powdered infant formula or was brain damaged or has life-long disabilities, your perceived risk was not small, it was 100%. The parent lives with it for a life time. And while a industry will whine about lost profits and brand equity, a parent will have a life-time of sorrow, regret, and unanswered questions.
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain

**12 known cases in the USA of enterobacter sakazakii in 2011
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/12/cronobacter-fda-and-cdc-find-no-connection-to-formula/

Reclassifying enterobacter sakazakii to Cronobacter and other oddities...

2011-12-30T04:59:00.001-05:00

Enterobacter sakazakii was reclassified in 2007 and now we call it Cronobacter spp. This was proposed in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology in a paper entitled, "Identification of 'Cronobacter spp.(Enterobacter sakazakii)," authored by Carol Iversen et al. Carol Iversen is on the Faculty of the Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene-Zurich Switzerland and also in the Quality and Safety Department of Nestle Research Centre. The other authors are either from Nestle or the same Institute for Food Safety as Iversen. Two of the authors are from the Centre for Food Safety at the University College Dublin (Veterinary Sciences Centre). So I am intrigued. Why this reclassification? Is it logical? Don't know, I am not a microbiologist. But this reclassification seems to mean that enterbacter sakazakii, as a new member of Cronobacter, becomes a part of a much larger group of similar pathogens that infect mostly adults and that date back to the 1950's. So instead of viewing enterobacter sakazakii as a new emerging pathogen from the 1980's, we now have food safety experts stating that enterobacter sakazakii has been around since 1950's. I find that interesting from my perspective because of my belief that genetic engineering is causing a shift in pathogens, creating new, more virulent pathogens. Do I have the expertise to say this? No, hell no. But I am a curious person and have been a believer in organics (from growing organically to buying organic foods). I have been this way since the early 1970's. Back then I was more concerned about pesticides (having read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 7th grade and wrote a paper on it for science class). So in no way do I claim to be an expert on microbiology but I believe that ordinary citizens have the right to question the "experts." Those "experts" should feel some obligation to respond with references and not with wild accusations regarding conspiracy theories. It is interesting that debate in the USA is all about accusing others of conspiracy theories.

It seems that Phyllis Entis of the website of eFoodAlert believes I am a conspiracy theorist and that I am "mucking" up her comment section. Ms Entis has worked for industry as well as government on food safety issues. I am somewhat amazed by her responses to comments. She writes, "This trio of C. sakazakii infections in infants is presently only of interest to the parents of those infants, epidemiologists and press outlets that are quite aware the combination of food-borne illness, babies and death makes for good stories." I am curious as to why she thinks that parents, grandparents, everyday citizens would not be interested in this situation because it is a safety issue that involves our children. She states this is about the "trifecta of sensationalistic journalism."

I do love her comments to me, such as, "I am not wasting my whole morning finding you a citation from the 16th century, but C. sakazakii infections predate genetic modification process in which the endpoint is a product used in commercial foods." Funny, I wasn't asking for a citation from the 16th century. But interesting that now that we call enterobacter sakazakii, Cronobacter, we can state that this pathogen predates genetic modification. Bingo. Now we can say to the general public that of course, enterobacter sakazakii has nothing to do with genetic modification. And very interesting that the proposal for reclassification comes from some scientists who work for Nestle. Oh yeah this confirms that I am a conspiracy theorist, since no corporation or its scientists would just reclassify an organism so that the general public will believe that the organism is everywhere in the environment and been around since the 1950's.   But you know it sure lets the infant formula industry off the hook.

Well, this is for the food safety experts. Let's talk about how a Japanese company makes amino acids. Choose a pathogen, genetically engineer it, and ferment and presto chango, L glutamic acid. Guess which one of many pathogen's this food company has listed as possible maker of L-glutamic acid? Among the many pathogens listed on their patent, we have enterobacter sakazakii (of course there are many variations of this organism, some benign and some not so tame).   Name that US patent. "L-glutamic acid producing bacterium and process for producing L-glutamic acid" filed in 1999 owned by Ajinomoto Co., Inc. Patent #7247459. From the abstract, "L-glutamic acid is produced by culturing in a medium a microorganism belonging to enterobacteria and having L-glutamic productivity, into which a citrate synthase gene derived from a coryneform bacterium is introduced..." By the way, I do believe Ajinomoto Co. does supply amino acids to the infant formula industry. Is it safe? Ask your government and food safety experts....genetic engineering...never heard of it. I'll drink to that and I am not talking about having a cup of coffee.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

**12 Known cases of enterobacter sakazakii in the US for the year 2011
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/12/cronobacter-fda-and-cdc-find-no-connection-to-formula/

Questioning Enterobacter sakazakii (Cronobacter spp.)

2011-12-25T08:04:00.002-05:00

In the developed country, the USA, two babies have died and one baby is recovering from what is believed to be an infection from an organism called enterobacter sakazakii reclassified recently as Cronobacter sakazakii. It is suspected that the infection was caused by contamination in powdered infant formula. As a precaution, various retailers have removed a particular brand of powdered infant formula (a Mead Johnson product-Enfamil Newborn Infant Formula the 12.5-oz cans, Lot #ZP1K7G) from their store shelves. The product has not been recalled.
http://efoodalert.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/missouri-baby-dead-is-infant-formula-to-blame

The FDA in a letter written in April of 2002 to health professionals on Enterobacter sakazakii infections associated with the use of powdered infant formulas in neonatal intensive care units states, "The majority of cases of E. sakazakii infection reported in the peer-reviewed literature have described neonates with sepsis, meningitis, or necrotizing enterocolitis as a consequence of the infection, and the case fatality rate among infected neonates has been reported to be as high as 33%." (Other health authorities, such as the WHO give the fatality rate from 40-80%)

John Brooks,a microbiologist who specializes in food microbiology has stated at Food Safety News, "Cronobacter sakazakii is an environmental contaminant, which mostly affects only a small subset of the population, such as premature babies and infants under 1 year of age....Though it is ubiquitous in nature, only powdered infant formula and preparation equipment have been linked to C. sakazakii outbreaks among infants."

Sad and frightening news for many parents. I am deeply sad for the parents and deeply disturbed by some of the "comments" that fly around the internet creating more anguish and heartbreak for the parents of these infants. Our society has its illusions about almost everything, particularly regarding the food technology behind infant formula. It is not parents who created that illusion. It is an industry that makes billions. Blaming the victims is always easy but never the answer. The questions that need answering are why aren't we educating parents more thoroughly on the risks of infant formula feeding. Why isn't the medical community more aware of those risks? Fear? Fear of a billion dollar industry that has its tentacles in the medical, research, and educational communities? When industries make billions, there is an easy way to shut people up: pay them, employ them, gift them. It would all be fine, if this industry was really about "choice." But the industry's idea of choice is the loaded dice at a crap table.

I do have some questions about this bacteria. Why does Dow Chemical have a patent on this organism? Patent #4806636 called, Heteropolysaccharide produced by Enterobacter sakazakii filed in March of 1985. The abstract states, "The heteropolysaccharide has many uses as a suspending, thickening, or stabillizing agent, and is particularly useful as a frictional drag reduction agent in aqueous systems."

"Since it is a polysaccharide, preferred applications are where human contact or ingestion of the tea polysaccharide is possible. In addition to applications already mentioned, other uses include frictional drag reduction for irrigation or drinking water, spray drift control for herbicides and pesticides for food crops, spray drift control for forest fire fighting fluids, and the like."

Dow filed this in 1985. Enterobacter sakazakii was discovered in 1980 as a separate species. Did this patent become a product? The bacterial culture is fermented, genetic engineering is suggested. Is this a stable organism? Obviously from various reports this organism is prevalent in our environment. How did that happen? What has changed in our environment? How many consumers know that pathogens are genetically engineered to be used in products, some of those products are in foods that we ingest? Aren't infants more vulnerable?

I read with interest an article from Scientific American called, "Turning Bacteria into Plastic Factories." (September 2008) "A new company has found a way to produce polymers from genetically engineered microbes that feed on sugars, replacing fossil-fuel based processes." The company is working with E. coli.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=turning-bacteria-into-plastic-factories-replacing-fossil-fuels

Industry is playing with pathogens, rearranging genetic structures. How does one dispose of these new products? Throw them in the river, give them to the local dump? Even if the products never go to market, what do you do with the mistakes? Will it be like all our nuclear spent fuel rods that we don't know what to do with other than dump them into a hole in the ground? Or is it worse than this because there seems to absolutely no regulation?

There is a number of scientists who are very concerned about genetic engineering. The concern is that genetic engineering will create deadly superviruses. Their is the threat of antibiotic resistance. Genetic engineering uses antibiotic resistance markers that can readily transfer into our foods. There is the fear that it is genetic engineering that is causing a resurgence of infectious disease. Genetic engineering is causing more and more food allergies. What are the risks of genetic engineering for infants fed infant formulas that are derived from this dna technology? Here is an article on the higher risks for children.
http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers/higher-risks-for-children

I believe parents have to start questioning what is in that can of infant formula? How much is genetically engineered? What pathogens are they using to gmo this particular component? How many of these items use antibiotic resistance markers? Where are the long-term studies on the safety of this kind of food for infants, particularly the premature infant?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Choice: genetically engineered infant formula vs. breastfeeding

2011-12-18T06:04:00.002-05:00

Insanity rains on our people, like a radioactive isotope drifting from one country to another country. I am mesmerized by the propaganda that flies from website to website, from one facebook page to another. The belief that breastfeeding advocacy must promote "choice." The belief that somehow men can create a safe artificial milk for babies. If we just mix it correctly, have clean water, then feeding a milk from another species will be safe. Forget our immune system, our biology, that mammal milks are species specific, let's join the chorus of choice.

How happy this makes the infant formula industry because no one will question the basic problem of feeding artificial milks to the human baby in our technological age of genetic engineering. It's an experiment, the consequences are unknown. Babies are being fed a formula that contains a variety of substances that are genetically engineered. Safety has not been properly evaluated for one substance. No one knows the safety of mixing a variety of genetically engineered substances.

For instance DHA and ARA that has been a required substance in baby formulas for a decade. Eleven years ago I wrote in Lactnet about the fact that the Martek Bioscience (the manufacturer of these oils from algae and fungi)patents showed that in all probability these substances were genetically engineered. Martek denied that they were gmo products and threatened me by email to cease and desist calling them gmo. There was no way I could prove that they were gmo but certainly their patents from the early 1990's showed that the company was investing in this technology.
My post to Lactnet regarding Martek oils (many posts on this issue to Lactnet but shows that we could suspect that these oils might be gmo or would be in the future).
http://community.lsoft.com/SCRIPTS/WA-LSOFTDONATIONS.EXE?A2=ind0007A&L=LACTNET&P=R11594&1=LACTNET&9=A&I=-3&J=on&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4

I started calling the oils novel--because it means new but also can mean genetically engineered. Recently I read an article by naturalnews.com that "DHA used in infant formula products comes from genetically modified algae." So was Martek admitting that the algae was gmo? No, their statement was that they mix their algae with gmo corn oil. Interesting. What does that mean for our babies? We really didn't give you gmo algae, it was just mixed with gmo corn. So technically you got the real thing....of course the real DHA and ARA is a component of human milk. And since infant feeding is about choice, parents are making the choice for the gmo substance. Who cares that this substance has never been ingested by babies before because we have our technology gods who can engineer our food by mixing genes from one species with another. Yeah, who cares about species specific. We are going to be one world, one huge mixture of organisms. We know that there won't be any ramifications because we just know our science is perfect. Of course, that is sarcasm. It's like our belief in the 50's that men and women can watch an atomic explosion from a safe distance and it won't harm them, just great fireworks. It's like our current belief that the Japanese nuclear reactor disaster will only have health effects to the people near those reactors. Wind drift, ocean currents have no meaning to people who believe that humanity can deal with minute doses of radiation. Yeah, plutonium, you can bath in it...it's perfectly safe. The PR industry in full swing. Funny how some of those PR people for the nuclear industry are the same people promoting breastmilk feeding. PR people have no loyalities, just a need for steady employment.

Yes, off the beaten track. So the world believes that only Martek is genetically engineering its algae...funny how no one asks about the fungi/ARA? The organic movement thinks they can find a natural DHA and ARA, like you can find a natural source of vitamin D3 that isn't a gmo product. [flaxseed is being genetically engineered] I laugh because laughing is far better than crying about this mixed-up reality show called life. Martek is not the only one playing with genes to make DHA/ARA. There are at least 3 other companies playing this game.

Patent #8049064 called, "Method for producing polyunsaturated C. sub.20- and C.sub.22-fatty acids with at least four double bonds in transgenic plants," owned by BASF Plant Science GmbH [vitamin/supplement company] filed in 2006

Patent #8067674 called, "Desaturase genes, enzymes encoded therby, and uses thereof," owned by Abbott Labs [drug and infant formula company] filed in 2009..abstract says, "Disclosed are isolated polynucleotides encoding an omega-3 desaturase and a delta-12 desaturase, the enzymes encoded by the isolated polynucleotides, vectors containing the isolated polynucleotides, transgenic hosts that contain the isolated polynucleotides that express the enzymes encoded thereby..."

Patent #8013215 called, "Production of arachidonic acid in oilseed plants," owned by E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company filed in 2008...abstract says, "Oilseed plants which have been transformed to produce arachidonic acid, recombinant constructs used in such transformations...."

Processed foods contain gmo products. Infant formula is processed food. But the problem with processed food for infants is that we will not know the ramifications until these babies grow up, if they grow up. Recently we learned that a Japanese formula has been contaminated with cesium from the nuclear reactor disaster. A recall was issued. But what about wind currents drifting to the USA or other countries? Are we monitoring infant formula here? Or are we believing that what we can't see won't hurt us? How does a mix of gmo products with radioactive elements effect the health of infants?

Breastfeeding, particularly exclusively, builds an active working immune system. Infant formula cannot do this despite the enormous creativity of the industry. What babies will be the most at risk as we degrade the environment? Will we monitor how babies are feed in correlation to infant morbidity and mortality rates? Or will we continue to use PR to promote choice? Is being politically correct more important than understanding the intrinsic risk of feeding genetically engineered, radioactive contaminated milks to infants?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Society's denial of the evidence regarding infant feeding

2011-12-03T08:22:00.000-05:00

I remember smoking my first cigarette in Church camp in 1967. I remember how horrible it tasted but how really cool and hip I felt taking a drag off of a Marlboro cigarette. I was 16 years old and I felt like this was my initiation rite into adulthood. Marlboro was my cigarette. I felt liberated. I smoked those cigarettes until 1981, some 14 years. It became a habit that was hard to break. I smoked more when I had bronchitis and I had bronchitis alot. Towards the end of my smoking years, I saw people I knew die of lung cancer (people who smoked for years and smoked while getting cancer treatments). I knew the "rumor" about the connection between smoking and lung cancer but somehow it didn't stop me from smoking. I suppose we all think we are invincible. I did want to quit but it never seemed to work. Just before I quit, I had been sick and went to the doctor. It was once again bronchitis. The doc listened to my lungs, prescribed something for it. But then he did the unspeakable, he spent 10 minutes telling me that I needed to quit smoking. It was a long 10 minutes and I was mad. Mad at him for saying what no one else would say to me. I remember thinking, how dare he tell me what to do and not do. It was my body and my Marlboro Country. I was mad about it for weeks. I kept thinking, "I'll never go back to that quack!" Yet, deep down I was disturbed. And I really started thinking about quitting. I finally quit. It was a month of hell and I feel sorry for those who were around me when I quit. I look back now and realize the influences that got me started smoking. My parents smoked, so it seemed normal. It seemed like grown-up behavior. My first cigarette was free and it was the brand I stuck with for 14 years. The feelings of liberation probably came from the ads I saw on TV. Of course, it wasn't true liberation. I was a slave to my cigarette fix. It cost me a ton of money in terms of buying the product and being sick. I haven't had bronchitis since I quit smoking some 30 years ago (touch wood...don't want to jinx myself). I have a debt of gratitude for that doctor who was willing to say what so few people were willing to say back then. He was direct with me and while I did not immediately quit smoking it got me thinking. Now we know that cigarette smoking causes even more health effects. It impacts the cardio-vascular system. It causes a rare kidney cancer (my stepmom got this and had to have dialysis, she smoked for some 40 years or more). We know alot more now and accept that smoking is not healthy.

So what has this got to do with infant feeding? Like our understanding of the health effects of smoking tobacco, our society is at that stage of denial regarding infant formula. We disbelieve the evidence because we cannot believe a common practice like infant formula feeding can be detrimental. We should see it, but we don't see it. And when we see the destruction, we believe it won't happen to us. After my experience, I realize that advocacy does not necessarily bring friends, nor is that the purpose of advocacy. There will be anger and denial. This is what we are witnessing right now. I call it the river of denial. There was a river of denial regarding smoking which was aided and abetted by the tobacco industry. The same river runs through the infant feeding debate only it is the infant formula industry who is aiding this river of doubt.

Mothers believe that there is a balanced choice between breastfeeding and infant formula. They believe that the only risk might be contaminated water, if you live in Africa. When I first became a La Leche League leader in the 80's, I had obtained two booklets with scientific references to breastfeeding. I believe they were edited by AS Cunningham. Page after page of studies showing the protective properties of breastfeeding and the risks of infant formula. For instance, a study done by AS Cunningham called "Morbidity in breast-fed and artificially fed infants." J Pediatr 1979 Nov;95(5 Pt 1):685-9. I quote from the abstract, "The protection afforded by breast-feeding is greatest during the early months, increases with the duration of breast-feeding, and appears to be more striking for serious illness. It operates independently of the effect of associated factors such as socioeducational status, family size, day-care exposure, and birth weight." There were many similar studies and I remember thinking this is a powerful body of evidence. Yet here it is almost 2012 and we still have this enormous denial of evidence from bloggers like fearless formula feeder. Actually, we still have denial from some breastfeeding advocates. There is this belief that if one teaches mothers in developed nations how to correctly use infant formula, then there is no risk of feeding formula to infants. It is a belief that having clean water, correct measurements, eliminates the risk of infant formula. Yet, there is a large body of research starting from the seventies that shows that there is intrinsic risks to using infant formula.

I have been mulling over the words, species specific, particularly when it is directed at the milks made by different mammals. Human beings are mammals, although in our culture of admiration of technology over nature, one gets the feeling that we believe that we can overcome this trait. Species specific. I keep saying that to myself. We know that some mammals, cows, must have colostrum to survive. So while the calf of a dairy cow is taken away from its mother, it is given cow colostrum. It won't survive without it. That knowledge was learned the hard way, by the deaths of calves deprived of their mother's milk. Luckily for us, humans, our survival is not totally dependent on human colostrum. Although I would argue that the health and well-being (short-term and long-term) of human infants is impacted by depriving them of colostrum.

It is of interest that gene studies on the mammary gland of various species believe that the milk of each species is tailored to the specific immune system of that animal. I read somewhere that each species has antibodies that are species specific. In an article called "Mammals Got Milk," they say, "A new study looks at the genes that produce milk among seven species of mammals, including us, and finds that all of them share a lot of the same milk making genes but not all species deliver the same milk. In fact, the milk might be tailored to the specific immune system needs of the animal." and

"Overall, the findings of our study support the hypothesis that the biological roots of milk production in mammals are quite ancient and that evolution of milk has been constrained in order to maximize the survival of both mother and offspring..."
http://www.livescience.com/3584-mammals-milk-160-million-years.html

We are now living in times where there is real concern about antibiotic resistance and old infectious diseases are making a come back because our medicine no longer works. We know that breastfeeding builds an immune system. So that in my mind the infant that is formula fed is in essence less able to fend off disease because they are immune deficient. Infants are being deprived of the optimal defense system against disease, breastfeeding. Yet, our society continues to deny the life-saving qualities of breastfeeding, and defends choice. Infant feeding choice is liberation? Yeah, I felt really liberated smoking cigarettes in my youth. How much of what we feel about infant feeding is derived from the infant formula industry's public relation system in full drive? How much of the anger that some infant formula feeding mothers feel against breastfeeding advocates is misplaced? It reminds me of the anger I felt against my doctor for telling me to quit smoking. Denying the evidence, may make everyone feel more comfortable about "choice." But choice comes at a cost in dollars and cents; and more importantly in short term and long term health consequences to both a mother and her baby.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Nano-nano in the bottle: new technology for infant formula

2011-12-01T07:48:00.000-05:00

There is a tomato on my windowsill and I keep staring at it when I do my dishes. I don't have a dishwasher. I am fascinated by how this tomato rotted and I can't bare to throw it out. I live in Florida with no air conditioning; ceiling fans and terrazo floors keep it bearable in the summer. So if food rots on my windowsill, it usually becomes a gooey mess. This tomato rotted from the inside-out, and blackened and then shriveled like a grape turning into a raisin. It never liquified. Why? I have never seen a tomato do this in my household. I was waiting for the tomato to ripen, after buying it at the grocery store. Damn tomatoes from the store, always hard as a rock and looking not yet ripe. The thing never got ripe, it just rotted and shriveled. So I start my paranoid musing. What did they do to this poor little guy? Irradiate him? Or is it a genetically engineered mutant tomato? What the hell is the food industry doing?

My thoughts turn to infant formula and a new patent owned by Nestle. And I wonder how I can get my mind to understand the new technology that the food industry is now using. It's called nanotechology. The FDA says, "Nanotechnology allows scientists to create, explore, and manipulate materials measured in nanometers (billionths of a meter). Such materials can have chemical, physical, and biological properties that differ from those of their larger counterparts."
http://www.fda.gov/ScienceResearch/SpecialTopics/Nanotechnology/default.htm

The Nestle patent is called, "Nanoparticulated whey proteins," patent #8057839 filed in March of 2007 and published this month at the US Patent and Trademark Office. The abstract states, "Specifically, the present invention pertains to the use of these nanoparticulated whey proteins as emulsifiers, fat substitute, micellar casein substitute, whitening, foaming, texturizing and/or filling agents."

The patent is intended for use in infant formula as well as in "pasterized UHT milk, sweet condensed milk, yoghurt, fermented milks, milk-based fermented products, milk chocolate, mousses, foams, emulsions, ice creams, fermented cereal based products, milk based powders, infant formula, diet fortifications, pet food, tablets, liquid bacterial suspensions, dried oral supplement, wet oral supplement."

Why are they doing this? The patent states, "The nanoparticulated whey proteins have shown to be ideally suited for uses as an emulsifiers, fat substitutes, substitutes for micellar casein or foaming agents, since they are able to stabilize fat and/or air in an aqueous system for a prolonged period."

You say, "It's only a patent." "It's not in our food system, and wouldn't be in baby formulas." Hm....that's what you think? It's not on the label. Of course, I am laughing now. Label? Genetically engineered foods went commercial in 1985, starting with enzymes used in various food processes (wines, cheese, breads). There are no labels. Americans are just beginning to realize that their foods are genetically engineered. So nanotechnology, this will take a long time for the public to get their heads around this. And without labels, we all assume that it hasn't happened yet. According to an article at global research, "The Helmut Kaiser Consultancy Group, a pro-nanotechnology analyst, suggests that there are now over 300 nano food products available on the market worldwide." and "It predicts that nanotechnology will be used in 40% of the food industries by 2015." The article also makes an interesting statement relevant to the use of nanotechnology in baby formula.

"Food 'fortification' will be used to increase the nutritional claims that can be made about a given processed food-for example the inclusion of 'medically beneficial' nano-capsules will soon enable chocolate chip cookies or hot chips to be marketed as health promoting or artery cleansing."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10755

Here we are again, improving infant formula and guess who is the guinea pigs? Of course, we have the infant formula PR department/mommy bloggers who believe that infant formula itself is not a risk, its just the polluted water in places like Africa. Yeah, sure, I know, I know most Americans believe that the risk of formula is just in the water. Of course most Americans think that infant formula is a little milk, sugar, salt....genetic engineering? Never heard of it.

Nanotechnology? Never heard of it. And what's a little nanotechnology with a pinch of genetic engineering have to do with it? This is America, land of innovation and invention. Welcome, to my nightmare.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

It is what it ain't

2011-11-25T07:50:00.000-05:00

I still hear that little voice inside my brain, "it is what it is." I am working on negating this slogan of our times. Think about the words. Yeah, I am thinking hard, my brain is burning. In the current state of economic crisis and the blatant corruption at Wall Street; this slogan is hypnotic. The words lull me into a stupor of acceptance. Nothing will change, because it is what it is. How comforting this simple slogan. There is nothing we can do because it is what it is. Over and over again we hear the words. I am not influenced by repetition of stupid thoughts. Or so I think I am not influenced? Repetition is one of many techniques used by propagandists and advertisement industry. They use it because it works. Hitler wrote about it and changed history with it. Advertisers use repetition to sell products. We often think we are too smart to be bamboozled by advertisements. Yet subliminal messages impact our brain in some ways. see Propaganda
http://mason.gmu.edu/~amcdonal/Other%20Techniques.html

I suppose that is why I was fascinated by breastfeeding and infant formula blog sites that use a web design of specific words. It is a propaganda technique; the use of "loaded" words that "arouse a strong emotional response." Does it mean that I believe the sites are connected in some way? No. The only connection is the site owner's understanding of the power of words to create an emotional response.

Words are important. The use of breastfeeding and breast milk as interchangeable words creates a fiction. They are not interchangeable concepts. They are vitally different. While "breastfeeding is free," breast milk is not free. Why? Because in most cases our current culture dictates the use of pump technology to separate the milk from the mammary gland. It requires the use of bottles and bottle nipples (few mothers are willing to use a cup which is far simpler to clean). All this equipment must be bought. Storage of breast milk requires refrigeration/freezers, which means a mother is dependent on some form of energy (be it electric or gas). Which translates to higher electric or gas bills.

I find it fascinating that breastfeeding advocacy organizations are saying that breastfeeding is not free. But the infant formula industry says that breast milk is not free. They know the difference. Why don't we? Woman who donate their breast milk give far more than a product that is life saving. They are giving their time and money invested in equipment to help babies. It is why I feel that mom's who donate to milk banks should get an honest accounting of where their donor milk goes. How much of donor milk goes for research/researchers in the infant formula industry, how much to the NICU? I never could get this question answered by HMBANA.

I see breastfeeding advocacy organizations drifting into policies that don't make sense to me. Baby Milk Action states at their website that they are not "anti-baby milk." and "Our work protects all mothers and infants from irresponsible marketing."
http://info.babymilkaction.org/

This sounds so good and proper. Yet I am troubled by these statements. Promoting breastfeeding is protecting all mothers and infants. One cannot protect formula feeding mothers as well as breastfeeding mothers. How can an organization serve well the needs of both groups without hurting one side or the other? And the question is what information are breastfeeding organizations basing this subtle shift of thinking? Do breastfeeding organizations believe that the formula feeding blogs are an accurate reflection of mother's who formula feed?

I read a paper at one of the infant formula industry website called, "Women's perceptions of their healthcare experience when they choose not to breastfeed." This article was from Women Birth (2011) At the bottom of the page in a stand-out grey box, the website which represents the infant formula industry states, "Please cite this article in press as Wirhana LA, Barnard A. Women's perceptions of their healthcare experience when they choose not to breastfeed. Women Birth (2011), doi:10.1016/j.wombi.2011.08.005"

Rather interesting to me that the infant formula industry is very aware of why women "choose" not to breastfeed. That understanding leads to better and better and better advertisements. And better and better blogs are created with that knowledge. If you know someone's fears about birth, about breastfeeding, one can capitalize on those fears. One can also persuade breastfeeding advocates that there are large numbers of women angry at them for advocating for breastfeeding.

In the drive to change the culture of cigarette smoking, because of its risk to health, the tobacco industry used its enormous profits to create a number of illusions. Likewise, the infant formula industry will present its illusions to the public. Unlike years ago, the infant formula industry has the whole playground of the internet to persuade people. Believing PR campaigns by industry creates dangerous misconceptions about reality. The anti-smoking campaigners/advocates did not feel the need to protect smokers from reality. Advocacy is not for the faint-hearted or those who wish everyone to feel good about their choices. As the Bible says, you cannot serve two masters.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

"It is what it is"

2011-11-24T07:58:00.000-05:00

It is what it is...it is what it is...I think I am going to vomit. I am so sick of being told, "it is what it is." Why is everyone saying this slogan? It's like a broken record, spinning in my head, like the song that you hate that just keeps playing around in your mind. I am being mind blasted by Hollywood. I heard it on some TV show and decided right then and there that I hated the show. If I ever say this to someone, I will know that I am being controlled by the force...beam me up Scotty....

And this is the nature of making a good slogan, good PR. Catchy phrase, simplistic reasoning, and get some Hollywood actors or actresses to say it and say it and say it. Then we all believe it. Ya hear something often enough you think you thought of it and that you are so brilliant. Yeah...sure. We creatures of this planet are the Great Imitators. My first born at 3 weeks old was imitating her grandma who was making a clicking sound with her tongue. I couldn't believe it. My baby was positively, absolutely brilliant. She could imitate the mouth movements of her grandma. Slowly, after more children, I began to realize that babies/children imitate the adults around them. It's the why of how your child learns her/his first swear word and repeats it and repeats it. They heard it from you. Of course you tell your family and friends my sweet child learned that word from that rotten delinquent 4 year-old kid from down the street. Yes, of course, who probably learned it from some adult. Although nowadays they probably learned those wonderful expletive deleted words from your TV set or computer.

So where is this discussion heading? The wonderful new slogan created by breastfeeding advocates that breastfeeding is not free. We are told that breastfeeding costs us: in energy to produce milk, time, and in what we give up-opportunities lost. (James Akre, author of The Problem with Breastfeeding) What? This slogan totally invalidates my experience and probably the experience of other mothers (because I don't think I am the only person who thinks this way). My initial reason for breastfeeding was because it was free, because I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. Exclusive breastfeeding helped the family budget in so many ways. It did not mean that I devalued it because it was free. It was the buried treasure because the longer I breastfeed my baby the more I valued it. I believe it is like the farmer who treasures his seeds. The seeds he/she has saved from harvest to harvest. Freely given by nature but life-giving to the farmer and to a nation.

The need to say that breastfeeding is not free is a sophisticated intellectual argument in support of capitalism, of worth being measured in dollars and cents only. The argument spins on the belief that time is money and that taking time for mothering babies forces women to miss employment opportunities. It's about what we value in our society. In the past decades of American life, our values have changed. I think of the bumper sticker on some cars a few years ago, "He who dies with the most toys wins." Bingo, life in the USA. Of course now that we are in an economic Depression (yes I know the government says Recession), the bumper sticker seems rather sad because we have lost all our toys. No, I guess we "all" haven't lost our toys.

So now we are to believe that breastfeeding is not free. And I imagine if we repeat it many times, in many places in our media-driven society that we will also believe it. What is the reality? Breastfeeding is like the plant that freely gives it seeds to the farmer. It is free for the taking. The farmer treasures and saves those seeds. Only now has our corrupted economic times created a system in which the farmer must pay for his "terminated" seeds that do not reproduce. Farmers and farming is being destroyed by this patent pending seed system created by Monsanto. Likewise, if we, women, embrace that breastfeeding is not free, we will be accepting a system in which we will always be dependent on the ebb and flow of a market system.

Why do we devalue what is free? My family had a motto that I still use, "if its free, its for me." I think we have come to believe, "it is what it is." That our society will never change. That mothers with babies will continue to have to go back to employment at 6 weeks postpartum. That value is only how much we are monetarily worth, our educational titles, our "new" clothes. We accept our caste system that professionals, the experts are at the top of the value pyramid which works its way down to white collar then blue collar workers, to the pit of despair the unemployed. And somehow its strikes me as absurd. As absurd as believing that, "It is what it is."
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

In the darkest hour of the night

2011-11-20T21:08:00.000-05:00

Why do we believe that the internet is about fostering community? What is community? The internet, the virtual is a smorgasbord of ideas, thoughts, bytes. Surfing the wave of the past, the present, and the future; we run smack dab into our community. Someone who thinks like us, who touches our thoughts, our dreams, our hopes. Yet unlike the street I live on in Realityville, the people walk the mean streets of the Virtual, veiled and hidden. Who are they? Are they really who they say they are? Who do they work for? Why are they saying what they are saying? Belief? Or are they the public relation hired hands, who feed on controversy. Willing to say anything to create a War of worlds? You say you know what is going on in the world of infant feeding. And I feel totally lost by the players, real and the imaginary ones who like to post vicious, nonsense. For what? For traffic's sake. And breastfeeding advocacy steps into the fray believing that the internet is community, that bloggers are really who they say they are and that the overheated comments are made by people who give a damn. All I see are the public relation trolls having a ball at everyone's expense. Why can't I see the world that others see?

So tell me, friend, explain to me why breastfeeding organizations and the infant formula industry are using the same mantras. At the Infant Nutrition Council website they state, "The Infant Nutrition Council recognises; that breastfeeding is the normal way to feed a baby." Everybody has dropped that Breastfeeding is Best for Breastfeeding is Normal. They also state that breastmilk is not free. So we seem to have found common ground, a shared usage of promotional words.
http://infantnutritioncouncil.com/

The Infant Nutrition Council is made up of infant formula manufacturers in Australia, as well as New Zealand infant formula marketers. Their membership includes, Bayer (yes, US readers Bayer makes infant formula...Novalac), Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd, H. J. Heinz Company Ltd, Nestle, Nutricia, Wyeth; asooicate members are the Dairy Goat Cooperative and Murray Goulburn Cooperative. They state that, "The Infant Nutrition Council will work in collaboration with other breastfeeding advocates such as the Australian Breastfeeding Association, the New Zealand Breastfeeding Authority and other NGOs."

"The Infant Nutrition Council is committed to supporting both breastfeeding and infant formula."

The Council does state "will work," meaning the future, right? Yet they make this other interesting statement. "The members of the Infant Nutrition Council work with key stakeholders to support the public health goals of promoting breastfeeding and good nutrition for infants." Who are these stakeholders?

Is this just more smoke and mirrors from the infant formula industry? Or has there been a change in viewpoint among breastfeeding organizations to "if ya can't beat them, join them?" I can't tell anymore. It seems like one huge masquerade ball. We have Prolacta (who advertises for donor human milk) aligned with Abbott, the infant formula manufacturer. And now the undercurrents, the eddies of new games in our Virtual Community.

In the darkest hours of the night, I think the world I once knew is no more. Nothing is what it seems. Whose PR team will win this War?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

The Infant Feeding Wars: PR Campaign?

2011-11-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

"The newer salesmanship, understanding the group structure of society and the principles of mass psychology, would first ask: "Who is it that influences the eating habits of the public?" The answer, obviously, is: "The physicians." The new salesman will then suggest to physicians to say publicly that it is wholesome to eat bacon. He knows as a mathematical certainty, that large numbers of persons will follow the advice of their doctors, because he understands the psychological relation of dependence of men upon their physicians."
--by Edward Bernays, from his book entitled "Propaganda," Bernays is credited for getting US women to smoke in the late 1920's through public relation campaigns featuring models and actresses smoking.

Who influences the eating habits of infants? Yes, physicians have a great influence, just like they did in the 1920's. But the advent of the internet, the Virtual has created a whole new realm of influence...blogs. The CDC uses its "mommy bloggers." One campaign was to address, "the importance of vaccination, vaccine safety and communication messages. see "Don't get the Flu. Don't Spread the Flu. Get Vaccinated."
http://www.cdc.gov/Partners/Archive/SeasonalFLU/

Then we have various infant formula companies using bloggers to market their products to parents and families. Nestle is using Latina Mom Bloggers (Joscelyn from Mami of Multiples, Ericka from Nibbles & Feasts, Liz from Thoughts of a Mommy and Dari from Mami Talks)
http://www.momblogmagazine.com/index/2011/06/nestle-turns-to-lat...

"Abbott Pays Mommy Blogs to Review Similac App," an article written by Ed Silverman at
http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/02/abbott-pays-mommy-blogs-to-re...

discusses the lack of transparency by some bloggers about their associations with the industry.

Some mommy bloggers disclose their associations to the infant formula industry, some do not. So how do readers of these mommy blogs evaluate the content of some sites, if there is no disclosure of financial ties. I don't think it is an easy task.

Are their mommy bloggers hired to promote breastfeeding? Yes, I believe this is so. The US Government is spending money promoting breastfeeding. I am sure the size of the budget for this is miniscule compared to the infant formula industry.

What I believe we are witnessing on the internet, on the Virtual, is a war between public relation camps. Each side willing to make the most outrageous comments. Should we believe that the commentators to these blogs are just "Josephine, citizen." Are they just a part of the huge network of PR people assisting their friends in the PR industry of smoke and mirrors? Certainly some commentators are from the PR industry; intent on making a stir, creating more traffic to blog sites (believing that this adds credibility to a blog). And certainly some commentators are who they say they are, a citizen who wants to be heard.

For instance trained actress (according to her resume), Suzanne Barston Cobb, Fearless Formula Feeder, had over 300 comments to her post/critique on a paper published in IBJ (International Breastfeeding Journal) on emergency infant feeding. Some statements by commentators were outrageous and one commentator seems to think that boiling water for infant formula (even in emergency situations is unnecessary). The concern seems to be if the WHO/UNICEF made these recommendations for infant feeding, then obviously it is a political ploy. Maybe these commentators should read literature from the International Formula Council on Bottle Safety Tips...
"Be sure to ask your pediatrician if you should boil and cool the water that you mix with the formula. Depending on where you live and the quality of your water supply, boiling the water may help to keep your baby safe and healthy."
http://www.infantformula.org/for-parents/bottle-prep-safety-tips

I would encourage parents to read the IFC (Infant Formula Council: members are Abbott, Mead Johnson, Nestle, PBM Products/ A Perrigo Company, Pfizer) statement on genetically modified ingredients. "The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory agencies have declared that foods and ingredients produced through biotechology are safe. The FDA also has concluded that all genetically modified (GM) ingredients they have approved for use in human foods, including infant formulas, are the same in composition, nutritional value and quality as non-biotechnology derived ingredients, and therefore labeling of foods containing GM ingredients is not required in the U.S."
http://www.infantformula.org/IFC-Statement-on-Genetically-Modified-Ingredients

Actually I don't believe that statement is quite correct. The FDA leaves it up to industry to declare their product safe.

Fearless Formula Feeder and her commentators are planning to write to the journal that posted the paper on infant feeding in emergencies. In her post she cites the article to the Journal of Human Lactation. The article was not published there, but in the online publication called International Breastfeeding Journal.

There is a blog called, Moms Feeding Freedom written by Kate Kahn. The IFC (International Formula Council) recommends this blog. And Source Watch states that this blog is funded by the IFC. Kate Kahn is an adjunct professor at Boston University and was senior news producer at WHDH-TV (NBC-Boston). She is the Principal at Kahn Communications. Her blog has some featured articles:   "Selling your breast milk online--a dangerous trend," "Depression, Postpartum and Breastfeeding," "Breastfeeding--it's not really free." And all brought to you by the IFC. I think I have heard the mantra, "Breastfeeding-- its not really free," somewhere else? Oh yeah, I remember...from some breastfeeding advocates. Seems like breastfeeding advocates and infant formula advocates think along the same lines.

Certainly, this infant feeding war, creates TRAFFIC. Exchanges get very heated. But who is creating this so-called war?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Mass Media: The Great Manipulators

2011-11-04T07:38:00.000-04:00

Noam Chomsky has stated, "Propaganda is to democracy as the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." We are witnessing the use of mass media to restrict dialogue on issues in order to promote the interests of corporations and government. What is public relations and when is it propaganda? How do we make a judgment on the sites we visit on the internet? Has public relations become more and more a propaganda game? And how does that impact society?

I suspect that much of what we now call PR is a manipulation of the public to accept the corporate state and its views on everything from the acceptability of war to infant formula. Politics is about power. The way in which we feed our babies is political. Who wields that power, and who controls the media. Ultimately control of the media rests with those who have the most bucks. The Virtual is an open door to media manipulators to create certain illusions.
There are techniques used in propaganda that are well-known by people who have analysed successful propaganda. The following techniques are used: name calling, glittering generalities, transfer, testimonial, plain folks, card stacking, band wagon. For further information see:
http://mason.gmu.edu/~amcdonal/Propaganda%20Techniques.html

In reading some of Fearless Formula Feeders blog, I am amazed by her statements. She considers women who formula feed the underdog. Statistically speaking, breastfeeding is the underdog. Few women exclusively breastfeed, most woman are weaning their infants within the first 4 months to formula: yet we are to believe that the real underdog is formula feeders. While breastfeeding initiation rates have increased over the years, duration rates are very low. So in reality many more women are experiencing formula feeding than breastfeeding. Women who bottlefeed in public are not kicked out of public places, but breastfeeding mothers face that reality. Who is the underdog? What Fearless Formula Feeder's blog uses is "glittering generalities," a propaganda technique. We identify with the "underdog." Certainly, she may have felt in her social circle like the underdog for bottlefeeding but formula feeding is the reality for a majority of women in the USA.

Fearless Formula Feeder's blog presents "tips for drying up breastmilk (without the attitude)." Her suggestions regarding drying up milk are not what I would suggest. I think binding breasts and suddenly stopping production can risk mastitis and/or breast abscesses. I have always recommended pumping to relieve pressure (just enough to release some milk but not increase production) and alternating ice packs and warm showers to relieve pain) I think binding the breasts is asking for a lot of pain that can be circumvented by a gradual process. I also believe that binding the breasts can increase a mother's risk of mastitis and breast abscess.

The irony of the need for tips on drying up breastmilk is that we believe that nowadays we have "choice" regarding our biology. Our mammary glands do not recognize "choice" and make milk anyway. Mothers have to actively suppress lactation in order to choose infant formula. Drugs, particularly bromocriptine, have been the answer until it was found that these drugs caused stroke, deaths.

I think mothers need to evaluate information they are given, often this is difficult and time consuming and horribly confusing. So many times mothers told me that everyone they had seen regarding breastfeeding had told them something different and that they were feeling very confused. Who to believe?
I feel the same about medical research and the contradictory and confusing conclusions that we often see. A key point in evaluating medical research is to understand who is funding the research. Who do the researchers work for? The same can be said about websites and blogs. Who funds that website or blog?

I was questioned by Suzanne of Fearless Formula Feeder blog about my lack of advertising. I don't accept advertising. My blog is free (at least for now). I am no longer an IBCLC because of their stance on the WHO Code. I was a La Leche League Leader for 10 years, a WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Coordinator for 4 years, I had a private practice for a number of years and could not make enough money to keep it open. I now own and operate a environmental-friendly cleaning service and work part-time in a historic hotel doing housekeeping and turn-down service. So my occupations in no way impact my blog or my views. They do keep me afloat financially in an area that is mostly a tourist destination. The county I live in is one of the poorer counties. I was one of the few IBCLCs without a medical background, who got a position at a local hospital within their midwifery department. Due to politics: the midwifery program was shut down within a short time because the midwife allowed a mother to stand during 2nd stage of her delivery--a hospital birth. I was told I would not be allowed to see any clients, particularly the mother who stood during 2nd stage. I quit. I quit the WIC Program because of many reasons, mostly because of the difficulty of working within a bureaucracy. I did ask for the WIC job back, a year or so later, because I needed more work to pay my bills. They offered half of what I made previously. I thought the economics in my area was bad then, but they have gotten far worse. I have cleaned beside a woman who had masters degree and taught college level classes, and local public school teachers who could not make ends met on their salaries. I am happy to have a job because I see others losing homes and in the streets. Am I happy about my career change? No, of course not. But this is the wonder world that our political and corporate leaders (our wall street wonder boys) have created due to corruption. Of course I don't blame them totally...I have made the decisions that impacted my family for good and bad. I can live with it because I have to live with it. My blog is the result of not having the time to write a book about the patenting of human milk components. The blog is also the result of certain people in our breastfeeding organizations who have given me and my writings the silent treatment. Although those same people have wanted the information I have researched, but they didn't want my opinions on that research. Thus my blog was born.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Choice: The Holy Grail of Infant Feeding

2011-10-30T09:08:00.000-04:00

Choice has become the holy grail of infant feeding. Female liberation has been predicated on the "freedom" to choose between infant formula and breastfeeding. So are women freely making this choice? Or is society, our medical-industrial-social-marketing-government institutions, creating the propaganda to influence choice?

I seem to have stirred the hornet's nest, particularly on Facebook, regarding my comments on my previous post to my blog. The blog writer for Fearless Formula Feeding wrote regarding me--STFU. And a number of facebookers agreed to that statement. I had to look up what STFU meant. Yes, shows my age. It means shut the fuck up. Wow. Yeah I seem to be the only one on the Virtual who is initial-impaired. Rude, eh? What can I say? Oh yeah I am suppose to shut the....

Sorry, can't shut up, getting too old to shut up. So I have an answer for those facebookers who think I should STFU. Put your hands over your ears, close your eyes, and don't read my blog. I allow humming while reading my blog and actually I do allow people to disagree with my point of view.

I believe that biologically the mammary gland is a working organ and meant to be used. Not using that organ has health ramifications for both mother and baby. Long term there is enormous ramifications to society in terms of health care costs-physical and emotional. Yet I do not believe that society and in particular government should force women to breastfeed. I feel a woman has the right to refuse to breastfeed. The right of refusal is a subtle but crucial difference than in believing in "choice." Breastfeeding is normal mammalian behavior. But as I have said many times before we do not live in natural/normal environments. So while breastfeeding is normal, our culture makes it abnormal. We struggle with learning to breastfeed because we do not see it in order to imitate it. Humans are the great imitators. When women are asked to leave public establishments because they are breastfeeding, it sends a message not only to the mother and her family but to the rest of the community. These messages are pervasive in the USA.

Choice isn't choice when the person who makes that choice does not know the full consequences. When a government, a society, withholds crucial information or an industry subverts that knowledge, then choice is a stacked deck. If women knew about all the patents on human milk components or read the infant formula patents, I believe that they might question the safety of infant formula feeding. They might question the belief that choice really exists in infant feeding.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Does fearless breastfeeding exist?

2011-10-28T08:19:00.000-04:00

There is a blog called "Fearless FormulaFeeding: standing up for formula feeders without being a boob about it." Cute, catchy and oh so "rational" about the need to protect infant formula.   Yes we must protect infant formula from the judgmental breastfeeders of the world.   Okay, okay, the goal of the blog is to support, protect, and encourage infant formula mommys from the judgmental breastfeeding community. Yet, I am fascinated by the design of this blog. The use of words, large and small, "guilt," "father." Oh the psychological games we can play when we have a PR industry in our back pocket. I wonder who really created this blog? A PR company? With who's backing?

The blog states, "that breastfeeding is not useless," but "Its turned into something we have to do, rather than want to do...." I turn these words around and around in my head. Of course we have to do it, it is biology. We have legs and we walk (unless we are crippled), we have eyes and we see (unless we are blind), we have ears and we hear (unless we are deaf). We have mammary glands and we make milk for our babies. "Yes Sally, you have legs but you have a choice about using them. Our society has changed since days of old where walking was normal, natural. Walking is worth it... but so it your sanity, health, and sense of autonomy." (the blog stated, "Breastfeeding is worth it. But so is a mothers sanity, health and sense of autonomy.")

Choice is the holy grail of infant feeding. We must have choice because we are liberated women. Liberated from what? Our biology. Yet while we are liberating ourselves from our biology, our industry and institutions are making claims on the magic of the mammary gland and its milk. How peculiar that seems to me. The Fearless FormulaFeeding blog believes "mothers are well aware" of the benefits/advantages of breastfeeding (and obviously tired of hearing about it). Yet I see no discussion on this blog about the patenting of human milk components by the infant formula industry. So let's take a step for honesty to mothers. If you don't breastfeed, you will be giving your infant the genetically engineered equivalent of human milk...cough-cough... they have yet to know all the components and clone them for use. Where is the discussion about the safety of genetic engineering of formulas for newborn and premature infants? This blogger presumes that infant formula is the safe option. That presumption is based on ease of access to medical care, availability of good sanitation-clean water, etc. It is predicated on the belief that manufacturers of infant formula do not make mistakes in the processing of infant formula ( we know this is not true because of the number of recalls and deaths/hospitalizations of infants who consumed contaminated infant formula).

Why does feminism require a choice regarding the nurturing of our infants? Why is breastfeeding idolized, romanticized? It's biology. It can be a beautiful experience but it is also like anything we do with our body. It can be tiring, boring, painful, blissful, uplifting, repetitive, annoying, fun, funny, irritating, enjoyable, peaceful, sad, and on and on. It's life with babies.

Motherhood in the USA is judged and not just with breastfeeding. Most of us have felt judged, tried, and convicted when dealing with a toddler who is having a meltdown in a public place. The eyes of condemnation by others who believe you haven't been strict enough or loving enough. You can't win whatever you do because there will always be someone who judges you as inadequate at this mothering game. Why do we believe that mothers should just know how to parent because they are mothers? Why does half our society believe that a good spanking is all that is needed for the toddler or child who cannot behave in public? Why does the other half seem to ignore their misbehaving child?

I have never seen a mother condemned for infant formula feeding in public (I am sure it exists but I have never heard anyone speak badly about a mother who bottlefeeds her baby). But I have heard the words of disgust from people when a mother breastfeeds in public. I have been given the evil eye for nursing my 2-week old baby in public. So it is very hard for me to view the blog on Fearless FormulaFeeding as other than a public relation blog designed to influence mothers to bottlefeed without fear. The design is to put breastfeeding up on that marble pedestal and make us believe that we have actually made a choice to bottlefeed. Choice in actuality is a stacked deck that only works to protect infant formula feeding.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Manufacturing antibodies in an immune deficient world

2011-10-23T06:55:00.000-04:00

Our world seems to have changed in the past few decades. Our medical-industrial complex has us convinced that our bodies cannot keep us healthy without vaccinations, drugs, or specially processed liquid foods (cradle to grave formulas). We can live on top of a chemical dump called earth. It's okay to breathe in the smog of chemicals from industries making more chemicals. It's okay to swim in the oceans, lakes, and streams that are so polluted that its creatures wash ashore at regular intervals, dead from a sewer of chemical hells. It's okay to eat and drink our fast convenient foods. As long as we get our vaccinations, drugs, and special convenient foods with added vitamins, we will survive. Like a pod of whales beaching themselves, we humans seem to have run aground in a desperate failing world. Half breathing, half eating, half drinking ourselves to death: as the corporate world bankrupts the world.

We believe that we can manufacture an immune system, after we have destroyed it. Men of science have the locks and keys to the molecular kingdom of antigens, antibodies. Oh brave new world! Oh hybridoma, mother of us all. We can genetically engineer immunity. Ya don't need to birth normally, breastfeed, eat real food, breath fresh air. Lets fix the problem with molecular engineering and while we are at it we can make a little money. Because the DNA of life on this planet is the almighty world of profit.

So what has this got to do with breastfeeding? Not much. It has alot to do with the understanding of the mammary gland and the value of human milk. One thing that is well known is that human milk is very antigenic substance. It was and is still used (in a more limited fashion since it requires injecting the antigenic substance into a mouse which creates ascites that are drained for use in manufacturing antibodies-painful to the mouse) to create polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies. These antibodies are used to create various ELISA, Western blot, assay kits to test our blood. One rather famous monoclonal antibody is BrE3 which is used to diagnose breast cancer and also used in breast cancer therapies. It was developed through the use of HMFG (human milk fat globule). There are various patents regarding the use of HMFG in the creation of monoclonal antibodies. We have patent #5075219 owned by John Muir Cancer & Aging Institute and filed in 1989 and invented by Roberto L. Ceriani and Jerry A. Peterson.

"The BrE3 monoclonal antibody was developed using normal delipidated human milk fat globules as the immunizing agent."

"The BrE3 monoclonal antibody is unique because of its exceptional specificity for a mucin-like glycoprotein complex of very high molecular weight present on the surface and in the cytoplasm of breast carcinoma cells and which expresses no specificity for normal tissue of the adrenal, brain, bladder, colon, esophagus, lymph node, myocardia, muscle , parathyroid, thyroid, mesothelia and liver. Consequently the BrE3 monoclonal antibody can be useful in several ways."

I am fascinated by the use of HMFG. How was it obtained? Is it still needed to create these test kits? It is also used in therapies. How much is needed? Women donate their milk and our science uses substances from that milk (HMFG) to create test kits and therapies for breast cancer (and other cancers, too). My mother died of breast cancer at 48. I was 14 when she died and the impact of her death on me and my family still haunts me. Would I have been a different person, if she lived? Did she really have breast cancer? How come? We lived near a nuclear reactor in Canada-Chalk River in the 50's, which had had a serious accident. I feel childishly stuck on questions that cannot be answered now. Yet as far as I know, our family history did not include breast cancer until she died from it. Is a diagnosis kit for cancer a good thing? I think most people think it is a good thing. How accurate? When you are not sick, but take a blood test that says cancer is there; what does it mean? I was told by a friend that her oncologist told her that cancer cells are always floating around in your blood stream. If you have a healthy immune system, your body fights it off. How does a blood test know that your body is fighting it or not fighting it? And how does chemotherapy help an immune system fight off cancer. All to often it seems that those who take chemotherapy for one cancer die a few years later from another cancer. For me it is a rather curious world, where we don't try to change our polluted world, we just use man-made creations to try and save our health. The world seems to actively sabotage normal birth and breastfeeding and the cost is sick people. But sick people are good for the economy--at least in the USA, where healthcare is based on the profit system. It seems like we are working this problem backwards. We accept our polluted world, sabotage any semblance of healthy birth and breastfeeding, and wonder why the world is so sick.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Reverse transcriptase in human milk

2011-10-16T05:47:00.000-04:00

In 1970 reverse transcriptase was discovered "in connection with the replication of retroviruses." Molecular Microbiology (1989), 1141-1144. But you say what is reverse transcriptase? It's an enzyme that only encodes/copies RNA in retroviruses. In a laboratory, scientists can make reverse transcriptase do other tricks, it can also transcribe single-stranded DNA templates. In cloning operations of DNA, reverse transcriptase is essential. It is also commonly used to amplify DNA for PCR (which is use in diagnosing infectious diseases). It is commercially manufactured from one of the following retroviruses: the Moloney murine leukemia virus and the Avian myeloblastosis virus.
Initially it was believed that reverse transcriptase was only found in retroviruses. Later it was understood by some scientists that this enzyme functioned in other life forms. Some scientists believe that reverse transcriptase is a marker for the hiv virus and is central to the belief that hiv was isolated. Does reverse transcriptase activity in a particle mean that it is a retrovirus? Here is a patent in which the inventors found reverse transcriptase activity in the milk of normal lactating women.
This patent is called, "Reverse transcriptase from human milk, method for its purification, and its use in the detection of breast cancer," patent # 4409200 filed in 1980. The inventors were William F. Feller, Judith Kantor, Jack Chirikjian, and Terence Phillips and the patent was owned by Research Corporation of New York City. Their research was funded by the US Department of Health and the US government was granted a non-exclusive royalty-free license.
"The essence of the invention relates to the isolation, purification
and characterization of a reverse transcriptase enzyme from the
milk of normal lactating humans. This enzyme is capable of being
used in a binding assay for the detection of breast cancer."

Was this commercialized? I don't know. Research Corporation is now known as Research Corporation for Science Advancement. It was founded in 1912 and has a long list of accomplished scientists (with patents) that they funded. The founder of Research Corporation was Fredrick Cottrell, who became the Director of the US Bureau of Mines.
I have always wondered about the materials that are used to test for infectious disease. Where does it come from? Why do all antibody tests have false positives? How pure are the materials that are used for testing of hiv? Why are there 60 other diseases or conditions that can make a hiv test and other antibody tests become positive? Lots of questions. Did they ever use reverse transcriptase from human milk for PCR? Maybe in the early days before genetic engineering took off? Fascinating to me and maybe not too many others. I wonder how reverse transcriptase derived from a virus or often e. coli genetically engineered can "purely" transcribe? Does nature have purity, isolation? Are we not a part (our cells, all cells) of the environment? Questions, questions....
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

More on Monsanto and its human milk patent

2011-10-12T07:25:00.000-04:00

I didn't know yesterday that Monsanto manufactured a drug for the treatment of arthritis, a COX-2 inhibitor, called Celebrex (which came out sometime in the 1990's). Searle, the pharmaceutical business unit of Monsanto, and Pfizer marketed the drug. So Monsanto's ownership of patent #5164374 has my curiosity working on overdrive. Just previous to my post on Monsanto I wrote about a recent Nestle patent called, "Milk fractions and milk preparations for treating and/or preventing COX-2 mediated diseases." (patent #8012509). And the Nestle patent states, "Particularly, high cyclooxygenase-2 [COX-2] inhibiting activity are provided by sweet whey from human milk and by several fractions from cow milk..." I am not sure what the ingredients are for Celebrex, probably some chemically-derived lab invention but it is fascinating to me that Monsanto in the early 1990's had a good idea about the value of human milk components. Of course if I were to say publicly that breastfeeding has protective factors against arthritis, I am sure that there would be a chorus of voices from the medical community that there is no proof. Because of course, patenting is not necessarily scientific proof. I am intrigued by Monsanto's patent and how I would never have guessed that Monsanto would have had a human milk component patent. We, the public, are kept ignorant of the powerful medical possibilities of human milk. Some breastfeeding advocates (the movers, the shakers and their PR bloggers) continue to push the idea that nothing has changed in the past 100 years, its same old-same-old..."breastmilk can't be duplicated, or made a profit out of, or removed from the control of woman..." I believe it is wishful thinking to believe that nothing has changed. The whole game has changed with the genetic modification of foods (including infant formula) and drugs. Just the impact of using human milk components genetically engineered in drugs is a major change. As long as the US Government (FDA) continues to act upon the belief that genetically engineered is equivalent to what is made by nature, then our food system and consequently the media will continue to be corrupted by half-truths. That corruption can and will destroy the health of many people. But industry will make its profits. The slogans of half-truths will continue to circulate.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Monsanto and its human milk component patent

2011-10-11T05:24:00.000-04:00

Even Monsanto owns a patent that involves the use of a human milk component. It was filed in December of 1990. Whether it was made into a product (a treatment for arthritis or related autoimmune disease) is hard to tell. The patent is #5164374 entitled, "Use of oligosaccharides for treatment of arthritis," and the inventors are Thomas W. Rademacher and Raymond A Dwek.

"The known relationships between sialyloligo-saccharides and rheumatoid arthritis can be summarized as follows: N-acetylneuraminosyl oligosaccharides of great structual diversity are the major constituents of human milk. That these structures may be important come from the studies of Witt et al. [Nutr.Metab. 23, 51-61, (1979)] who suggested oligosaccharides were not just storage forms of sialic acid but were absorded and distributed to the tissues intact. Since these studies, it has also become evident that sialyloligosaccharides are important bacterial anti-adhesions, preventing infection in the newborn."

There are more recent patents on the use of oligosaccharides (genetically engineered human milk components) owned by the infant formula industry but obviously Monsanto was way ahead of the game. Rather ironic that a Monsanto patent seemed to understand the value of human milk back in 1990 better than advocates for breastfeeding. Patenting has a way of suppressing knowledge. Of course I think Monsanto is more interested in having populations drinking cow's milk. And holding onto this patent (patents cost money to maintain-although obviously Monsanto has enough money to maintain a patent even if it never becomes a product) does hold off the competition for a time.

Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Nestle loves breastmilk....

2011-09-22T07:28:00.000-04:00

Ah....yes, I thought the title would get ya! They actually do like...love breastmilk, the product. Great stuff that breastmilk, good for what ails ya. But don't tell parents or for that matter, mum's the word at Breastfeeding Conferences. Heaven forbid, my god, what would happen if women and men really understood the significance of all this discovery and flag planting. I will use thee in the name of Nestle, our bluebird of happiness. Our provider of food, pharmaceuticals, and whatever else they wish to own--like water.
So lets get to the patent. It is US Patent # 8,012,509 called, "Milk fractions and milk preparations for treating and/or preventing COX-2 mediated diseases." Owned by Nestec (Nestle of Switzerland) and invented by Lionel Bovetto, Joerg Hau, and Catherine Mace and published at the patent office on September 6, 2011. Listen to the bluebirds chirping outside my window. Oh wait, its the bluejays and they are having one mean convention.
I digress, sorry I am easily distracted by birds....
I know that the first question is: what is COX-2 mediated diseases? This patent states that those diseases are inflammatory diseases (I think for example they mean diseases like arthritis). They will be using a milk fraction as a COX-2 inhibitor. But we are to guess from what species this milk fraction may come from: human, cow, or buffalo or a possible mixture. Hey, your guess is as good as mine. A raven is cackling outside my window...shut up you-you carrion species, you small vulture of the world. This "invention" will be a nutritional and pharmaceutical product.

In the body of the patent the inventors state:
"Particularly, high cycloxygenase-2 inhibiting activity are provided by sweet whey from human milk and by several fractions from cow milk...."

The inventors see this as a possible replacement for NSAIDS without the side effects that NSAIDS generate. But the inventors also believe that COX-2 inhibitors reduce the formation of tumors. Wow. don't tell your mothers this one. Who would believe it? Nestle, you are so funny.

So how did these inventors get human milk?
"Human breast milk was obtained from healthy mothers who agreed to donate breast-milk samples in quantities that did not jeopardize the nutritional supply of the baby (10-60 ml). Samples were obtained up to 70 days postpartum by breast pump expression or occasionally by manual expression and were processed within 2 hrs after collection."

Donor milk. Yes, momma, you gave it to them. How kind of you. Yes, keep'on donating because babies around the world need.....Nestle. (for those who don't know me, this is sarcasm).
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

A human milk product for treatment of immune deficiency (hiv/aids)

2011-08-30T16:28:00.000-04:00

"At the center of this invention, is the intent to solve the worldwide shortage of gamma globulin." patent #7914822

Presenting another Prolacta Bioscience patent, invented by Elena Medo dated this March 29, 2011. This patent is called, "Method of producing nutritional products from human milk tissue and compositions thereof."

Supposedly gamma globulin injections treat immune deficiency diseases, such as agammaglobulinemia, common variable immunodeficiency, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia, bone marrow transplant, and hiv/aids. Intravenous gamma globulin has been given to children with symptomatic hiv infection while receiving Zidovudine. Clinical trials through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) were done for for hiv-infected children ages 3 months to 12 years of age who were receiving oral AZT with intravenous gamma globulin or placebo. The researchers believed that the rate of bacterial infection would be reduced in hiv-infected children given gamma globulin,an immunoglobulin derived from blood plasma proteins. I do not know what the outcome of this trial was but I can imagine that none of these children were breastfed because of US policy that has pushed infant formula feeding for infants diagnosed with hiv/aids. Thus, some of these children got injected with antibodies derived from blood plasma to combat bacterial infections. I look at that as rather scary situation in comparision with getting natural antibodies through breastfeeding. Injecting antibodies into the blood stream is not without some risk. But, yes this is science and research.
Now we have a company, Prolacta Bioscience, who would like to provide a more natural treatment for immune deficiency. Although it isn't breastfeeding but, "The present invention discloses a prophetic inclination, based upon a 15-year study of human milk, that a new form of gammaglobulin referred to here
in as 'panaglobulin,' 'mammaglobulin,' or 'lactopanaglobulin' may replace the current gamma globulin."

"Because higher levels of IgA and IgM are present in human milk and colostrums, and a more diverse form of IgG as well, panaglobulins may provide protection beyond the scope of current gamma globulin therapy."

One of the more interesting connections that I see between Prolacta's interest in providing gamma globulin from human milk is that many of the BOD of Prolacta as well as their executive management have worked at Baxter, a manufacturer of intravenous immune globulin (from blood plasma) among many other healthcare products. The CEO of Prolacta, Scott Elster worked for Baxter for 13 years in the plasma products area. Scott Eaker, VP, Quality, is also from Baxter, having worked with Baxter's first recombinant Factor VIII manufacturing facility. Joseph Fournell, VP, Operations for Prolacta, worked as a director of global logistics for Baxter. David Rechtman, Chief Medical Offider, also worked for Baxter responsible for prodcut safety. He helped start an AIDS care team at SUNY-Health Science Center at Brooklyn. John Bacich Jr., chairman of the Board of Prolacta was also employed by Baxter. So Medo's patent for Prolacta does not seem like some far-fetched inventor's dream.
I am curious about our so-called knowledge of immune deficiencies. We institute policy in which women who are hiv positive are not allowed to breastfeed their babies. Yet, we will create a product made from the human milk to treat those babies. What do we really know about building immunity? Is denial of breastfeeding circumventing health for these infants? What makes us believe that hiv/aids is transmitted through breastfeeding? Wouldn't proof of transmission through breastfeeding require that infants be exclusively breastfed? If given formula or foods or water, where is the proof that breastfeeding transmits this "virus?" None of the studies done on transmission back years ago defined breastfeeding. So now mothers will pay for a product to help her infant's immune system. And no one questions the original studies done on transmission through breastfeeding. No one questions the tragic twist of fate in which an infant will be denied breastfeeding but will need the milk of other mother's to build an immune system. I guess we can applaud the ingenuity of men in a capitalist system in which we can be convinced that the natural development of immunity must not happen and we can readily replace it with injections of products "donated" from other mothers.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

IBCLC, concerns about a profession...

2011-08-26T09:14:00.000-04:00

The IBCLC Code of Ethics will be changed to a Code of Professional Conduct effective November 1, 2011. I guess I shouldn't be concerned since at that date I will no longer be an IBCLC. It's kind of ironic to see this proposed document and realize it coincides with my departure in the profession. It makes me more at peace with my decision. IBCLCs will no longer be obligated to follow the WHO Code, they will only be "encouraged." So we are witnessing a profound change in a profession whose job was to promote, protect, and encourage breastfeeding. It should make industry, particularly the infant formula industry happy. And it lets human milk researchers (who sometimes are IBCLCs) off the hook. They can happily continue doing human milk research for the infant formula industry and feel not a twinge of guilt. For an understanding of the direction the IBCLC profession is going, I'd encourage readers to access the IBLCE website. (http://www.ibcle.org) I can't seem to access it anymore (it must be down right now-guess cause of the impending hurricane--Irene? or IBCLCs?). If one looks at the history of the IBLCE Board members, one is struck by the backgrounds of previous and current board members. Many are nurses, doctors, and human milk researchers. One year, I remember looking at the list and almost all board members were human milk researchers. Does that present a problem? Maybe. It could explain the direction in which the profession is headed. Non-medical educated people need not apply unless they want to get medical training. I knew this was coming back in 1985. I was told at a Florida LLL Conference that eventually the profession would not be easily accessible to LLL leaders and now was the time for LLL leaders to get this credential. So I am surprised by other IBCLCs who are surprised by these "new" requirements. This was the intended direction from the get-go by the leadership then and now.
What amuses me (sorry, in a cynical, sarcastic way) about the IBLCE's new Code is that they watered-down an IBCLCs obligation to the WHO Code but they did not change "respect for intellectual property rights" (which includes copyrights, trademarks, service and certification marks-certification marks was not on the old Code of Ethics), and patents. This obligation is still there. Why? The IBCLC certification is a trademark, yeah a certification trademark. But listed in the US Patent & Trademark Office.
Serial # 74631001 Registration # 2042667
Typed Drawing

Word Mark	IBCLC
Goods and Services	IC B . US B . G & S: independent lactation consultant services. FIRST USE: 19850308. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19850308
Mark Drawing Code	(1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number	74631001
Filing Date	November 23, 1994
Current Filing Basis	1A
Original Filing Basis	1A
Published for Opposition	December 17, 1996
Registration Number	2042667
Registration Date	March 11, 1997
Owner	(REGISTRANT) International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners CORPORATION VIRGINIA 7245 Arlington Blvd. #200 Falls Church VIRGINIA 22042
Attorney of Record	PAUL E. HODGES
Type of Mark	CERTIFICATION MARK
Register	PRINCIPAL
Affidavit Text	SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20070427.
Renewal	1ST RENEWAL 20070427
Other Data	The certification mark, as used by persons authorized by applicant, certifies the quality of the services performed by those approved by the certifier.
Live/Dead Indicator	LIVE

So, I suppose if your profession depends on a trademark for credentialing purposes, then it is imperative that we "respect" ownership of a credential. Luckily I don't have to worry about my BA credential. Its bought and paid for a long time ago and I will never lose it. But the IBCLC credential trademark is just a rental property. I suspect there is more to the IBCLC respecting intellectual property rights than just the fact that IBCLC is a trademark, albeit a certification trademark. I believe that having had alot of human milk researchers on the IBLCE Board may have influenced the views of the Board on patents and patenting issues. The direction the profession goes is important. It looks like the direction is headed down the road to hell but who am I to say anything?

Here's another patent that we can thank human milk researchers for, in particular Alan Lucas.

Patent # 7998501, "Newborn infant formulas and feeding method"
Inventors: Atul Singhal and Alan Lucas
Assigned to University College London (Cambridge, GB)

"It has been observed, however, that formula-fed newborn infants might benefit from a feeding having a lower energy density, and perhaps more importantly from a feeding that provides fewer calories during the initial weeks or months of life than would otherwise be provided from a feeding with a conventional infant formula. We have found from our long term infant studies that rapid early growth achieved in large part from nutrient enriched feedings from conventional infant formulas, may result in long term adverse health effects in individuals later in life, particularly with regard to long-term vascular health relevant to the development of atherosclerosis and to the later propensity to insulin resistance and non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM)..."
The patent mentions that slower growth achieved by human milk (note: breastfeeding? where be thee?) and a modified infant formula had better results regarding these diseases that cause adult morbidity.
And the patenting goes on and on. And you, IBCLCs, are obligated to respect the business of patenting of human milk. I call that an ethics dilemma that the profession has chosen to avoid.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Breastfeeding: the new morality play

2011-08-19T07:10:00.000-04:00

Breastfeeding advocates are enthused by an article in Psychology Today called, "Breastmilk Wipes Out Formula: Responses to Critical Comments." I am not so enthused. In fact, I am deeply troubled by this article. The author writes about her students and herself presenting a series of blog posts on breastfeeding vs. formula. The article reads like the current one-mind set PR program from the US Health Department. So we have a associate professor of psychology from Notre Dame (a Catholic University) and her psych students posting on a blog (blogs?) learning how to create just the right piece of evidence to convince readers about "breastfeeding." Wait...wait....is it to convince readers about breastfeeding or breastmilk? How does the public like having a psych professor and her students using their research knowledge of the human mind to "share" information on blogs? Did they identify themselves as researchers to blog readers? Interestingly, psych professors are being hired by the US Government (CDC) to write blogs, to attack alternative viewpoints on health (from hiv/aids to vaccinations). The author, Darcia Narvaez, PhD is a researcher on teaching moral character has received funding at various times from the Department of Health in Minnesota (when she lived there) and is applying for grants from the NIH. Does funding from US government agencies influence what you say and don't say? Why is this article in Psychology Today focused on breastmilk? In bold letters the article states, "We must face the fact that there is no comparability between breastmilk and formula." Where is breastfeeding? Words are important, we aren't talking about breastfeeding in this article. This article is a promotion of breastmilk by a researcher who is often funded by the US government. This article was written under the title, Moral Landscapes. So I find myself wondering, are we going to make infant feeding a morality decision? I thought breastfeeding was biology: like walking or giving birth. Oh yes, we aren't writing about breastfeeding. It is breastmilk, a product that this article is promoting. The author quotes Jim Akre writing that "milk sharing, a longstanding practice in human history is taking off through the internet." What???? Wet nursing was and is a long standing practice not milk sharing. Are we piggybacking another article to promote milk sharing over the internet?
This article states that the next step (in bold) is "establishing breast milk banks and milk sharing opportunities." Yes, lets get women to share their milk as the US government, medical research institutions, the infant formula industry continue to patent human milk components. Lets make it a moral, ethical imperative for women to "donate" their milk. Anyone else think that there is something basicly unethical in promoting breastmilk sharing while keeping silent about patenting of human milk components? Is anyone else troubled by the fact that a psych professor and students are writing to blogs, influencing the content, researching responses to content so that they can influence readers?
I have gotten the impression over the years that various blogs are just propaganda efforts and some commentators to various blogs are part of various industries, infant formula in many cases involved with infant feeding. Maybe psych professors need to study the influence of industry on blogs and blogging. Or better yet, how the US Government influences content on the Virtual. How many of those wonderful bloggers out there are really paid by the CDC to promote a viewpoint that sells vaccinations, pharm drugs, condoms to the public--now breastmilk feeding? Yeah, all is fair in love and war....so the moral imperative is breastmilk feeding...God, what a world.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W McClain

Mining human milk components

2011-08-10T08:39:00.000-04:00

I really don't get it. I really, really don't get it. I don't get the lack of understanding or concern regarding the "mining" of human milk components? Wake up? Anyone there? The media has a stranglehold on the reality of milksharing. So this is dedicated to my friends.

http://www.dairyreporter.com/Markets/Danes-unite-to-mine-infant-formula-prebiotics

or
http://www.alfa-editores.com/web/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3583&Itemid=31

It's a news article from the Dairy Reporter on Danisco and Arla and their "project to develop human milk components-oligasaccharides for use in infant formula. Read it. Then ask how does the infant formula industry acquire human milk? How? Yes, maybe they advertise in newspapers and mothers get money in exchange for donating for a scientific cause. Do mothers really not care that their breastmilk helps the infant formula industry make money?? Oh yes, I forgot, the world is a business arrangement and people will do anything for money. But what about the mommies who donate their milk to those non-profits, who also believe that research of human milk is part of their mission? Yeah, I know close your eyes, ears, and mouth because this is what human existence is about, BUSINESS.

Let's get to business. How about buying some human breast milk (raw colostrum) from a company that sells human and animal proteins for research.
http://www.leebio.com/breast-milk-human-colostrum-P548.html

Or better yet let's learn about available technology for licensing on Human Milk Oligosaccharides.
http://techtransfer.universityofcalifornia.edu/NCD/11224.html

Okay and now tell me why donor milk banks and milksharing organizations do not mention this possibility to mothers and fathers. Informed consent? Does it exist regarding human milk donations?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Is HM4HB a grassroots organization or astroturf?

2011-07-27T04:25:00.000-04:00

Remember astroturf, that fake grass in football stadiums? Well, that's what they call fake grassroots organization that are run by public relation people who may represent industry, organizations, or government. They have an agenda, often political. They create the illusion that there are many people involved in an issue. Astroturf operations has been known to sway legislators, our lawmakers into believing that they are witnessing genuine grassroots organizations. The thing about astroturf operations run by public relation companies is that some people involved with these fake grassroots organizations are honest citizens who have no idea that the organization was developed by public relations.

My question has been whether HM4HB is a grassroots organization that just sprung up within the last year. Or whether HM4HB is astroturf, an organization that Is public relations and has another organization's agenda. HM4HB stated mission statement is, "to promote the nourishment of babies and children around the world with human milk. We are dedicated to fostering community between local families who have chosen to share breastmilk."
http://www.hm4hb.net/about.html

If one goes to the above website, words pop out at you in wonderful technicolor, "think globally share locally, transparency, honesty, solidarity, consensus..." We see these words, we are engulfed by these words and we presume that the words are the substance of the organization. But for words to have substance, we have to have a structure in which those issues become reality. What governing structure does HM4HB have in creating their policies? We are told that 300 administrators decide on policy. Sounds very chaotic to me and very difficult to obtain consensus.

Transparency? Facebook pages of HM4HB suggest donating to HMBANA milk banks, the very organization that has publicly stated that mother-to-mother internet milk sharing is risky. What is the relationship between HMBANA and this organization? One-sided? All fluff and no substance?

Why do administrators of HM4HB contradict themselves? Why do they not know that HM4HB is suggesting to donate to HMBANA milk banks in various Facebook pages? Who creates HM4HB policy? All 300 administrators? It seems like someone is creating policy for HM4HB without informing all their administrators of that policy (suggesting mothers donate to HMBANA). Yet the public has no knowledge of who is guiding this organization and it seems that even some of their administrators are left in the dark regarding policy.

If this is a astroturf operation, what organization is behind HM4HB? Is it HMBANA, who from the year 2000 was contacting the FDA because of their concerns about internet milk sharing? Is this a way to prove to the FDA that milk sharing is becoming widespread and worthy of regulation? And why would HMBANA want internet milk sharing regulated? If mother-to-mother milk sharing was regulated, who benefits? Is there really risks to milk sharing? Or is the risk about control of a natural resource? Is HMBANA faced with a critical donor milk shortage? Why is their no public discussion of where some of HMBANA's donor milk goes, to the research community? How much of donor milk for HMBANA goes to human milk researchers who are funded or employed by the infant formula industry? Several patents, mention HMBANA donor milk as a source of their research.

Why are organizations that are involved with women donating their milk, not willing to fully disclose to mothers and fathers the widespread patenting of human milk components for various industries-infant formula, food, supplements, drugs, and vaccines. The commercialization of human milk components means that human milk is not some "yucky" substance but considered by commerce to be valuable, worthy of patenting. It means that mothers and fathers, too, need to be aware that donating may not be about giving their precious milk to some poor premature baby. What it may mean is that mothers are giving away a valuable resource to various industries who will profit from that donation. I call that exploitation. I believe that every organization that is involved with donor milk/mother-to-mother milk sharing ought to fully disclose this possibility, so that mothers are truly informed and understand the possibilities of their donation.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

"the mystical public relations people you speak of..., said "R"

2011-07-16T04:47:00.000-04:00

Music fills the cab of my truck. I hear, "I want it all, I want it all, I want it all. And I want it now." Reminds me of the last few days and having several commentators to my blog pushing for an immediate publication of their comments.   And the accusations of one administrator to HM4HB that because I only responded to "the professionals," I was showing my disregard (disrespect) for the moms who administrators of HM4HB. Yikes blasted again and again, what's an old lady to do? Yes, yes, must defend myself. How could they not know me and my life? The premise is that the internet encourages community and transparency. So how come they don't know me?

Okay for those of you who don't know my schedule, here it is. I am employed outside the home. Sometimes I work 12 hours in one day. My employment is not related to breastfeeding. Some weeks I work 6 days. I am tired and blurry eyed and I am 60 years old. So immediate responses to my blog are limited by how long I have worked and how tired I am. I realize that is no excuse because there are no excuses in the Virtual. This is for Agustina, who believes that I only responded to "the professionals." Hm... Yesterday I started to respond to the comments. The first comment I received was from Karleen Gribble and second comment was from Jodine Chase. By the time I finished my comments to each of them, I had to go to work. I know a likely excuse. I had planned to respond to each and every comment. But...heck this is the internet and your impression of me has to be right. I am an elitist and only respond to "the professionals." Funny thing is that I was a stay-at-home mom myself until my divorce. Then I became a single parent with 3 kids and I had to find employment or live on the side of the road. I don't believe that a mom who stays home with their kids lacks intelligence, diligence, creativity, etc. If I did, then I would truly not believe in my own values.

My understanding from the flow of the comments is that almost all administrators to HM4HB deny that anyone at HM4HB is employed in the field of public relations. So either they did not know that Jodine Chase was employed (I believe her own company) in Public Relations or they lied. I believe that they did not know. I don't think they lied. Which makes me question the whole belief by HM4HB that the internet is community and transparent.

I find it strange that Jodine right from the start of her comments did not say that she no longer volunteered for HM4HB. It would seem to me that that would be a key statement to be made from the start. Someone says the organization has a PR person in it, then it would seem that one would immediately dispel that notion. Only much later, is this brought up. And brought up after comments by other administrators who declare that there are no PR people in their organization. So Jodine is no longer in the organization, except for one project, HM4HB Week.

I know Jodine from some time back. I knew she was in public relations. In fact I thought she did PR work for HMBANA. So I was somewhat confused by her involvement with HM4HB/Eats on Feets. Because I believed that HMBANA is absolutely opposed to moms milk sharing over the internet. In fact in 2000 HMBANA met with the FDA to suggest that regulation of milk sharing is needed because of the internet. I believed that HM4HB was opposed to organized milk banking. Wrong. I happened to browse the Facebook page of HMBANA and a Facebook page for HM4HB page and both organization do not seem adverse to helping each other through HMBANA's critical donor milk shortage. Posted on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at a Facebook page on HM4HB is a suggestion to moms that "if you have milk to share, you might want to see if you are close to a HMBANA milk bank.."
To see HMBANA's comments about HM4HB
http://www.facebook.com/HMBANA?ref=ts

Will the real mystical public relation people stand up? Nope, it's the Virtual and nothing is as it seems.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

"expanding the world supply of human milk..."

2011-07-14T06:56:00.000-04:00

Some 50 years ago, we witnessed a revival of breastfeeding in the USA. La Leche League came into existence helping protect and promote breastfeeding. Gradually, breastfeeding made a comeback from the abysmal low initiation and duration statistics of the 1950's. It took a number of decades, but gradually more and more women in the USA were breastfeeding. La Leche League literally saved breastfeeding from extinction.

Recently I read a paper published in the International Breastfeeding Journal called, "Milk sharing: from private practice to public pursuit," in June of this year. The last sentence in the abstract states, "If undertaken, managed and evaluated appropriately, this made-by-mothers model shows considerable potential for expanding the world's supply of human milk and improving the health of children." (my italics) Where is breastfeeding? What happens when we expand the supply of human milk? More breastfeeding? Or less breastfeeding? So we create a market and more babies get the product, human milk. Does human milk in the bottle, create better health for humans? Or is it another case of how we are distancing mothers from babies, creating more emotional disease?

This paper has a number of premises that I must question. It states, "After only six months, a commerce-free internet-based milk-sharing model is operating in nearly 50 countries, connecting mothers who are able to donate breast milk with the caregivers of babies who need breast milk." Yes, when you have people who are in public relations directing this model, ideas will go viral. PR people know how to create an image. How do we know this is commerce-free? Are potential recipients screened to protect the donor from gifting milk to industry? With 2000 human milk patents and patent applications (and climbing), what will prevent industry from having someone pretend they are a mother in need of breastmilk? Industry has the money and woman-power to use the internet to further their need for an expanding world supply of human milk. What checks and balances do these organizations provide for women so that misuse of mother-to-mother milk sharing is truly mother-to-mother? Isn't that an impossibility on the internet?

The conclusion of this article states that, "Mothers are leading in this initiative." I think that statement is misleading. My impression is that Eats on Feet was begun by a midwife, who is also a mother. Eats on Feet then was taken over by PR people. This in my opinion created friction over various issues, and another organization was born, Human Milk 4 Human Babies. The PR people created a new organization, Human Milk 4 Human Babies. Who hired the PR people? Who do they work for? If one takes a cynical view of the politics behind infant feeding, one might think there is more here than meets the eye. If mother-to-mother milk sharing is mostly PR with little substance, then who are the real players? And what reality are they spinning? Who is buying the PR for promoting the expansion of the world supply of human milk? The US Government? HMBANA? Prolacta?

Getting an article published in the International Breastfeeding Journal requires having a certain amount of money. I once inquired about getting an article published there but realized I didn't have enough money to even consider publication. It was a substantial amount of money for me. (I must admit my income level puts me as one of the many working poor in the USA--our numbers are getting larger and larger). When publication requires the big bucks, who gets published? Whose interests are broadcast to the profession and whose are never heard?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Public Relation Reality...one step closer to insanity

2011-06-11T06:50:00.000-04:00

Let the Public Relation Campaign begin. Let the public scoffing of the reality of transgenic cows making human milk begin. Of course, cows are not making human milk in totality, which has thousands of components. They are making various components (proteins, enzymes) of human milk. Human lactoferrin is one of many components that they are producing. In some cases the same PR people who scoffed at public fears of the nuclear disaster in Japan after the earthquake/tsunami are the very same people scoffing at cow transgenics.

There is a pretense that this is just the beginning and that there is no approval for products made through cloned cows. So I think we must wonder why that over a year ago, the FDA announced that cloned milk and meat was approved for consumer use in the USA. One would almost think the US media blitz of cows making human milk in various countries is to make American citizens believe that cow transgenics which produces cloned milk and meat hasn't happened in the USA. The Chinese are doing it. So we can sleep easy tonight because it ain't happening here.

I have to repeat to readers the news article written in July 2003 in the NY Times by Nicholas Kristoff, "Interview with a Humanoid." It still is on the internet. Kristoff visited a US dairy farm in 2002 that had a herd of cows that were genetically engineered to carry various human genes in their mammary gland, human milk components. He even drank the milk these cows produced. He wrote that he didn't grow three heads. So is the public to believe that farmers in the US who have these herds dumped the milk these cows' produced until FDA approval a year ago? The financial losses must have been tremendous. But now they can market their products.

I wrote about this and spoke about it 10 years ago. This is not new technology. It was made public in 1990, various companies, like Pharming had cloned the first cow with the human gene, lactoferrin. Twenty-ones years later, the public is suppose to believe that this technology is still in its infancy. Just like the genetic engineering of various food crops, the public is the last to find out what is being done to their food. And then the messages are distorted by people in the media whose job is to keep the people ignorant and happy with new products made especially for them.

Its hard for me to watch people ingest supplements, sports drinks, muscle building powders-whey, or watch babies drinking infant formula. People believe that by drinking these special products, that they will get the benefits described on the package. The muscle milk powders make no pretense about how their powders are just like human milk. Just advertising? No, I have read the patents, this is genetic engineering. Welcome to the world of food science, where our experts can engineer food that is good for you.

It's an odd ball world, when intelligent people get paid to distort reality to the public, to make sure that what the corporation wants, the corporation gets. We call ourselves a democracy. Yet when you have an army of Public Relation people working to the tune of the corporate world of butterflies over the septic tank of reality, then democracy flies out the window. Reality becomes whatever these people want. Sometimes the PR people work for the Corporation and sometimes they work for Government. Nowadays, it seems that the Corporation and the Government are just one and the same. Which by definition is a fascist state. Believe what they want you to believe or else.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Moonhugging stars, IBCLCS, and improving breast milk

2011-06-08T08:08:00.000-04:00

Looking into the sky, I see that Moon-hugging Star again. Continuity, breathing in and breathing out; I feel reassured that the world is the world I remember. Yet, so much has changed in the sixty years of my existence. Am I getting too old to understand this craziness that has descended unto humanity? Or is it, that I have never understood the insanity, we call civilization? I feel as lost as a child who goes to a building to learn about life, when life is outside. I spent my school days, looking out the window, wishing I was outside. When I was outside, I never had a thought for that book knowledge of flowers and trees, clouds and sky. I was there, like the surfer on her board, at one with the wave, with the ocean, with the power of life on this planet. And where are we going fellow citizens of this world? I don't understand the direction our "leaders" are taking us. It feels like we are being delivered into the jaws of hell, to a world without life, to a world without compassion or sympathy or respect. Why? Why? Why?

I decided this year to give up my credential, my IBCLC, to let it go. It's a trademark, you know. So if one wants to retire from the business of breastfeeding, one must let go of the title. Yes, its a business world and if you don't pay tribute for the title, then one cannot use it. That's fine with me. What does a title, a credential mean anyway? I am not sure anymore. I have enormous respect for many of the groundbreakers, who are IBCLCs. They have opened doors to better understanding of breastfeeding. On the other hand, I am disappointed in the direction that the profession seems to be going. I am amused in a cynical way by the fads that sweep the profession. Nowadays, it seems that every baby is tongue-tied and in need of "fixing." It seems the current position for correct breastfeeding is the reclined position. Yes, I am exaggerating but it seems like common sense about helping mothers breastfeed has gone out the window. Instead, we are creating some kind of medical protocol for correct breastfeeding without questioning the premise of medicalization of normal biology. Is there only one way to do something? We know with computers, there are multiple of ways to do various procedures, no one way is correct. Watching people walk, talk, and eat; show us that no two people are alike. Yet it seems that we are creating a standard, medical protocol for breastfeeding. The blinders have started to appear as our profession becomes more and more enmeshed with the medical community. Our human milk researchers, who create the current thinking on breastfeeding, are entangled with the infant formula industry. And it seems that no questions are asked about how this may effect a profession. Should we not wonder about higher rates of mothers "attempting" to breastfeed, yet more mothers giving up on breastfeeding. Where has the simplicity of breastfeeding gone? Instead, we are creating more and more products, and more and more rules to follow.

I haven't worked with breastfeeding mothers and babies for a few years. I miss it. But I now understand why a good friend of mine, who was a midwife and LLL leader was not enthused by my becoming an IBCLC. She was right. She was very right. Like birth, the more interventions from experts, the more mothers find breastfeeding an impossible, un-natural process. Birth and breastfeeding should not be based on medical models of disease, dysfunction, and fear. But that has become the underlying theme of birth in the US. And now we seem to be hell bent to create that theme in breastfeeding.

I know that my letting this credential go will not change anything. I no longer want to financial contribute to a profession that feels it must be medicalized to be accepted. Of course that won't stop me from writing about patenting of human milk components, nor advocating for breastfeeding.

I found a recent patent owned by Biogaia AB of Sweden. It shows the direction we are going as a society. I understand Sweden, as a country, has better breastfeeding rates than many countries. I always thought of them as breastfeeding-friendly. Well this patent, makes me wonder...

It's called "Method for improved breast milk feeding to reduce the risk of allergy." patent #7955834 accepted as a patent this June 2011. The inventors are Bjorksten et al.

"A method for selecting a lactic acid bacterial strain to be administered to a pregnant women of which increases the level of IL-10 and at the same time decreases the level of TGF-beta-2 in breast milk..."

I believe that one could decrease the level of TGF-beta-2 in breast milk, if the mother went on a dairy-free diet. But we know women, they won't do that besides this is a simple fix. Of course we are experimenting on pregnant women.

By the way, it can also be given to the woman after the birth of her baby. And claim 6 states it could be a edible vegetable oil, sunflower oil. Of course, how does one get this lactic acid bacterial strain into the sunflower. Yeah, you got it, genetic engineering. Gotta love the ingenuity of our scientists.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Breastmilk feeding or breastfeeding?

2011-05-24T05:47:00.000-04:00

After reading, "Liquid Gold: The Booming Market for Human Breast Milk," by Judy Dutton; I felt the need to give the article a review.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/05/ff_milk/all/1

This article leads the reader to believe that there is a booming market, a new "niche industry," of breastmilk. The author interviews a mom who sells her milk on a website called, Only the Breast. The website has bottles placed strategically about the website. The picture on the header is of a baby with a bottle in its mouth-no mother in sight. So a baby that self-feeds. My God, they are better at marketing than the infant formula industry. This particular milk sharing industry doesn't have to follow the WHO Code cause they are buying and selling breastmilk not infant formula. (although I believe that the WHO Code applies to them because it is another alternative to breastfeeding and the intention of the WHO Code was to support breastfeeding not breastmilk in a bottle) The author does mention other internet breastmilk sharing organizations: Human Milk 4 Human Babies and Eats on Feets. Yet we aren't given statistics regarding these internet milk sharing organizations. How many moms are actually sharing breastmilk through these sites? How many queries in a day?

Part way through the article that extolls the "magic" of breastmilk. The author interviews, a J. Bruce German, a professor of food chemistry at UC Davis. Funny, I recognized that name. Patents! Yes, J. Bruce German is one of several inventors to two patent applications on human milk components. The recent patent application is called, "Prebiotic oligosaccharides," #20100254949 and the Regents of UC Davis own the patent. The other patent application is called, "Nutritional Products Having Improved Quality and Methods and Systems regarding same," #20080260923. This one is owned by Nestec (Nestle). Both patent applications are for use in the food industry and of course, the infant formula industry. I read J. Bruce German's CV for an International confernce on saturated fat. The CV was written in 2009 and states,"Bruce German received his PhD from Cornell University, joined the faculty at the University of California, Davis in 1988, in 1997 was named the first John E. Kinsella Endowed Chair in Food, Nutrition and Health is currently professor, at University of California, Davis serves as senior scientific advisor at the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne Switzerland and head of the Scientific Board of Lipomics Technologies Inc in California."
http://www.sfc2009.com/uk/speakers/bruce-german

I don't have a problem with people working several jobs at one time (done that myself for most of my life). But I find it disturbing that a professor in the area of nutrition at a prestigious university, is also on the payroll of Nestle as well as Lipomics. How do students filter out fact from industry view points? Are students even aware that their professor moonlights for the food industry? This particular article doesn't mention his other jobs. The reader of the article, "Liquid Gold," presumes that this expert is a professor of a well-respected higher educational institution. And for those of us who promote breastfeeding, it should be worth noting that once again we have someone who does research on human milk but is also part of the infant formula industry.

After the brief paragraph on J. Bruce German, the author of this article writes, "While the scientific understanding of human milk is still evolving, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendation is straightforward: Mothers should feed their babies nothing but breast milk for the first six months..." Say What? Small lexicon change. What the AAP states is their support of exclusive breastfeeding for approximately the first six months. So this article would have people believing that breast milk feeding is equivalent to breastfeeding, that we can change the text of a document (slightly) and it means the same thing.

The author interviews a woman who needed breastmilk for her baby because her baby had trouble with digesting formula. The reason stated that the mother could not breastfeed was because of a staph infection. Huh? I didn't know that this was a reason for not breastfeeding. I am sure that the mother was either told this or jumped to the conclusion that she could not breastfeed. Human milk inactivates staph bacteria. But is this the direction we will go when organizations promote breastmilk feeding over breastfeeding? Will we have a million reasons why woman cannot possibly breastfeed? The problem of not being able to breastfeed will continue to rear its ugly head despite promotion of breastmilk feeding. Because promotion of breastmilk feeding is NOT promotion of breastfeeding. It is about supporting a substitute for breastfeeding.

Then the article interviews Kim Updegrove, the executive director of an Austin Milk Bank. And the article states that she warns that sharing breast milk is an incredibly risky practice. Then a Stanford University study is mentioned that supposedly showed that of the 1,091 women who applied to donate milk at the San Jose milk bank, 3.3 percent were rejected after their blood tested positive for 5 infections (hiv, hepatitis b and C, human T-cell lymphotropic virus). I read that study and first off the researchers were not independent of the outcome (two were directly involved in HMBANA). So in my view, they had a bias--even the direction of the research showed a bias. Blood is tested with antibody tests which are notorious for their false positives. I believe that the milk bank would not retest to make sure the test was a true positive. They had an extremely high amount of mothers testing positive for human T-cell lymphotropic virus, which is a very, very rare disease in the USA. I think the study was basically worthless. We need researchers to look at this who are independent of the outcome, who are not part of a milk bank. Rather odd to me that the HMBANA milk banks want to prove that milk sharing is dangerous. Of course, their milk sharing/banking isn't dangerous because they do it safely. Reminds me of the infant formula industry's start. Tell mothers they can't make their own formula at home because only industry can make formula safely. Thus the industry is born because of the imagery drawn that mothers are too incompetent to safely make their babies formula. Only industry can safely make infant formula. Of course, the problem with industry when infant formula is contaminated is that instead of one dead or maimed baby, you can have many dead or maimed. No, I am not supportive of people making their own infant formula. I am supportive of breastfeeding. I think we have to look closely at what milk banks (not-for-profit and for profit) are saying. What evidence do they have that milk sharing is not safe because a institution is not involved in the process?

But why is the media promoting breastmilk over breastfeeding? Who is paying for the PR? The article appears at first glance to be a balanced picture of the supposed booming market for breast milk. Yet their are subliminal messages in the article as well as misinformation (AAP statement). No breastfeeding seen. Pictures of a mother who sells her breastmilk, bottlefeeding her baby. Pictures of bottles of human milk taken from an angle that makes one believe the bottles symbolize breasts. Who paid for this article? Why did the author pick J. Bruce German to interview?

We are a gullible public, believing what we read. What does the reader believe after reading this article and why? Why do some breastfeeding advocates believe that promoting breastmilk is equivalent to promoting breastfeeding? Does every baby deserve breastmilk or does every baby deserve to be breastfed?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

a novel infant formula

2011-05-04T04:51:00.000-04:00

"After five months of feeding my son nothing but breastmilk, the time has come to wean him off completely." from epinions.com--a review of Enfamil Lipil With Iron.

Huh? I love deadlines don't you? As we birth our babies, out pops the warranty that says breastmilk is only guaranteed for 5 months. Or I guess in some cases one day, 2 weeks, or maybe 6 months. Ours is not to reason why someone decides that there is a time table on breastfeeding. In fact our society does have a time table. It's why mothers often hide the fact that they nursed far longer than the freakin time table. My mother-in-law used to ask me every week whether I had weaned my first born yet. She asked for over 2 years and then came pregnancy number 2. She quit asking, assuming that I had weaned because who would possibly nurse beyond 2 years? My god, the kid should be out applying for pre-school, not getting milkies from mommy. Yeah, I am one of those mothers, who nursed her babies "forever." So its beyond my comprehension that someone puts a time table on breastfeeding. But a lot of mothers are into the numbers. Like how many minutes should one breastfeed? How many times in a day should one breastfeed? How many times do I have to nurse in the middle of the night? How many ounces should I be able to pump? Numbers, numbers....factory mothering, whistle blows time to nurse, stop, times up. Baby can't be hungry again. I wonder if people have sex like that--timed?? Do we look at our watches when we have conversations with friends? Times up, friendship is over. Hey you have been on this earth for 5 months, get with the program, time for your novel experience of our novel infant formula. Yikes, I want to cry, poor baby, poor mother who has numbers stamped into her head.

The mother on epinions did a review of Enfamil and Similac, a comparison. She writes, "not all formulas are created equal." and "free samples are great." Her review was the only place I could find a list of Enfamil ingredients (no ingredient list at Mead Johnson website). Written in 2006, she states that it does cost alot of money to buy Enfamil ($5.07) a day. Obviously, it is far more costly to buy now than 5 years ago. She writes that "both Enfamil Lipil and Similac Advance will make your child's poop smell like something that crawled into the attic and died about three days ago." And mentions that "breastmilk poop has almost no smell besides a slightly sweet, irony scent."

I did find that Mead Johnson, who makes Enfamil Lipil among other novelty formulas for babies, hit new highs in its sales (up 18% to $899.8 million) this year.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/28/meadjohnson-idUSN2826607520110428

So they are doing well, my friends, doing well. I ran across one of Mead Johnson's infant formula patents filed in 2003 (published in 2011) called, "Compositions and methods of formulations for enteral formulas containing sialic acid," patent # 7867541. What's sialic acid? The patent tells us, "Sialic acid is naturally occurring component of human breast milk, where it is found associated with various oligosaccharides and glycoproteins." and "While human breast milk contains substantial amounts of sialic acid , most infant formulas contain less than 25% of the sialic acid found in colostrum." What is the importance of sialic acid? "Evidence suggests that N-acetyneuraminic acid (NANA or sialic acid) is important in the development and function of the neonatal brain where it is a major component of gangliosides." So because it is a component in human milk, it must be placed in baby milks. The patent will obtain sialic acid-containing protein from either Davisco, New Zealand Milk, or Formost Farms. Presto-change-o, we now have another novel infant formula. Another novel formula because the industry is imitating human milk and creating components (many of which are genetically engineered).

The legal definition of infant formula under 21 U.S.C. 321(z) is, " a food that purports to be or is represented for special dietary use solely as a food for infants by reason of its simulation of human milk or its suitability as a complete or partial substitute for human milk."
from the Food Advisory Committee Meeting on Infant Formula
http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/ac/02/briefing/3852b1_01.htm

We can see that in order to simulate human milk, the infant formula industry is bound by law to study human milk and try to recreate it. And with each experiment, they learn a little more. But with each experiment, some little person is the lab rat to an industry.

Global lutein market

2011-04-29T06:22:00.000-04:00

"The global lutein market is set to hit $124.5 million in 2013, according to a 2007 report from Frost & Sullivan."

http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Pfizer-study-supports-lutein-safety-for-infant-formula

The article was entitled, "Pfizer study supports lutein safety for infant formula," and written in 2010. For those who forgot, Pfizer bought out Wyeth. The study they are announcing lutein safety is from the Nutrition Journal and named, "Lutein-fortified infant formula fed to healthy term infants: evaluation of growth effects and safety." The study was done in the Philippines at the Asian Hospital and Medical Center in Muntiniupa City, Philippines. The authors were either funded by Pfizer or were employees of Pfizer Nutrition. Some of the authors were/are employed by Wyeth Philippines, Martek, Pfizer. So let me see, a safety study on a specially designed infant formula is done by the industry. Does anyone see any problems with this? No?

"The primary objective of this clinical trial was to compare the growth of healthy term infants fed either Wyeth S-26 Gold (designated as Gold), and infant formula currently marketed by Wyeth Nutrition, or Wyeth S-26 Gold fortified with lutein at 200 mcg/l (designated as Gold + Lutein) for 16 weeks."

The lutein was sourced from Kemin Health, remember them from yesterday's post? The study goes on to say that the "lutein has been determined by the WHO/FAO/Codex Joint Evaluation Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) to be safe for use as a nutrient fortification..." The study population was 240 healthy full term Asian infants ages up to 14 days.

"Two serious SEs were reported for the Gold + Lutein group during the study period, while none were reported in the Gold group. Of the 2 serious SEs, one infant was diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis and the other was diagnosed with bronchopneumonia. Both events were considered by the PI to be unrelated to formula administration. In each case, the infant was hospitalized and the serious SE resolved completely."

Yes, the availability of a hospital is crucial when formula feeding. Of course the conclusion is that "Lutein fortification of S-26 Gold at 200 mcg/l is safe and allows normal infant growth."
http://www.nutritionj.com/content/9/1/22

Wyeth is advertising their product with lutein, "As a parent wouldn't you take precautions to protect your child from blue light?" "Lutein, as a predominant macular pigment in the retina, is able to filter blue light and may protect the eye."

On the Asian Parent a article on Pfizer/Wyeth's new formula with lutein. "Wyeth introduces its new milk formula, incorporating the new and advanced Wyeth Biofactors System, to provide the very best for your growing child." and "Wyeth Nutrion is the only local nutritional formula manufacturer to be granted Food Safety partner status by the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore."

And so we study a new formulation for 16 weeks and we let industry do the safety study. We dismiss any problems observed as unrelated to the new formulation and then we advertise to the public about its safety and we make our health claims. Health claims that are based on human milk. Human milk has leutin therefore we will put leutin into our formulations. Why are consumers believing that the leutin in breastmilk is the same leutin that is being manufactured by industry? How is marigolds extracted by hexane the same as leutin in breastmilk?

My understanding was that any new ingredient placed into infant formula had to be registered with the FDA. I went to the FDA website, I can't find a public record of the infant formula companies registering their new ingredients. If anyone out there in the Virtual has seen that list at the FDA website, would they contact me? One would suppose that it should be easy to access a list of companies and dates when a standard infant formula was changed and registered to the FDA. I think I am pretty good at navigating the web, but this has me stumped.

And so life goes on, babies get fed infant formula, babies get sick, babies go to hospitals, some babies die. And they say, it isn't because of the formula. It's cause of something else, the microbial conundrum of planetary shifts causes the tilt in the hemisphere to make some babies sick. Or maybe we should blame the mother? Hey it couldn't be the industry that is making billions on breastfeeding failing? Okay is lutein a dye or a supplement? I say a dye.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

"Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species-man-acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world."
--Rachel Carson

Lutein: a dye? a supplement?

2011-04-28T06:42:00.000-04:00

Abbott owns another patent regarding the use of lutein in artificial baby milks. And one must question whether this company is trying to improve the health of infants through the use of lutein or whether they have other motives. The Abbott Patent is #6811801 and called, "Methods and compositions for brightening the color of thermally processed nutritionals," filed in 2001 and accepted in 2004.
"In accordance with the present invention, it has been discovered that the addition of lutein compounds to thermally processed nutritionals brightens the nutritional resulting in a more appealing color."

"Thermally processed liquid and powder nutritionals typically present brown and gray hues in the final color, which negatively impact the overall appeal of the nutritional."

Wow, I thought lutein was being placed in baby formulas because of its health benefits. Yes, yes, of course it is. Baby's need lutein because its in human milk and infant formula doesn't have it without adding it into the milk. Yet it seems that lutein is a dye or considered a dye by the FDA. In a FDA Agency Response letter GRAS notice No. GRN 000140 dated June 14, 2004 written to lutein manufacturer, Kemin,

"Kemin describes the method of manufacture for crystalline lutein. The process begins with marigold oleoresin, which is derived from the hexane extraction of dried marigold flower petals (Tagetes erecta). The oleoresin is extracted with a basic solution, organic solvent, and water yielding a crystalline product containing lutein and zeaxanthin."

"FDA notes that Kemin's crystalline lutein product has the potential to impart color in food products that contain it. As such, the use of crystalline lutein in food products may constitue the use of a color additive under section 201(t)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act..."

Later in 2007 the FDA Agency Response Letter GRAS Notice No. GRN 000221 to Kemin is regarding "suspended lutein" for placement in baby formulas. The FDA wanted to know why the company considered its suspended (derived from crystalline lutein suspended in safflower oil) lutein exempt from the definition of color additive. The letter goes on to say that, "Based on the information provided by Kemin, as well as other information available to FDA, the agency has no questions at this time regarding Kemin's conclusion that suspende lutein is GRAS under the intended conditions of use." and then "Kemin should be aware that FDA's response to Kemin's GRAS notice does not alleviate the responsibility of any infant formula manufacturer who intends to market an infant formula that contains suspended lutein to make the submission required by section 412."

Wow, who would have thought of such a beneficial supplement to infant formula, not only does lutein improve health but it also makes the formula a brighter color. Wow and double wow.

From the Abbott Patent#6811801 on the use of lutein as a dye,

"Clearly, a brightening agent is required that can mask the brown and gray hues of thermally processed nutritional products. The brighter color would enhance the overall sensory acceptability of the product by the consumer."

The consumer is a baby. But of course, it is the adult who buys it and needs to see the product looking nice and white. So now we have a dye in our infant formula. Nope we don't, its a nutritional additive. Nope its a dye, nope its a necessary ingredient cause its in breastmilk. Yes, I know many marigold eating mothers who breastfeed. Insanity.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Human milk: the science behind infant formula

2011-04-27T05:25:00.000-04:00

We are told that the infant formula industry lies about its products that it markets. Do they lie? Is their any truth to their marketing of their products? We are told to boycott Nestle because they are the worst of the worst in violating the WHO Code. Yet in focusing on one company, the rest go unrecognized for their violations. Although in the USA, the WHO Code (the World Health Organization Code of regulating the "marketing" of breast milk substitutes, passed in 1981 by all nations except the USA) seems to be little understood or followed. ["no advertising to the public, no free samples, no promotion of products in health care facilities...all information on artificial feeding including labels, should explain the benefits of breastfeeding and the costs and hazards associated with artificial feeding" Breastfeeding and Human Lactation, second edition, by Riordan and Auerbach, page19] I hear the cynical laughter. Yeah in the USA we have hospitals giving out free samples of infant formula. Years ago I worked with a teen mom who was nursing her baby with no problems but needed me to explain why she was given a case of formula. She presumed that the medical profession was giving it to her because she was suppose to use it. She was quite relieved when I told her that her free case of formula was...well it was just marketing. She thought the free formula from the hospital was a diagnosis that breastfeeding was not enough for her baby. This kind of marketing is slowly dying out but women get alot of free formula through various outlets-doctor's offices, the internet, marketing lists, etc. Of course, the introduction of infant formula to a breastfeeding mother is often the path to weaning from the breast (production being dependent on nipple stimulation, feeding infant formula means baby is not at the breast). I am fascinated with part of the Code that states that the benefits of breastfeeding and costs/hazards of artificial feeding should be on all information and labels of artificial milks. I don't think I have seen this anywhere. Of course, if we are asking the industry to self-regulate then the information will be sparse and psychologically geared to put their product in the best position.
Let's go back to my first question, does the infant formula industry lie about their products? Is their partial truth to their claims about their formulas for babies? Some breastfeeding advocates claim its all lies. But I tend to view their marketing of their artificial milks being closer to human milk, as a half-lie/half truth. What breastfeeding advocates fail to understand is that human milk research is the basis of the infant formula industry. Many of the researchers who are members of the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation (ISRHML) are funded by the infant formula or dairy industry. Some of the members are employed by the infant formula industry. A few years back I ran across a patent application from a member of the ISRHML that was of interest to me at that time because I was writing about human milk fortifiers (I believe it was a human milk fortifier patent owned by Abbott). One of the inventors was Bridget Barrett-Reis, who is no longer listed as a member of the ISRHML. I ran across another patent where she is listed as an inventor. It's called, "Infant formulas containing docosahexaenoic acid and lutein," patent #7829326 and owned by Abbott Labs.

"Lutein has also been identified in human milk."

"Although it is not currently added to infant formulas as an isolated ingredient..."

"It has now been found, however, that lutein concentrations in infant formula must be much higher than the lutein concentrations found in human milk in order to achieve the same plasma lutein concentrations found in breast fed infants due to a lower relative bioavailability of lutein from infant formula."

This patent was filed/applied for in October of 2006 and became a patent in November 2010. Of interest is that in Abbott Nutrition press release in September 2008, the company states in its summary facts that Similac Advance EarlyShield, "supports a baby's natural defenses and digestive health. It has important immunity building blocks similiar to those found in breast milk. Similac Advance EarlyShield is the only infant formula that has a unique blend of prebiotics, nucleotides and antioxidants-nutrients found in breast milk." Under antioxidants they state, "Antioxidants play important roles in the body. Similiac AdvanceEarlyShield has a unique blend of antioxidants including lutein, lycopene, and beta-carotene found in breast milk and can help protect the eyes and skin."

Before this product became a patent, it was already on the market (for at least 2 years). Interesting. But I am amazed by the language written by the company. WHO Code violation? This was on the internet, an international community of readers. So the language suggests that the antioxidants placed in their formulas, are found in breast milk. Well, yeah, sort of....just a little language ambiguity.

"Similac® has EarlyShield®

In addition to having DHA/ARA, we're the only formula that has Lutein,* an important nutrient babies can only get from breast milk or Similac.†"

Stretching the truth, just a teensy little bit. You know marketing, a little truth mixed with a little lie=the big lie. Marketing 101 brought to you by the makers of our alternate reality....

on the edge of rationality and insanity

2011-04-26T07:02:00.000-04:00

Another garbage day, the sun rises and the moon is just a shadow of its former self. Oil washes around the sandy shores of Louisiana and radiation continues to leak into the ocean near Japan. We discard another car, another computer, another thing into the landfill of our minds. It is the tidal wave, the tsunami of our desires jettisoned because its lost its "shiny." We do this with our things, but we do this with people, too. We are just lovers of the newest flash, our media's newest tricks. Like the alcoholic we get a whiff of the object of our desire and we intoxicate ourselves for a few days and then we sober up. Happy, depressed, happy, depressed: we are all bi-polar. One big happy-depressed family self-medicating ourselves on "things." Who needs discussion when the media can write its version of reality to the masses. Don't worry, a little radiation is good for you. Don't worry, a little oil in the sea is beneficial. Don't worry, let's "liberate" another country with bombs and bullets. War is beneficial for the economy. No job? Don't worry. Home repossessed? Don't worry. Whose worried? I believe. I believe. The media tells me that the economy is getting better, less unemployment. I can keep my eyes shut. I don't see the people on the streets, begging for jobs or food. Yeah, I don't see them because the homeless aren't allowed to be on the streets. So it doesn't exist. The media writes its lies and repeats them until we all become rationally insane. A nuclear meltdown won't hurt ya. Three wars waging at the same time will improve the economy. Whose economy? Don't ask, don't tell. Truth is lies, lies are truth.

Death to rationality, hurrah for the insanity of our green technology called nuclear energy. Hurrah for the insanity of promoting a safer infant formula, most like mom's milk. Mother's milk in a can, comes with it's own surgically enhanced boob to lean on. Of course the appendage while anatomically correct is non-functional. Yeah, on the edge, on the edge.

"The present invention discloses a prophetic inclination, based upon a 15-year study of human milk, that new form of gammaglobulin referred to herein as 'panaglobulin,' 'mammaglobulin,' or 'lactopanaglobulin' may replace the current gamma globulin. Because higher lievels of IgA and IgM are present in human milk and colostrums, and a more diverse form of IgG as well, panaglobulins may provide protection beyond the scope of current gamma globulin therapy."

Patent # 7914822 "Method of producing nutritional products from human milk tissue and compositions." Inventor: Elena Medo Assignee: Prolacta Bioscience

We have a society where more and more people have immune deficiencies thus creating a need for gamma globulin therapy. Breastfeeding would seem to be the answer to that problem. Does our society invest in breastfeeding? Nope. The investment will be in products from human milk....rational but irrational on so many levels.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.
None but ourselves can free our minds." --Bob Marley

Chinese cows and future shock

2011-04-05T06:58:00.000-04:00

How about those Chinese cows making human milk?

http://morallowground.com/2011/04/04/chinese-researchers-genetically-modify-cows-to-produce-human-milk/

I learned that on Lactnet. What news!! American cows are so behind the times. Get with the "Program Miss Bossy" (our cute bovine with velvet brown eyes and the longest eyelashes). Oh wait, we do have Miss Bossy making human milk. Yes dear readers, I have been writing about that since 2000 or 2001. Yes, a decade ago and suddenly the Chinese get all the credit. That's science for ya, do the work and someone else takes the work and runs with it. Unless, unless...your PR program is working in high gear. Maybe in China they are running headlines that say UK cows or USA cows are producing human milk. (Yeah, actually its one or two components, cause they have some kind of job doing "all" the components)

What do people think "cloned" milk is and why do they think it is approved for public consumption in the USA? I love the media. If the news is going to get out about cows making human milk, let's blame the Chinese. What makes people think that this technology isn't already being used in infant formula? They are adding lactoferrin to infant formula, that's human lactoferrin (cause cow's make very little or none). Fonterra in New Zealand manufactures lactoferrin for use in infant formulas. One way to genetically engineer human lactoferrin is through cows (remember Herman the Bull? that was 1990-two decades ago). Another way is through genetic engineering of yeast or bacteria (what is being done by Agennix in the USA).

Anybody read Future Shock? Time to read it and understand that the general public is way, way behind technological advances. With genetic engineering of our foods, we are being told about it after the fact, after its on the market. Why? Because those that govern think that their populations are too stupid to understand the technology. So do it, put it on the market, and then have regulatory bodies like the FDA rule that genetic engineering is equivalent to the real thing, no need for labels.

So now breastfeeding advocates suddenly get the picture because the media says that the Chinese are doing the research. Oh yeah and its not being manufactured into products yet. (cough-cough) Old news, geared to create another illusion. The world is so so very messed up by people in power and their dutiful dogs, the media.

Congratulations to Prolacta and Elena Medo. Their patent application is now a patent at the US Patent & Trademark Office. "Method of producing nutritional products from human milk tissue and compositions thereof." (patent # 7914822) Their claims are on a "method." Welcome to the 21st century readers.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Got Breastmilk? Public Relations, blogs, and astroturfing

2011-03-29T06:30:00.000-04:00

In July 2008 I was intrigued by a blog post entitled, "California Milk Processor Board Goes After Breastfeeding Advocate," written by Jennifer Laycock at the Lactivist Blogspot. She told the story of a Talkeetna batik artist who got in trouble for advertising t-shirts and onesies with the words "got breastmilk?" The artist got a letter from a law firm that represented the California Milk Processor Board. The name was too similar to the trademark, "Got Milk?" The blog writer encouraged readers to write the California Milk Processor Board to let them know that there is a "difference between jugs containing breast milk and jugs containing cow's milk." I was one among many commentators to her blog post. I stated the the California Milk Processor Board was lead by a PR man, Jeff Manning (at that time in 2008). This man was considered a marketing leader for a variety of ad campaigns (beef, etc).
I later became convinced that Jennifer Laycock was also in public relations and wrote about it on my blog. I also believed that the word so now commonly used, lactivist, was a word dreamed up by PR people.
http://vwmcclain.blogspot.com/2008/09/pr-game.html

At this same time in 2008, the California Milk Processor Board (CMPB) applied for the trademark,"Got Breastmilk." I felt then that the blogging about the CMPB by breastfeeding bloggers (not just Jennifer Laycock) had resulted in the CMPB applying for that trademark. Now, that La Leche League International is paying royalities for the use of this trademark, I feel like someone got played. But who? Who played who? Is this what happens when public relation campaigns go head to head (the dairy industry PR people vs the breastfeeding PR people)? And what happens when organizations start believing their own PR people rather than independently investigating situations?

I see no mention about what happened in 2008 among the sparse comments regarding LLLI's decision to pay royalties to the CMPB in 2011. So I have a million questions and I am pretty sure that there are no answers. Why? Because we are dealing with public relations, health marketing. Who hires for such endeavors? Government mostly. But non-profits, corporations also hire PR people to promote a product, an idea, political or health objective.

The CDC website writes about "Health Marketing Basics." Now who would think that the CDC needs to market anything? Welcome to the bizarre world of Health Marketing. Bloggers are hired to market the CDC "wares." The CDC writes about their mommy bloggers.
http://www.cdc.gov/healthmarketing/ehm/blogs.html

I started to wonder about many of the breastfeeding blog sites in which the sites are similar (same style, first names only, same advertisements, same themes, same kinds of thinking). One would suppose there are a lot of breastfeeding woman thinking the same kinds of things, liking the same advertising, etc. Well, ya know I want breastfeeding promoted but this isn't quite what I had in mind. In fact, I am wondering if the Got Breastmilk? fiasco is the result of Public Relations gone amuck?

What about astroturfing? Is this an example of it? "Astroturf refers to apparently grassroots-based citizen groups or coalitions that are primarily conceived, created and/or funded by corporations, industry trade associations, political interests or public relations firms."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Astroturf

I think back to another PR fiasco regarding donating human milk for babies in Haiti. Huge PR initially to get moms to donate their milk to the not-for profit milk banks to help the infants in Haiti. Of course, had the PR people truly understood breastfeeding and natural disasters, they would never have gone "Viral" pleading for donor milk. I also find myself questioning whether the organization, Human Milk 4 Human Babies, (milk sharing through the internet) is just another PR game. The internet creates an enormous opportunity for those in the PR industry to create Illusion, to make us believe that there is a lot of women sharing breastmilk over the internet. Is there? And if this is an illusion, who wants us to believe this? And why do they want us to believe this? Is it the regulators, who want to put a stop to milk sharing over the internet? Create the illusion that tons of women are sharing breastmilk through the internet making it important to have regulation? Who benefits if private milk sharing is regulated by the FDA? Hm, milkbanks might be happier. Is the world really what the internet portrays as reality? Who is paying for the PR? Is it PR? Will you ever know?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Not in My Backyard

2011-03-17T05:33:00.000-04:00

I write this knowing that it may not post because my computer is not working correctly. Probably I have been hacked. But then again maybe not. Well, maybe? Who knows?
I have been following the crisis in Japan and feel a multitude of troubling thoughts. First, my prayers for all the people in Japan faced with the task of dealing with the unthinkable. My heartfelt sympathy for the huge loss of life. And gratitude for those who are trying to save lives and help in this monumental diaster.

My thoughts reflect my interest in breastfeeding and the properties of human milk. Should women breastfeed, if they have been exposed to significant amounts of radiation? Is it safer to bottlefeed? What are the known risks of formula feeding in emergency situation? We know that in the midst of a disaster that access to food and water is difficult. Stores maybe emptied of supplies. Thus a steady supply of artificial milks for babies may be inconsistent or limited. Electricity to warm the milks, refrigeration to store it, and water to clean bottles and nipples maybe nonexistent. Water may be contaminated, in a nuclear accident this is a strong possibility. Thus, putting the bottlefed infant at risk for bacterial/toxic contamination. Access to prompt medical care for anyone maybe limited or not available. Thus an infant on artificial milks in the midst of a disaster is placed at a higher risk of illness and death than an infant who is breastfed. What happens to people who are displaced whose resources are destroyed? Will they have money to buy infant formula, if there are stores open? These are issues that are critical to making decisions regarding artificial feeding of infants.

But what about the properties of human milk? We do know some things regarding radiactivity and breastfeeding. In a book called Breastfeeding Matters (an excellent book published in 1985) by Maureen Minchin she writes,

"All babies begin to accumulate radioactive strontium in their bones before birth. In the baby who is being breastfed, the body content of strontium diminishes (the baby excretes more than he or she takes in) but the bottlefed infant has increased strontium in his bones, as cows' milk may contain six times as much strontium as breastmilk, and the mineral balance of cows' milk ensures that it is depositied in baby's bones."

From the book, Milk, Money, & Madness: The Culture and Politics of Breastfeeding by Naomi Baumslag and Dia L. Michels(published 1995),

"Information from Italy and Austria shows that breastmilk contained one/three-hundredth the amount of radioactive iodine and caesium that was found in cow's milk following the Chernobyl accident." (cow's milk in the region had to be discarded creating shortages of fresh milk and infant formula)

"Additionally, the radiation levels in breastmilk were much lower than were the levels in the mother's body, leading researchers to conclude that some mechanism exists that reduces the radioactive materials in the milk as it is produced."

A study entitled, "Strontium-89 and Strontium-90 levels in Breast Milk and in Mineral-Supplement Preparations," by Jarvis et al., Can Med Associ J. 1963 January 19; 88(3): 136-139 states in the abstract,

"Strontium-90, strontium-89 and S.U. values were determined in human milk before and after the resumption of atmospheric nuclear testings in 1961, and the levels were compared to cows' milk values reported during the same time. S.U. 90 levels in human milk were approximately one-fifth of those found in cows' milk."

In reading various patents over the years, I remember running across a patent on human lactoferrin to be used to treat people who had been contaminated with toxins (nerve gas in particular). Industry is using recombinant human lactoferrin to prevent food toxins, sprayed on foods. Perhaps the mechanism that lowers the amount of radiactivity in human milk is human lactoferrin. At the moment, my computer is rather unstable, so I am limited at this time in giving references or patent numbers.

In the midst of a disaster, choice of infant feeding may not be the issue because access to infant
formula is impossible. Breastfeeding will be essential for survival. Mothers who have been bottlefeeding need to know that relactation is a very real possibility. In a disaster situation supplies of infant formula may be available at shelters, but not always. We know from Hurricane Katrina that initially supplies of infant formula were very limited (when shelters were cut off from help).

"May all be fed, May all be healed, May all be loved." John Robbins, author. A prayer for our world, our community, and for those in times of trouble.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Got Breastmilk-part 4

2011-03-11T06:57:00.001-05:00

In a debate what do you do when you have been placed in a defensive position? Yes, you don't back down, you go on the offense, muddle the question, create blame; and if you are ruthless enough, create the scapegoat. Thus the issue of LLLI and the licensing of "Got Breastmilk" with the California Milk Processing Board becomes another issue. The issue of IBCLCs, going to formula-funded Conferences, or presenting at Conferences sponsored by WHO Code breakers. The turning of the tables means that the real issue is buried. What is the real issue? At this time it is not individuals in a profession who are ignoring the WHO Code, it is organizations making decisions that make the WHO Code moribund, dead in its tracks. I am not sure why breastfeeding advocates allow the issue to be reinvented. Fear of public discussion, "airing your dirty laundry in public?" Yet, by burying this so very critical essence of breastfeeding advocacy, we allow multi-national corporations to call the shots. While the PR states that the California Milk Processing Board (CMPB) is giving 50% of the royalties to LLLI for use of their trademark, "Got Breastmilk," we need to consider that LLLI is giving royalties to the dairy processing industry (the infant formula industry is part and parcel of this industry). Great PR switch in saying that royalties are going to LLLI. In fact the royalties are going to CMPB, just that they are only taking 50% of their cut.

A description of the CMPD and that it is funded by California milk processors:

http://milk.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=003319

The executive director is Steve James, formerly of Dean Foods and was general manager and president of Swiss Dairy (as of 2006). Swiss Dairy is owned by Dean Foods.

http://www.dairynetwork.com/article.mvc/First-In-California-To-Introduc-Bilingual-Mi-0001?VNETCOOKIE=NO

Dean Foods does an organic brand of infant formula. There has been controversy over their "marketing gimmick."

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_9905.cfm

The irony of a breastfeeding organization paying royalities to the marketing section of the dairy industry (which encompasses the infant formula industry) escapes few people but those who seem to have made this decision. There are a ton of questions regarding this decision. Where did the LLL Board get their information regarding the CMPB? Was legal advice used? Who did the research on this to determine whether it was a good thing to do? Are other breastfeeding organizations supportive of this? Is the sounds of silence the answer to this? What happens when non-profits become less and less transparent in their actions? What happens when they become unanswerable to the wishes of the very people who support them? I don't really expect that any of this will become public and so the saga ends. It was a very good organization, God rest its soul.......

For those who are interested in some more patent applications, I thought I'd add a few more patent applications to mull over. First though I want to take a quote from the US Patent & Trademark on what is a patent.

"A patent is an intellectual property right granted by the Government of the United States of America to an inventor 'to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States' for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted."

http://www.uspto.gov/patents/index.jsp

In the USA, public disclosure is part of the price of receiving a monopoly on your invention. The website of the US Patent & Trademark Office is

http://patft.uspto.gov/

Patent application #20100217182 entitled, "Process for Use with Breastpump to Initiate Milk in Breastfeeding, Particularly for Premature Infants," inventors: Brian H. Silver and Paula Meier

owned by Medela Holding AG.

Patent application #20110045590 entitled, "CALCIUM-INFLUX INHIBITORY FACTOR AND METHOD OF ISOLATION," inventor, E. Stephen Buescher, owned by Eastern Virginia Medical School.

If readers want to know about these patent applications, you can read them at the US Patent & Trademark Office, because patents, patent applications are public record. You can read the trademarks there, too.

Got Breastmilk, part 3

2011-03-06T08:14:00.000-05:00

Through 12 years of trying to bring my research on human milk component patenting to the attention of breastfeeding organizations, I have met with silence, criticism, but mostly just silence. Sometimes there was interest but the doors would slam shut at some point in time. I never quite understood the reaction I got from organizations that I thought would want to have this information. There was the possibilities of speaking, of books; but only on someone else's terms. Organizations desire information but they want to control the perspective. Not that I believe my perspective is the only way to look at reality. But, all perspectives should be heard, read, and discussed; if one believes in democratic ideals. Where goes an organization, when it refuses to look inside itself, to be open to other points of view? It withers because everyone is too afraid to speak up for fear of ostracism. And that is what I have faced for some years now. It hasn't been pleasant. And I realize that many people in these organizations believe it was justly deserved. How dare someone be critical of human milk research or human milk banks. At one point in time, I called for a moratorium on donating human milk because of my fear about what industry (particularly the infant formula industry) was doing with donor milk. The earth trembled and I was swallowed into the void of no return. Can't say that, because there is professional hell to pay for stating your concerns. They were based on human milk component patents. But no one wanted to hear about it, unless they could use the information to benefit themselves or their organizations. Bitter, yeah, maybe....I am over it. So frankly it isn't too shocking that LLLI decided to enter a licensing agreement with the California Milk Processor Board. They weren't interested in the information on human milk component patenting and its association with the infant formula industry, so why be shocked about a financial deal with the top dairy processors in California? Let me take that back. Some people in breastfeeding organizations were interested in human milk component patenting. In fact a person on the US Breastfeeding Committe convinced me in the year 2000, to send her a notebook of the information I had on human milk component patenting. I compiled some of what I had into a three-ring binder and sent it to her ( cost me money, not her). The reason I sent it was this person told me that it would be presented to the Committee. I was very excited about breastfeeding advocates having this information and thought it might keep them up-to-date on what was going on with human milk component patenting and the new industries developing. Months passed and I never heard what happened in regard to her presentation. After many upsetting emails, with my demanding the minutes of the US Breastfeeding Committee meeting, I was finally told that there never was a presentation. She had given the 3-ring binder to a government official at this meeting and it had never been given back to her. She wouldn't divulge the name of the government official. I threatened to go to a US Breastfeeeding Committee meeting (they don't have that many meetings and its in Washington, DC). She told me that I would not be allowed to attend any meeting of the US Breastfeeding Committee. She couldn't understand my anger. It wasn't her fault. In reflection, I have to laugh, I was so naive back then, so very naive. I really thought that the breastfeeding people were the good guys and the infant formula industry was the bad guys. Life ain't that way. Ethics or lack of ethics exists on both sides. Life is not good versus evil, except in fiction or in organizations that want you to think a certain way. It is one way to recognize propaganda, when what is being stated is put into terms of we are the good, and over there is the evil. Although I do recognize that psychopathy exists in people and in organizations.

Some years after the fiasco with the US Breastfeeding Committee, I was booted off Lactnet (although some years later I was told I could resubscribe but that any post I made to Lactnet would be monitored by the listmothers). The topic of patenting of human milk components was considered off-topic on Lactnet, not to be brought up and discussed. I realized that speaking the truth as you see it (even with references) is not acceptable to people who control organizations...unless it agrees with what those in power are saying. Some people understand this early on in their youth, I guess I never learned that lesson. Of course there is more to this than what I have written, but it's been a long lonely road. And many other people walk that long, lonely road because no two human being are the same or think the same. We are an infinite variety of thoughts, ideas, and personalities. Yet our technological society requires that we meld our individuality for the betterment of the society. But for who's betterment? Society? Or for those in power who try to control society? Am I surprised about the direction, breastfeeding advocacy is going? No. Just surprised about the silence. But god that is funny, why should I be surprised about the silence? This could be an opportunity to change direction but the silence tells me that it isn't going to happen.

Of interest is the PR from the California Milk Processors Board (CMPB) on various market wires.

"We applaud and support the efforts of La Leche League," says Steve James, CMPB executive director. "Got Milk?" and La Leche League care for the health and wellbeing of moms and babies alike. Both organizations believe that breastfeeding is the most natural and effective way of satisfying the needs of the baby. As as the baby gets older, cow's milk is the other best natural source of of food for children. It provides calcium and many essential nutrients growing kids need for strong bones, muscles, teeth, hair, and nails."
http://www.dailyfinance.com/article/got-breastmilk/1599684/

"The CMPB will give 50 percent of royalties from the sale [buttons, postcards, baby onsies, toddler shirts] to the La Leche League ."
http://finance.denverpost.com/mng-denver.denverpost/news/read?G...

The CMPB is funded by all California milk processors (like Dean, Nestle, etc) and administered by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Rather interesting how government and big business combine to run a marketing campaign for the dairy industry. The lack of concern over this licensing deal between LLLI and CMPB means that somehow in the USA we do not associate the dairy industry with the infant formula industry. And yet I would suggest to readers there is a big connection and cow's milk has been and is used around the world as a breastmilk substitute.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

"Got Breastmilk" part 2

2011-03-03T09:36:00.000-05:00

http://www.llli.org/gotbreastmilk

This is La Leche League International's website on the "Got breastmilk" trademark. Click on the underlined statement on top that mentions the trademark and you get the advertising for the dairy industry-a cow's milk container spinning slowly around. It's the advertising image from the "gotmilk" website of the California Milk Processing Board. Well, well, well.

You know this is beyond rational belief, beyond my understanding. Well I guess I now understand why breastfeeding advocates are hook, line and sinker for vitamin D supplements. Hey, it goes with the dairy industry. Vitamin D was a big addition to cow's milk, some years ago. So if ya need it for cow's, ya most certainly need it for the humanmilk industry.

I keep thinking about the mother and father in New Orleans who are serving life sentences because they fed their infant (who was preterm, released early from the hospital in New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina) cow's milk. The judge in New Orleans thought that parents should know not to do this and of course just because they didn't have money is no excuse not to avail themselves of infant formula through WIC or medical care through the public health system. Funny how highly educated people who are doctors, lawyers, and judges have no ability to envision how in disarray the public health care system was in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina (not blaming them, just when you have a major catastrophe even the best system would have major problems). People of wealth and highly educated do not live in the "projects." The reality of wealth and being able to get the care you need at the touch of your cell phone, is not the reality of the "projects/ghettos" of the USA. The USA is a diverse land. People in the USA, like to pretend that our world gives equal opportunity to all. The projects/ghettos of the USA, are a stark contradiction to that belief.

I am totally shocked that a breastfeeding advocacy organization does not have a problem with advertising for the dairy industry at their website. I imagine the silence will rein in the breastfeeding community because that is the answer to any and all problems. So cow's milk isn't considered a breast-milk substitute?? You know that is a curious thought.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

"Got Breastmilk" trademark and La Leche League International

2011-03-02T05:35:00.000-05:00

There has been a licensing agreement between La Leche League International and the California Milk Processor Board. Well, that is what I read on Lactnet. I was truly blown away by this bit of news. There were concerns expressed on Lactnet that this was a violation of the WHO Code for Marketing Breast-Millk Substitutes. But most of the posts to Lactnet by those in the "know" assured Lactnet subscribers that this was not a violation of the WHO Code.
I am not an expert on the WHO Code. I don't think what La Leche League International (LLLI) did was a violation of the Code...technically. Ethically, morally what LLLI did is a violation of the trust mothers and fathers, leaders and members have put into an organization that advocates for breastfeeding. How can I say that?

First, one person, a lawyer on Lactnet, stated that the California Milk Processing Board is an organization of cow's milk dairy farmers. Nope, not so. The California Milk Processing Board is a nonprofit marketing board funded by the California dairy processors. Guess who the number one dairy processor is in the world? Yes, Nestle. The number one dairy processor in California seems to be Dean Foods. The top dairy processors in the world are Nestle, Dannon, Lactalis, Arla, Fonterra, Dairy Farmers of America, Kraft, and Dean (2006 stats). So we have LLLI entering into a licensing agreement with an organization that is essentially the marketing arm of the dairy giant multi-national corporations. In fact the executive director of the California Milk Processing Board in 2010 was Steve James, (who was or is still employed by Dean and Swiss Dairy which is owned by Dean).
"The Dean Foods Dairy Group Division is the largest processor and distributor of milk and other dairy products in the country."
http://www.hispanicprwire.com/print.php?1=in&id=2823

A member of the BOD of LLLI on Lactnet stated that cow's milk is not part of the Code, just formula, bottles, and teats. Not. Cow's milk is a breast-milk substitute in my book. In fact I wrote in my blog a few years ago about a mother who evacuated from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She fed her infant organic cow's milk and the baby died. She and her husband were charged with murder and are in prison for life. In areas of poverty, cow's milk is often used as a substitute for breastmilk because the cost of infant formula is so high. Infants die because of this substitute.

Lactnetters were told to email LLLI, if they wanted the full story. Good luck with that suggestion, I don't get responses from the BOD of LLLI. (of course, I am subjected to the silent treatment by alot of breastfeeding advocates) I hope if anyone gets the official story of this trademark deal that they would email the official story to me. So far the explanations seem rather poor.

Obviously, LLLI doesn't practice the Nestle Boycott or they wouldn't deal with the California Milk Processing Board. Rather ironic that a breastfeeding organization will be financially supporting the marketing organization of companies like Nestle, Dannon, Dean, etc. Isn't that like shooting oneself in the foot? And for what reason is it necessary to have the trademark, Got Breastmilk? Is La Leche League now a business entity?

I am deeply saddened. I was a La Leche League leader for 10 years. My heart and soul breathed in this organization and I treasured the moments I had with moms and babies. What has gone wrong with this organization? Are they ignorant of marketing strategies of multi-national corporations? Do they not care what others may think of this licensing agreement? What made this organization think they were dealing with dairy farmers?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Serendipity: addendum to Breastfeeding: the lost art

2011-02-27T07:52:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's blog shared a patent invented by human milk researchers Ardythe L. Morrow, David S. Newburg, and Guillermo M. Ruiz-Palacios. Their research on human milk resulted in creating an invention that could be an ingredient in infant formula as well as a nutritional composition, a rehydration solution, etc. The Children's Hospital Medical Center (Cincinnati Ohio), Instituto Nacional De Ciencias Medicas Y Nutricion (Mexico D.F. Mexico), and the University of Massachusetts (Boston, Masschusetts) are the owners of the patent. I kept thinking about this and realized there is more to this than meets the eye. According to a document from the Cincinnati Children's (not-for-profit hospital and research center),

"Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is a collection site for the Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio, located in Columbus, Ohio [a HMBANA milk bank]... In 2006 the Center for Breastfeeding Medicine received a grant from the Ronald McDonald House Charities to cover the start of costs of becoming a depot site..." Cincinnati Children's have maintained the facilities since that start-up.
http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/svc/alpha/l/lactation/donation.htm

In a paper written by SR Geraghty et al. (as well as Ardythe Morrow) in the Journal of Human Lactation 2005 Feb;219101:59-66 entitled, "The development of a research human milk bank." They state in their abstract: "Donation [human milk] to the Cincinnati Children's Research Human Milk Bank are accepted within the context of ongoing, hypothesis-driven research or on an ad hoc basis. Donors must give informed consent, and scientists wishing to use the samples must have Institutional review board approval for their use."

I have alot of questions about this. But having dealt with HMBANA before, I realize that they are not going to answer any of my emails. I emailed various directors and the executive director years ago (about the year 2000). They answered some of my questions but then refused to answer any further questions--they didn't like my "tone" of questions.

The Institutional review board obviously approved the use of human milk for these researchers to create a patent for use in infant formula, as well as other food stuffs. What organization do these reviewers come from? The hospital itself? Obviously milk donated for the HMBANA milk bank in Columbus is kept separate from that which is donated to the research milk bank. How does this work? What steps are done to keep this separate? Does the consent form that donors sign for research on their milk, state the possibility of patenting and that the patenting may enrich the infant formula industry? Don't think I will get my answers but it is just good to write them down and mull it over in my mind.

I guess the serendipitous moment was running across a recent article on "Eats on Feets," the organization that connects through social-networking mothers who have extra breastmilk with mothers who need it for their infants. In this article published in February 21, 2011, they interview Dr. Sheela R. Geraghty, the medical director of the Center for Breastfeeding Medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Yes, the same author of the article in the Journal of Human Lactation (2005 Feb;21(1) called, "The development of a research human milk bank." I suppose the interview is to give a "balanced" view of the concept of Eats on Feets. Dr. Geraghty states in this article, "People ask me all the time about sharing (breast) milk. I unfortunately have to say we're not there yet in saying it's OK." The previous statement in this article before the doctor's comment was that health professionals are warning of the risks of sharing breastmilk via the internet.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110220/NEWS01/102210324/

Hm...the irony...I am left without a word to describe this situation. I wrote warnings about this 10 years ago. No one liked my "tone." There is a real truth to the fact that we silence our messengers.

We cannot know the intentions of the receipient of that donor milk. It is the essence of human nature, that some people will deceive us by either not telling us the whole truth or they will outright lie to us. We become a nation of many rules because truth is often destroyed in the interest of getting ahead financially or professionally.
Copyright 2011 Valerie McClain

Breastfeeding: the lost art

2011-02-26T07:23:00.000-05:00

"The deeper you can manipulate living structures the more you can control food and medicine."
--Dr. Vandana Shiva

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/vshiva4_int.html

The more we pursue the dream of the magic bullet to cure all ills, the more illusive the dream. Science pursues knowledge of the mammary gland and tears apart each living component. There must be one thing in human milk that is the cure. Through microfiltration and powerful microscopes we probe and prod to find the one magical component that controls health and well-being. Reductionism is a scientific illusion of understanding because ultimately nature is a matrix of multiple actions and reactions. Change one small thing and sometimes a monster of a problem is created. So our science thinks it can work at the molecular level without ramification. We are brave and reckless explorers of the inner realm of cell life. Even far worse for life on this planet, is that this science has become part of the corporate world of profit and monopolization. I feel what Dr. Vandana Shiva writes in regard to India and the monopolization of seed and the threat to human diversity is also what is happening with the monopolization of human milk components. It is a threat to the survival of breastfeeding. Human milk is as diverse as the people of this planet. It is the rightful genetic inheritance of each child. Yet we are willing to let our scientists grab it, manipulate it, and pronounce discovery. Yes, discovery, what the heck is that? Women have known for thousands of years, that breastfeeding was survival of their infants. Mother to daughter through generations of diverse cultures, have taught what now seems unteachable: the art, faith, and value of breastfeeding. The infant formula industry spreads doubt, injects its "scientific" understanding of its products, in a power grab for more customers. Human milk research has become the foundation of the infant formula industry. Breastfeeding advocacy will go no where without understanding how seriously undermined breastfeeding has become because human milk is now a commodity of interest to the medical, food, and infant formula industries.

There is a new patent called, "Oligosaccharide compositions and use thereof in the treatment of infection," patent # 7893041, filed in 2004, just published by the US Patent and Trademark Office (February 22, 2011). The inventors are Ardythe L. Morrow, David S. Newburg, and Guillermo M. Ruiz-Palacios and the patent is owned by the Children's Hospital Medical Center (Cincinnati, Ohio), Instituto Nacional De Ciencias Medicas Y Nutricion (Mexico), and the University of Massachusetts. Human milk banks are great providers for research.

"The oligosaccharides agents can also be added to other compositions. For example they can be added to infant formula, a nutritional composition, a rehydration solution, a dietary maintenance or supplement for elderly individuals or immunocompromised individuals."

Human milk was studied and they found: "Thus specific combinations of oligosaccharides are expected to be effective in treating and preventing cholera, Campylobacter diarrhea, calicivirus diarrhea, Candida albicans infection, HIV infection, and other disorders."

and, "Human milk may be considered a natural and efficacious 'nutriceutical,' ie., a model food that conveys immunologic benefits."

They aren't using real human milk oligosaccharides. They will genetically engineer them by using yeast, or some pathogen (e.coli). So because human milk is known to treat and prevent these diseases (gee to bad the CDC doesn't know this, maybe policy would be changed regarding HIV positive mothers being "allowed" to breastfeed), our scientists jump to the conclusion that using a component(s) of human milk genetically engineered will do the identical thing. Yeah, good luck on that.

So here we are, a public misinformed regarding infant feeding. And here are human milk researchers creating gmo human milk components for the infant formula industry and the pharmaceutical industry. The patent states in the beginning:
"Consumption of human milk is one of the most cost-effective strategies known to medicine for protecting infants against morbidity and mortality due to infectious disease."

Consumption of human milk...what is that? Not breastfeeding, welcome to the 21st century!
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

in the still of the night...

2011-02-20T07:12:00.000-05:00

In the still of the night, amidst wakeful thoughts and drifting dreams, I reflect on the black and white mentality that pervades current thought. The world spins according to the spinners, the media. We are a world of players, on a stage set for self-destruct. Who can argue against the values that are directed by those in power? The men and women, who use spin to make logic stand on its head. We are directed to dance to the tune of the corporate melody, a melody so sweet, so sickeningly sweet that our minds rush from the sugar high. We crash, as all good things must come to an end. In the dim, swirling fog of twilight thought, I realize the world is not within the grasp of those who shy away from the sunlight of curious thought. The music is not so sweet. It is the wild and open field of human endeavor. Variations and more variations, always changing. Never one melody and one beat. It is millions of heartbeats and thoughts, intertwined and woven. We are a human race of many thoughts and many visions. Stop one thought, stop one vision, and the river of life becomes a river of death. And this is my dream of where we are going, when we refuse to listen to the beating of the many hearts and minds of the world. This is where we are going, when the only heartbeat is the dance of the corporate world. The world of dreams is spinning and spinning, its sweetness turning into sourness, our world upside-down. The twilight dreaming becomes a nightmare turned into reality.

The sun has risen on a new day and still I see the patents, unending. Reading, reading, and staring at the world of intellectual property rights. Property, who would think that word had so much meaning? Onward dear readers, onward to the valley of invention and property rights and profits. There is another US patent to look at, and it's called, "Method for preventing or treating respiratory infections and acute otitis media in infants using Lactobacillus rhamnosus LGG and Bifidobacterium lactis Bb-12," patent # 7862808. It is owned by Mead Johnson Nutrition Company, filed in 2005, with inventors Erika Isolauri and Seppo Salminen of Finland.

"In a meta-analysis of data from multiple studies, results indicate that breastfeeding may have a positive effect on the frequency of both infant respiratory infection and AOM [allergic otitis media]. Specifically, one study indicated that the feeding of many currently available infant formulas may be associated with a 3.6-fold increase in risk of infant hospitalization for respiratory infection when compared to at least four months of exclusive breastfeeding. Bachrach, V., et al., Arch. Pediatr. Adolesc. Med. 57:237-43 (2003). Additionally, infants who are breastfed have been shown to have significantly fewer (about 50%) episodes of AOM than do infants who are exclusively formula-fed. Duffy, et al., Pediatr. 100(4):E7 (1997). These differences may be attributed to the fact that human milk promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria such as Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria. Duffy, et al., Dig. Dis. Sci. 44(8):1499-1505 (1999).

So there was a 3.6-fold increase in hospitalization for respiratory infection if an infant is formula fed. Parents know about this? Nope. Is it on a label on the can that the parents buy? Nope. Uninformed public. Let me see, if a product is known to cause an increase in hospitalization, one would think there would be more regulation of the product, possibly making it a prescription only product since it is a serious risk for infants? Nope. This patent also state that "in the US, 53% of lactating mothers introduce formula before babies are 1 week old." Of course this was filed in 2005, so old statistic but wonder if there has been much change in this statistic? The patent also states that, "by 4 months of age [breastfed infants] 81% receive formula on a regular basis." And that fewer that 5% of infants are being breastfed at 12 months of age." All this data on infant formula regarding breastfeeding. Interesting.

This patent mentions another patent (patent # 6613549) called, "Probiotic therapy for newborns," owned by Urex Biotech of Canada. Mead Johnson mention it because this patent uses probiotics in a different way, for treating intestinal infections specifically. Again, breastfeeding gives infants natural, live probiotic elements, unlike infant formula.

"Bifidobacteria have been shown to effectively treat intestinal infections in Chernobyl patients in Russia, where the intestine has been damaged by exposure to radiation (unpublished data)."

"In studies of acute diarrhea (bacterial and rotaviral) in children 6 to 36 months of age, a Lactobacillus reuteri probiotic was given at 10e10 and 10e11 colony-forming units daily for 5 days and found to significantly reduce the duration of watery diarrhea compared with placebo (Shornikova et al. J. Pediatr. Gastroenterol. Nutr. 1997, 24: 399-404; and Shornikova et al. Peediatr. Infect. Dis. 1997, 16: 1103-1107)."

And of interest may be the patent called, "Method of enhancing cognitive ability in infant fed DHA containing baby-food compositions," patent # 7413759, owned by Beech Nut Nutrition Corporation with inventors Eileen E. Birch et al (long list which includes Dennis R Hoffman and Richard C. Theuer). I believe it was Birch's research that got the bandwagon rolling to get DHA included in formulas. By the way this patent was developed by a grant from the NIH (grant # HD22380). " Thus the US Government may have certain rights in this invention." If one goes to the Beechnut website, one will note that they are partnered or collaborating with Similiac (infant formula company--Abbott). Of interest is that this patent seems directed at breastfeeding,

"Evidence indicates that breast-fed infants have a long-term advantage in cognitive development over formula-fed infants."

"In various embodiments, feeding an infant a composition of the present teaching can commence as early as an infant will ingest semi-solid food, which can be, in non-limiting example, as early as about 4 months of age, about 5 months of age, or about 6 months of age."

"In various aspects a composition can be fed to an infant as a supplement to breastfeeding or as a substitute for breastfeeding."

It would seem that the baby formula/food industry is targeting breastfeeding by some of their comments in the patents. In the still of the night, the fog-shrouded dream is of mothers dancing to the tune of an industry. Dancing without knowing that the spiraling staircase to heaven has been spliced and glued with a new genetic blueprint.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

into the Belly of the Beast

2011-02-15T06:37:00.000-05:00

Headlines made around the world, "Breastfeeding study raises doubts over guidelines." From Malaysia to Tehran to Pakistan to Australia, to the USA; we, the people, read online or in newspapers that exclusive breastfeeding is a doubtful practice.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=234202

Well, my God, it was written in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) and it must be so. Poof, the experts are now doubtful about exclusive breastfeeding. Funny how it is that this research makes news around the world. Yeah, not so funny to those of us who have preached exclusive breastfeeding to mothers and fathers. Many of us who have worked with breastfeeding mothers and know how the introduction of foods and lots of food replaces a perfect food for infants with substances more processed, less nutritious. It often short circuits breastfeeding and leads to early or untimely weaning.

Let's dig a little deeper, who are these researchers and what did they research? The authors are Mary Fewtrell, David C Wilson, Ian Booth, and Alan Lucas and they wrote an "Analysis" in the BMJ. According to the BMJ in its instructions for authors, "analysis papers are narrative articles in which we [the BMJ] seek to inform and promote debate on important contentious medical, scientific and health policy issues." Yes, I love a good debate, clears the head of cobwebs and can often led to better understanding. So these authors determined (as well as the BMJ) that exclusive breastfeeding is debatable, a contentious issue in health care policy. Well, they sure stirred up a hornet's nest, when this narrative article hit the press world-wide. I am sure it made the baby food industry delighted. "Let there be Doubt."
Is the practice of exclusive breastfeeding harmful? No, my understanding is that exclusive breastfeeding is beneficial to mothers and babies and society at large. Mothers who are resource poor, do not have to depend on buying other foods, saving them money. Mothers who exclusively breastfeed also are able to suppress ovulation for longer times, thus preventing untimely pregnancies. The only harm that is quite obvious to me is that exclusive breastfeeding if practiced world-wide would impact the profits of the baby food/formula industry. Is this debate about health or about economics?
How can I say this? One of the authors, Alan Lucas of the UK is listed as an inventor in a US patent and a US patent application. The patent dates back to 1987 called, "Infant foods," patent # 4753926 and is owned by Farley (a baby food company in the UK). The other is a patent application called, "Baby feeding formula and system," application #20090175979 filed in 2009. this application is assigned to/owned by the University College London. It is a baby formula that reduces the long term adverse health effects of previous formulas. Supposedly it will reduce the occurrence of insulin resistance, obesity and atherosclerosis in later life.
I think it is most interesting that this researcher believes that exclusive breastfeeding is debatable. And that a university owns this particular patent application.

An interesting statistic I came upon the other day was an article from 2003 (about then) that stated that "annual patent licensing revenues forecast for that year in the USA were $500 billion. Maybe we ought to read about inventor success stories.
http:..www.inventionstatistics.com/Inventor_Income_Inventor_Success_Stories.html

Patenting is an enormous business and may be the driving force of why some research makes headlines and some research is buried. We risk much as a community, a global society when we allow the Beast to devour our institutions, our research communities, our journals, our media.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Medela and its patents and patent applications

2011-02-13T07:53:00.000-05:00

"Men have become the tools of their tools."
Henry David Thoreau

I should stay away from Lactnet (a professional listserve for lactation consultants and breastfeeding advocates). The discussion is on Medela and the WHO Code. Its a very nice discussion, nice being the operative word. Yes, in my opinion a very bland, good-girl conversation. Let's not get heated, upset over the issues of the marketing of artificial nipples by Medela and their thumbing their noses at the WHO Code. Let's wring our hands and wonder how could this possibly happen to a company that has supported breastfeeding all these years.
First question I would ask to breastfeeding advocates, what do you mean supportive of breastfeeding. Define your words. Breastfeeding? Or is the correct terminology breastmilkfeeding? Supportive? What support are we talking about? The gifting, the donations this company gave in the early days to LCs, to Conferences, and to breastfeeding organizations, ie. La Leche League International?. I remember those early days. As an LC, I was a pump rental station (for a few years). I had Ameda Egnell pumps to rent and decided to also provide Medela pumps (because the local hospitals were only giving out Medela pump kits which were not compatible with Ameda's pumps). The Medela representative came to my house and gave me over $100 worth of equipment as a "gift" for opening up a rental station. Wow--Ameda Egnell didn't give me gifts for opening a rental station but then again their rental to me wasn't as expensive as Medela's.
We had local breastfeeding conferences and Medela readily gave money to help out on our organizations expenses. I was so very grateful as a LLL leader to have the special Medela pump program for mother's who could not afford breastpumps or other breastfeeding equipment. It helped a number of moms in this area (one of the economically poorer counties of Florida). I thought it was generous of the company and I felt very positively about the company. Do gifts come with strings attached, those invisible strings that pull at our hearts? Back then, I would have said that Medela was supportive of breastfeeding. But was the reasoning because the company was supportive of breastfeeding? Or because the gifts swayed me to believe that this gift-giving was a symbol of their altruism? Overtime, as the pump rentals got more and more expensive and their other products, too; I found myself disenchanted. Although it wasn't just the price of the pumps, but that it seemed that the more breastfeeding equipment we had at our disposal, the less breastfeeding happened. I gave up the pump rental station when I began to question my own motives regarding pumps. Survival as a business meant keeping those pumps rented. So when a mom came to me with a request for a pump, my thoughts were a jumble of contradictions. "I need to rent this pump to keep the business afloat but the mom doesn't really need a pump." What to do? Let her rent it because she thinks this is the answer? How do you dissuade someone who has been convinced by the medical profession that this is the answer to all her breastfeeding problems? I found that the only answer for me was to get out of the pump rental business. I often wonder if I was the only LC who found this so difficult? I saw the usefulness of pumps for a small set of breastfeeding problems. Many of the moms I saw did not need a pump but needed intensive coaching regarding the reality of babies: the need for closeness and nursing often. cluster feeding, the total intensity of mothering. Pumping in my opinion is a risk factor for early weaning from the breast when instituted for the wrong reasons. Over time as an LC, I noticed that more and more women with newborn babies had breastpumps (some horrible pumps and some incredibly expensive pumps). So instead of discussing breastfeeding with these mothers, I had to spend more time going over pumping, storage, etc. Often these moms were not going back to work right away neither did they have any particular problem with breastfeeding, in fact many had purchased pumps during their pregnancy. So it was their "just in case" product, similiar to breastfeeding mothers who purchase infant formula...just in case. Doubt is already built-in to new mothers regarding breastfeeding. More and more pregnant mothers told me in exactly the same words, "I am going to try to breastfeed." Huh? Do we say that we are going to try and walk today but if it's too difficult we won't be walking? Or do we tell our boyfriends/husbands "I am going to try to have sex." But if it doesn't work....like if its painful or whatever, I'll just opt out of that part of my biology? Interesting what we are willing to do and not do dependent on our belief system.
This is what is not brought up in discussions on Lactnet regarding Medela and the WHO Code and its marketing of artificial nipples. Medela has patent applications and patents that are worth looking at to get a better understanding of the company. First they do have a patent on an "Artificial nipple." Is it the same one they are marketing in violation of the WHO Code. I am not sure but the inventor is Brian H. Silver and it was published in 2010 (filed in 2003). Patent # 7712617. The patent reminds me of the way infant formula patents reads--the praise of human milk/breastfeeding and then of course the reality of our world where so many women don't or can't breastfeeding. "For various reasons, however, exclusive breastfeeding is not always possible. An example of this would be where a nursing mother cannot produce enough breast milk to feed her infant." That is a common thread in all infant formula patents--nursing mothers who cannot produce enough milk. This theme irritates me because almost all women can produce milk for their infants. The factors that cause a woman to not produce enough milk are: their lack of seeing breastfeeding within their own families and within their culture, medical interventions, drug interventions, separation of mothers and babies, birthing practices/drugs, lack of lactation support from family and the community.
Okay, lets look at a patent application owned by Medela with inventors Peter Edwin Hartmann, et al. It's called, "Human Milk Fortifiers and Methods for Their Production," patent application 2008187619 filed in 2005. Their first claim on their application. It appears to be a claim on a human milk component for use in making human milk fortifiers. I have no legal training, so that may not be what they are claiming. But it is odd that part of this patent is on methods of claim but some of it seems to verge on making claims on an unnamed component or components of human milk.

"1. Human milk fortifier comprising at least one human component based on a product directly or indirectly derived from human mammary secretion during at least one of the following periods: non-pregnant period, pregnant period, lactating period, involuting period."

The question we must ask ourselves is what happens when companies create human milk fortifiers. This is a good thing--we know this as breastfeeding advocates. But I can't help but believe that once we make products from human milk than the necessity of breastfeeding becomes less apparent. What happens to companies who market fortifiers (like the infant formula companies)? The market has to expand to more customers because of the monies invested in a product. That means that fortifiers for premature babies go home with them and are not just in use in the NICU.

Peter Hartmann, researcher for Medela, also is a listed inventor to other patent applications at the US Patent & Trademark Office: "Treatment of mother's milk, "Method for Analysing & Treating Human Milk and System Thereof." It appears that research is directed towards better pasteruization methods, better fat content, etc. All very praiseworthy attempts in regards to helping premature babies survive. Yet I am troubled by this, too. What do we really know about human milk and why are we so willing to tinker with it? Oh it has too little fat? Not enough of this component or that component...so we think we know better than nature? And will all this tinkering only happen with premature babies or will we expand these manipulations to all babies?

Okay, what about the patent called, "Method for isolating cells from mammary secretion," patent # 7776586? Owned by Carag AG-Michael Larsson of the family who owns Medela bought the company in 1999 and the company is involved in joint ventures with Medela among several Universities-University of Western Australia, University of Zurich, University of Gotherburg, University of Belgrade. The inventors are Mark Derek Cregan and Peter Edwin Hartmann. This patent is about a method for isolating progenitor cells [stem cells] from breastmilk. Stem cells have enormous value in the medical market. The patent was filed in 2004 and in 2010 was finally published. This patent isn't about ownership but a method to collect stem cells from breastmilk. Should we be troubled by this? I have alot of reservations about a company that ignores the WHO Code and understands very deeply the value of human milk (note I am not saying breastfeeding). Most of the infant formula companies in their patents state the awesome nature of human milk. Yet their business is to create products that compete against breastfeeding. The infant formula industry wants to create a safer, better infant formula. Likewise Medela wants to create a better, safer human milk (fortifier). Where goes this thinking? Its so right but so wrong.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

The shared values of infant feeding

2011-02-09T06:38:00.000-05:00

"Good Food, Good Life," good grief another message from Nestle to consumers around the world. The bluebirds are nesting under the eaves of our house and creating "our" shared values. My eyes glaze over reading about my shared values with a multi-national corporation that provides the world with food products for the young and old. This is a corporation that espouses the creation of shared values promoted by Mark Kramer of Harvard University. How does a multi-national corporation share its values? Well, in the USA, Nestle [besides ConAgra, Food Lion, General Mills, Kellogg, Kraft, Kroger, Pepsi, WalMart, etc] is partnered with Feeding America, a leading organization that feeds the hungry. Yeah, there are actually hungry people in the USA. Government spending on bombs and bullets, leaves very little left in the budget for food. So we rely on multi-national corporations to feed our poor. Yeah its a tax write-off, too. But don't let your mind drift away from the value of gift-giving, of sharing values.
Nestle also gives farmers free training and assistance, some 594,233 farmers (according to the US Nestle website). They also have an "Adopt-A-School" program to share their values with the school systems. And a program called Healthy Steps for Healthy Lives which offers teachers tools to "educate" students.
Since Nestle is so willing to share their values, might they be interested in sharing their patents on human milk components? Their current slogan says it all, "Nothing else is breast milk. Nothing else is Good Start.
Nestle isn't the only multi-national corporation sharing its values to the world. Mead Johnson has a mission: to nourish the world's children for the best start in life." Their project, "Feeding Hope," in the Philipines is giving infants and children the best start in life. Of course, if one understands the value of breastfeeding, one might want to debate this with this company. In the USA, Mead Johnson gave a gift of $250,00 donation to Zeeland Community Hospital [home of a Mead Johnson manufacturing facility] to create family-oriented, home-like patient rooms.
Abbott Nutritionals is "committed to helping give every baby the very strongest beginning." Their motto is "Strong Moms." They also are sharing their values world wide.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32899377/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/

And PBM (now acquired by Perrigo for $808 million) maker of store brand infant formulas shares its values around the world. It's owners gave $5 million to diabetes research. They donated products for Hurricane Katrina survivors, and some $250,00 of infant formula for Tsunami Relief.

When infant formula corporations share their values world-wide, whose values are shared? Family values? Community values? National values? Business values? How can we be surprised that the world seems to value the artificial, the store bought items over what use to be normal human behavior such as breastfeeding?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Nestle invention? Osteoprotegerin in milk--human

2011-01-29T09:09:00.000-05:00

"In the studies leading to the present invention, it has now surprisingly been found that in addition to its presence in e.g. the bone tissues, osteoprotegerin may also be found in human breast milk."

Surprise, surprise, surprise, I love surprises, don't you?

"The present invention pertains to osteoprotegerin obtainable from milk sources, in particular human and bovine milk."

Patent # 7749960 owned by Nestec, S.S. [Nestle] called, "Osteoprotegerin in milk," filed in October 2003. Inventors are Karine Vidal, Peter Van Den Broek, Elizabeth Offord Cavin, and Anne Donnet-Hughes. This invention is to be used in the treatment of disorders associated with bone remodeling or immune disorders. The list of disorders is long and interesting: "allergy, autoimmunity, inflammatory bowel disease, systemic autoimmune conditions, dysregulation of cell proliferation and apoptosis and immunopathological conditions of the skin, the oral cavity, the gastrointestinal, urogenital or respiratory tracts." Also, " disorders associated with prematurity and/or low birth weight."

The patent goes on to state, "In particular individuals, such as newborns, require osteoprotegerin for the development of bone material and/or the immune system..." Nestle will be providing a pharmaceutical composition, a food material, or an enteral composition made from this material--osteoprotegerin from human milk...

The patent is focused on human milk not bovine milk for obtaining osteoprotegerin. "Human breast milk samples (10-60ml) from healthy mothers were collected up to 17 days post-partum underster sterile conditions." Who supplied Nestle with breastmilk? Did breastfeeding mothers understand who their milk was going to? Were they paid or did they just donate it?

The patent goes on about the cloning of human milk osteoprotegerin in yeast-Yarrowia lipolytica. Their first claim, " A food material comprising an osteoprotegerin isolated from human or bovine milk or colostrum." They have a number of claims in this patent for methods of making the food material derived from human and bovine osteoprotegerin (although I see nothing in patent related to bovine milk). But their first claim is for the MATERIAL they have isolated from human milk. Ownership of human milk cells by Nestle, should we be surprised? Should we be surprised that preterm infants have to have fortified human milk because supposedly they don't get enough calcium? Who owns the research and why do we believe that research?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Heart disease

2011-01-25T04:32:00.001-05:00

My Dad died a few years ago from a stroke after a long struggle with heart disease. In the late "80's he had a heart attack in the ER and survived. The medical staff said he survived because of a new drug they called Pac Man. Much later I would find out that it was a drug that had been genetically engineered to dissolve clots in the arteries. (called TPA, tissue plasminogen activator, by Genentech) He went on to have a quadruple bypass and did rather well for awhile. At some point they gave him a pacemaker and he gradually spent more and more time at doctors' offices to his increasing dismay and distress. He refused alot of procedures and his heart doctor wrote him a letter describing him as non-compliant. My Dad's interpretation of this letter was that the doctor was refusing him as a patient because he won't do what he was told. My Dad was 83 years old. He never talked much about his by-pass surgery but he let us all know that he would never, ever do THAT again. By-pass surgery usually holds up for an average of 12 or 13 years and the doc felt it was time to do it again. My Dad thought otherwise. Yep, that was my Dad, feisty, even as his body gradually slowed down. In 2009, he became ill and went to the ER, was admitted to intensive care. He contracted MRSA and was put into isolation where he had to be restrained because he started to flip out. I think it was the drugs, the isolation, and a disease that limits oxygen to the brain that caused him to flip out. It was horrifying to be a witness to what I perceived as brutal medical procedures to my father. My Dad had never wanted extraordinary means to keep him alive. He fought the pic lines and the IVs. He refused to eat. He lost an enormous amount of weight. The family literally had to fight in the hallways with doctors and nurses who believed that every drug , every bit of medical technology must be used to keep him alive. How dare the family decide for this man, that he would rather not have all this done. How dare the family view this as torture of a man who had lived an active, caring life, and had always chosen a path of less medical interventions. I felt like he was a prisoner of the hospital system and getting him to hospice was a battle that seemed so unnecessary and emotionally wrenching. I have memories of standing in the hospital hallway in tears while a physician's assistant and a nurse questioned my motives for demanding that the hospital release my Dad to hospice.

His last days in hospice were a blessing. He literally got better, he started to eat and respond like himself. On the day, I was to take him home because he got so much better, he had a stroke. He died a few days later in peace. It was two months of hospitalization, with a brief interval of a nursing home. I would never wish this situation on anyone. But in walking the hallways of the hospital and nursing homes, I saw many families going through the same journey. Heart disease impacts many families. The World Health Organization states it is the leading cause of death in the world. It is the leading cause of death in the USA. The CDC states that in 2010, heart disease will cost the US $316.4 billion.
http://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm

What do we know about heart disease? What is the relationship between the foods we eat and our lifestyles that cause so many of us to suffer the same disease? Heart disease just doesn't happen overnight. And we now know that what we eat, how much we eat, our activity levels, and our emotional well-being impact whether or not we acquire this disease. Yet what seems surprising to me is that there is so little public discussion of how infant feeding impacts heart and circulatory health. How does the decision to use infant formula rather than breastfeeding impact a infant's long term heart health?

There are of course, some inventions/patents in which researchers have some ideas about preventing heart disease through the use of altered cow's milk or human milk components (genetically engineered). For example, patent #7863002 called "Breeding and milking cows for milk free of .beta.-casein A.sup.1" filed in 2009 by the A2 Corporation Limited of New Zealand. They are creating a milk free of the .beta.-casein A.sup.1 protein. "Such milk is useful for the prevention or treatment of coronary heart disease." I gather that for years many infants have gotten cow's milk that has the beta-casein that is implicated in coronary heart disease or so the research implicates. We know that beta-casein from human milk is different. Is this company using a beta-casein that is more similar to human milk? Not sure, but from statements from other companies, one might suspect that they might be attempting to create a beta-casein similiar to human beta casein. According to patent # 5739407 called, "Human .beta.-casein, process for producing it and use, thereof," filed in 1993 and owned by Symbicom aktiebolag of Sweden, "The main use of the recombinant human .beta.-casein is a constituent of infant formula." Ventria Biosciene in patent #7718851 filed in 2008 states, "In addition it has been reported that breast-fed infants have a different growth pattern than formula-fed infants(Dewey et al., 1992; Dewey et al., 1993), and epidemiological studies that they have a lower incidence of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and coronary heart disease."
Agennix Inc. of Houston in patent # 7026295 filed in 2003 states, "Lactoferrin in the reduction of circulating cholesterol, vascular inflammation, artherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease..." Agennix manufactures recombinant human lactoferrin (human milk component genetically engineered) and is doing clinical studies on the use of human lactoferrin for wound management. In patent # 6455687 called "Human lactoferrin" owned by FerroDynamics and dated 2001 they state, "Lactoferrin can be used to sequester iron implicated in heart disease. By sequestering iron that promotes the oxidation of lipids, which when oxidized can clog arteries, lactoferrin can aid in reducing heart attacks."
How we are fed as infants will either increase or decrease our risk of heart disease. I do not believe my Dad was breastfed as an infant or if he was it was in a very limited manner. It would seem to me that those billions of dollars we are spending on heart disease could be decreased, if we had a black box label on infant formula and included heart disease as one of the many risks of infant formula.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

A black box label on infant formula

2011-01-19T06:10:00.000-05:00

"You can't make me breastfeed!!" The woman screamed those words into our WIC office from the hallway. She felt that the WIC breastfeeding promotion was an ultimatum. I am not sure why she came to that conclusion. No one in our office had seen her before. So it seemed that the rumor-mill among the clients had changed the promotion theme to an ultimatum. I don't remember what happened after that, what we said or did. But I know we felt like we were walking on "eggshells." How does one turn society around when that society is walking down a self-destructive path? Do we force the issue? And we all know that force/power may work overtly but that human nature does not respond well to being told what to do. We are a creature that yearns to be free. No one responds well to being told what to do or how to think. Thus, a government program that is about promoting breastfeeding becomes in the minds of some people another vestige of the government's power trip. I wonder now, if women who feel so strongly against breastfeeding, were to understand the underpinning of the infant formula industry; might they change their minds? The research has and is creating a formula to imitate human milk. Genetic engineering has created the open door to creating "novel" human milk components to be placed in baby formulas. So moms, if ya don't breastfeed, then by golly our scientists will make sure your baby gets the synthetic version. Yet, where is the safety data on these gene constructs placed in formulas for our most vulnerable population? Not anywhere that I can see because there is this belief perpetuated by the FDA that a genetically engineered organism is identical to the real thing. Thus there is no need to look at safety issues. So our society is allowing our infants to be the lab rats, the guinea pigs to a massive scientific experiment. No need to label the ingredients that are genetically engineered. Parents are left in the dark about what they are feeding their babies and their children.
After reading so many patents on infant formula and their use of these "synthetic" human milk components, I find myself very troubled. Over the years, there is a repeat pattern that appears in these patents. There is a problem with infant formula and we need to reinvent the formula--repeated over and over again. So how much damage has been done over the years? What is the financial cost, not only in terms of the product itself, but in the medical bills and hospitalizations caused by a product that damages the gut, is sometimes contaminated with toxins and pathogens that kill? Now that the industry seeks to imitate human milk's healthful benefits, and no longer considers its product just a food, shouldn't this product be considered a drug in need of regulation? How many products on the marketplace that can cause death, acute illness, and long-term health problems stay on the market without a listing of those possibilities for the consumers? Shouldn't parents at least see on an infant formula can a black box label of the risks to their infant: diarrhea, allergies, short gut, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, decreased learning abilities, etc. All these serious health effects are mentioned in the infant formula patents. Why do we believe that infant formula is a benign product?

a "NOVEL" infant formula
Patent #78675411, "Compositions & methods of formulation for enteral formulas containing sialic acid" owned by Mead Johnson filed in 2003

"While human breast milk contains substantial amounts of sialic acid, most infant formulas contain less than 25% of the sialic acid found in colostrum. Moreover, 70% of the sialic acid in formulas is glycoprotein-bound, unlike human breast milk in which 75% of sialic acid is bound to oligosaccharides. See Heine, W., et al., Monatsschr Kinderheilkd 141:946-50 (1993), Wang, B., et al., Am J Clin Nutr 74:510-5 (2001), and Nakano, T., et al, Acta Paediatr Taiwan 42:11-17 (2001). Not surprisingly, the accumulation of sialic acid by breast-fed infants is generally higher than for formula-fed infants. See Wang, B., et al., J Pediatr 138:914-6 (2001). Evidence suggests that N-acetyineuraminic acid (NANA, or sialic acid) is important in the development and function of the neonatal brain where it is a major component of gangliosides. See Carlson, S. E., Am J Clin Nutr 41:720-6 (1985), Morgan, B. and Winnick, M., J Nutr 110:416-24 (1980), Svennerholm, L., et al., Biochim Biophys Acta 1005:109-17 (1989), and Wang, B., et al., Comp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol 435-9 (1998). Therefore, infants fed commercial formulas may not be acquiring sufficient quantities of a nutrient important for early development. "

A problem with the development and function of the neonatal brain? I thought DHA and ARA was suppose to resolve that issue? So add brain dysfunction to the list of risks? Looks like they have scientific research to back up their claims but will parents ever understand the risks?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Why is breastfeeding so damn difficult?

2011-01-15T06:32:00.000-05:00

Pyne's laughter filled the house of my mother-in-law. She looked at me and continued to laugh. "You want to do what?" "You want to help women to breastfeed?" And then the laughter started up again, a very infectious laughter. I found myself laughing. Was I laughing at myself and my pretentiousness? Or was it her laughter that surrounded me with the joy of her world. She wasn't laughing at me but as she explained to me the idea of teaching/helping a woman breastfeed was unheard of in Liberia. Pyne had immigrated from Liberia to New York City to escape the violence of her country. She was a beautiful woman. She was tall and elegant with high cheekbones, sparkling brown eyes, and skin a velvety brown. Pyne tried to explain to me that women just know breastfeeding, they don't have to be taught. Like walking and talking, breastfeeding is just known. I tried explaining the US reality of women unable to breastfeed, of all the difficulties that women encountered. And she just stared at me and shook her head in wonder. Culture shock for both of us. In the short time that I got to know Pyne she shared her knowledge of cooking plaintain-delicious. She showed my young daughters and I how to wrap on our bodies a simple dress, a Fanti. She talked of her home in Liberia, of encountering a Black Mambo snake on the way to school. She laughed often and her stories enthralled us all. That was years ago.
I still relive the laughter but also the clash of our cultures, particularly regarding our views on breastfeeding. She thought I was ridiculous to think that breastfeeding was this difficult behavior. And I just couldn't get over the idea that some cultures view breastfeeding like walking and talking, it just happens because that is what humans do.
How did our culture get so wacked, so out of balance that breastfeeding requires expensive gadgets (breast pumps), drugs, and some paid expert to get it to work? What is it about our environment that short circuits breastfeeding? I still feel the shock of having Pyne think I was ridiculous for thinking breastfeeding difficult or that women might need assistance to breastfeed. Yet, now 25 years later, I see only too well that whether breastfeeding succeeds or fails is very much tied to a mother's perception of reality. If her reality, her faith, her knowledge is steeped in technology; it will be incredibly difficult for her to take a leap of faith and believe that breastfeeding is like walking and talking.
From the moment of birth, we are creatures of imitation. We learn by imitating. If breastfeeding is a hidden part of life, then women will find it a very difficult to imitate that behavior. If living becomes so out of step with nature, then our faith becomes vested in our technological society. We cannot trust our bodies to function correctly and that belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Years ago I did a home visit with a mom who was employed in the medical field.
She told me she didn't have enough milk (a theme exploited by the infant formula industry through marketing). During our two-hour home visit, she nursed her baby to sleep, pumped 4 ounces of milk with an electric pump, and then hand expressed 2 ounces of milk. I told her that it sure looked like she had plenty of milk. She had been thinking she needed to use infant formula. Her baby was gaining weight and healthy. But her perception was that breastfeeding wasn't working. Seeing all the milk, helped her realize that the milk was there. As someone in the medical field, she needed numbers and needed to see the milk. Once she saw this, she was able to continue breastfeeding without needing the infant formula. And she went back to her job in the hospital and was able to provide her young baby with her expressed breastmilk.
Is breastfeeding difficult or are mother's perceptions of breastfeeding the difficulty?

Back to the reality of the pharmaceutical industry...another patent using a human milk component to prevent and treat cancer. Called, "Cripto tumour polypeptide," patent #7439320 owned by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, filed in 2001. Cripto is found in mammary epithelial cells. These cells are part of human milk.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Choice: the conundrum of infant feeding

2011-01-13T05:52:00.000-05:00

Should a society let women have choice in how an infant is fed, when that society understands the enormous health consequences of deciding to use artificial milks? There are people who believe that women, particularly women in poverty or women in developing nations must be made to breastfeed. The infant should not be made to suffer because the mother hasn't enough sense to breastfeed. Governments should not have to pay for the infant formula and the subsequent health problems resulting from infant formula use. A few years ago I spoke at a gathering explaining the WIC Program (at that time I was employed by the local WIC Program) and its promotion of breastfeeding. When I had finished speaking, a well-dressed woman came up to talk to me. She wanted to let me know what a good thing I was doing. Which of course, made me feel good, but then she launched into a rant about how women on welfare must be made to breastfeed or be kicked off the Program. I found myself shocked. Shocked that my speech triggered those kind of thoughts. How does one make a woman breastfeed? Do you send an armed guard to watch her every move. Women on public assistance already believe (with some justification) that the government invades their privacy. So the well-off people of the world want people like myself to control women on public assistance. Well, I am not the breastfeeding police, nor are the many who serve these Programs. Should the issue be about women's choice between formula feeding or breastfeeding? Or rather is the real issue a society that creates/markets values that subvert breastfeeding? Our society values the employed mother, because those that don't work have less value in our money-driven society. How do you put a price on the work that women do within the home and in bringing up their children? Despite our supposed female liberation, most women are the caretakers of the children and the home. And now society has determined that we also must be employed to be of value to society. I did home visits to WIC breastfeeding mothers and became intrigued by what this liberation means to young resource-deprived woman. She wants to breastfeed, can't ask for breaks at her place of employment because low paying jobs often have young male supervisors. Most young women refuse to consider discussing their need to pump during employment with a young male supervisor. Often the kind of job these young women had didn't have scheduled breaks: work when its busy, take a break when its slow. At home visits I was taken aback by the fact that often the father of the baby (boyfriend, maybe not father) was unemployed and seemed uninterested in helping with the baby. One shouldn't generalize situations but I remember thinking if this is young people's version of the sexual revolution and women's liberation who in their right mind would want it? Or is it just a woman trapped by a society that has concocted rules that punish single women for having babies? Back at that time, the Florida legislature required that women who received public assistance needed to be employed at 2 months postpartum or lose all benefits. Most of the mothers I met were scrambling to go back to work at 2 weeks postpartum.
Anyway, I found that employment is a risk factor for weaning and weaning early. There is clearly a lack of support and funding to help women in poverty mother their babies. So in these situations are women making a choice or has government programs created the need for the decision to use artificial baby milks?
How do women make a choice to not breastfeed? The mother may decide not to breastfeed because she thinks breastfeeding is "icky." but her body does not know that she has made that choice. Thus, after birth the mother's mammary glands go into full production and she has to actively suppress lactation. What are the ramifications of actively suppressing lactation? She may face a higher risk of breast cancer than the woman who breastfeeds. But we know that people make choices about their biology. We can decide not to walk, to let our legs become useless appendages. But most people would think that pretty weird decision to make, and an enormous burden to their family and society. Who wants to be crippled in life? The same can be said about breastfeeding. We can make the choice to not breastfeed. We can deny our biology. But the ramifications to families and to society run deep, when we decide against using our bodies in the way they function. Handicapped? Yes. But would I want breastfeeding to be mandatory? No, because life ultimately must be lived by the mother not the government, not society. No one can make someone breastfeed her baby, just as no one can make a baby breastfeed. It takes willingness and education of the mother, and most of all a society supportive of breastfeeding. Choice is the illusion.

Another interesting patent regarding the use of lactalbumin (from human milk or a recombinant) to treat bacterial infections and cancer. Patent #7524932 called, "Lactalbumin production process," invented by Catharina Svanborg and owned by Nya HAMLET Pharma AB of Denmark filed in 2006 (same patent filed in 1998 by same inventors, same title, only owned by HAMLET Pharma AB-Sweden)

"A fraction from human milk containing an oligomeric complex, described as multimeric .alpha.-lactalbumin or MAL has previously been reported which has different biological properties to the monomeric form. In particular, the oligomeric complex is reported as having therapeutic applications both in the field of antibiotic (WO96/04929) and cancer therapy (A. H{dot over (a)}kansson et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci USA, (1995) 92, 8064-8068). In particular, the oligomeric form of .alpha.-lactalbumin induces apoptotic cell death in cancer cells and immature cells, but not in healthy cells. These observations suggested that the protein acquires novel biological properties after conformational switching. "

Hm, a human milk component that works like an antibiotic and cancer therapy....pretty darn amazing...so the choice is between the substance that works like an antibiotic and kills cancer cells versus the substance that continues to have adverse effects? Choice????
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Diabetes, adverse effect of infant formula

2011-01-12T07:07:00.000-05:00

Our culture has a premise that is the basis of the infant formula industry. Women can't breastfeed or they don't want to breastfeed. Throughout patents on infant formula this premise is the reason for creating a better, safer infant formula. Yet who examines the premise? Who says, why don't women want to breastfeed? Why is breastfeeding so difficult nowadays? Well, we could suggest that infant feeding is now a choice to all women, not just a select few wealthy women. An industry stepped in and created choice; to free women from the burden of their biology. Free at last, free at last, thank god for men (actually women are inventors, too) and their inventions. Choice is not what nature intended. Choice is what the corporate world wants because it makes money. Of course, when we circumvent nature there are biological consequences to the mother and her baby, and to society at large. Those consequences are sicker children, sicker mothers (more breast and ovarian cancers). Higher need for artificial birth control measures, since exclusive breastfeeding prevents ovulation. So we are talking higher health costs. Higher health costs benefit who? The pharmaceutical industry benefits because there is a need for more drugs, more testing, more devices. Choice means mothers can work and be free of the burden of childcare. They can work to pay the babysitter, one of the ironies for women whose jobs pay minimum wage. Of course children housed in daycare are sicker, so that is another burden for families. But sicker children mean that we must have more drugs and more vaccines. The logic of the current ideology of female liberation seems rather horrifying when one looks at the stark reality. Actually, if one takes a look at the patents on human milk components or on infant formula, one is in awe of what our science seems to know regarding human milk. It has the power to heal, to effect the DNA. It is a food, a medicine, a vaccination. Yet so few people seem to know how remarkable this substance is instead we read and hear the words, "yucky" or "grouse" when people discuss breastmilk or breastfeeding.
Here is another patent to ponder. Patent # 6365177 called "Insulin supplemented infant formula," owned by Insotech (Maabarot, Israel) inventor Naim Shehadeh filed in 2002. Remember that here in the US, the Breastfeeding Ad Campaign in 2003 was watered down because the infant formula industry and the AAP believed that there was not enough research on the risks of infant formula. From the patent:

"Many studies show that type I diabetes is related to cow's milk consumption and neonatal feeding practices (2,10). In the case-control studies (including a study conducted in the Juvenile Diabetes Unit of the Rambam Medical Center, Haifa, Israel), patients with type I diabetes were more likely to have been breast-fed for less than 3 months and to have been exposed to cow's milk proteins before 3 months of age (3). Moreover, the immune system of patients with IDDM recognizes cow's milk proteins, as demonstrated by antibodies assays and lymphocytes activity tests (11). These data emphasize the importance of diet and orally administered proteins on the development of autoimmune diabetes. "

This has become a product owned by Israel's Nutrinia called InsuMeal (company owned by New Generation Technologies and Maabarot Products (Materna infant formula). It is a bioactive insulin. "Insulin is 100 times more concentrated in the first milk a mother gives her baby than in the blood. Nature must have a reason for enriching the first milk and helping the newborn get over the shock of the first 24 hours." quote from Shehadeh at Nutrinia dated 2007
http://www.nutrinia.com/press.html

Materna Labs, maker of infant formula, controlled by Maaborat Products was acquired by Nestle in 2010. I don't know if the bioactive insulin was put into infant formula--it was being tested on premature babies back in 2007. But if one believes that industry knows that infant formula increases the risk of diabetes, should we thank that industry for creating something better? Or should we be troubled by what we didn't know before the industry figured out there was a problem? Choice costs money and lives. Should we question choice or go on creating, reformulating infant formula because of its adverse effects?
Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Inventing a better infant formula to reduce adverse effects

2011-01-11T04:48:00.000-05:00

"It has been demonstrated that breast-fed newborns have a lower incidence of intestinal infections, intestinal inflammatory conditions, lower incidence of respiratory infections and later in life, less allergic disease."

Patent #723078 owned by Nestec SA [Nestle] entitled "Soluble toll-like receptor," filed in 2002

Say what?? Wait a minute, wasn't the US Breastfeeding Ad Campaign in 2003 watered down because the infant formula industry and the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) expressed concern about the validity of the science regarding the risks of infant formula? Yet, Nestle within a patent is explaining why they need to improve infant formula. Nestle found a soluble toll-like receptor. Although we, breastfeeding advocates, may choke upon the following statement in this patent, "In still a further embodiment, the polypeptide according to the invention is derived from human breast milk or identical to a milk derived variant." So what conclusion can we draw from this? Publicly, in the US the science on risks of infant formula are not open for discussion. Privately, the industry will own and monopolize off those risks to improve infant formula. Thus public discussions about risks of infant formula in the USA are "off the table." Instead the discussions are reconfigured and stated as the risks of not breastfeeding. Didn't know there were risks to breastfeedings. Oh yeah, like the risks of walking or talking, biology is scary. Heaven forbid we make clear statements or look at patents to understand what the infant formula industry knows that the public is not allowed to know. Yes, that is what patenting is about, monopolization of "invention" which is ultimately the monopolization of knowledge.
Let's leave Nestle for a moment and go on to other infant formula companies (yes, other companies do exist besides Nestle). Lets look at N.V Nutricia of the Netherlands. This is another infant formula company in Europe. Their recent US patent application called, "Immune stimulatory infant nutrition." (application # 20100136134) They state, "The composition reduces--among others--the risks attached to feeding whey dominant infant formula." and "Human milk has for example been shown that human milk protects against infection and allergies."
Or better yet lets look at a US infant formula company, Mead Johnson and their statements in patent #7862808 called, "Method for preventing or treating respiratory infections and acute otitis media in infant using Lactobacillus rhamnosus LGG and Bifdobacterium lactis B6-12,"

"In a meta-analysis of data from multiple studies, results indicate that breastfeeding may have a positive effect on the frequency of both infant respiratory infection and AOM.[acute otitis media] Specifically, one study indicated that the feeding of many currently available infant formulas may be associated with a 3.6-fold increase in risk of infant hospitalization for respiratory infection when compared to at least four months of exclusive breastfeeding. Bachrach, V., et al., Arch. Pediatr. Adolesc. Med. 57:237-43 (2003). Additionally, infants who are breastfed have been shown to have significantly fewer (about 50%) episodes of AOM than do infants who are exclusively formula-fed. Duffy, et al., Pediatr. 100(4):E7 (1997). These differences may be attributed to the fact that human milk promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria such as Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria. Duffy, et al., Dig. Dis. Sci. 44(8):1499-1505 (1999). "
Wow, I think they are saying that human milk is probiotic. Let me understand why breastfed babies are being given probiotics? They are deficient...deficient because they aren't breastfed enough?? Or maybe cause mothers don't know where probiotics comes from?
Then there is formula maker Wyeth LLC (which is now part of Pfizer). Their patent filed in 2005 is called, "Methods for reducing adverse effects of feeding formula to infants," patent # 7651716. "In some embodiments the administration of the infant formula compositions of the present invention reduces or eliminated side effects." The side effects are listed as, "eructation, constipation, gastroesophogel reflux disease, flatulence, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea and regurgitation."
So the continual patenting of infant formula is because there are adverse effects in infants who are fed artificial milks. The politics of infant feeding mean that in the US we will continue to believe that there are no risks to infant formula in developed countries, only risks in developing nations. What should be shocking and galvanizing to the health care community is that in order to reduce those adverse effects, the infant formula industry uses human milk components (in most cases genetically engineered) to reduce the adverse effects. Meanwhile, the US public is kept in the dark and will continue to buy a product that has adverse effects, RISKS. Kinda reminds me of the Tobacco Industry. Hide the real research, advertise like crazy, and give great gifts to the medical community.
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain

Humanized milk: cloning to create a better infant formula

2011-01-06T06:48:00.000-05:00

Remember Dolly, the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell? She was cloned at the Roslin Institute/PPL Therapeutics in Scotland in 1996. PPL Therapeutics was also located in Blacksburg, Virginia. The donor cell was taken from the mammary gland of a different breed of sheep. Remember, mammary gland. Remember that all mammary glands have totipotent stem cells. The US public is quite oblivious to our technological advances in creating a better infant formula. I wrote and talked about cloning in 2000. Back then I wrote about transgenic herds around the world. Not too many people believed me. In fact, I got the feeling they thought I was jumping to conclusions. Now that the FDA has approved cloned milk and meat for US consumption, one would think the public would understand that cloning is not something that will happen in the future but has already happened...some time ago. FDA approval has come about because these products were already being consumed by the public. The same thing happened with genetically engineered crops. The US public has been eating it for some time without knowing about it. Who needs labels on foods? I imagine the FDA believes that Americans don't read labels anyway and don't care where their food comes from. I don't believe that but why else would there be such massive deception about our food? Well, yeah, maybe the regulators are just part and parcel of the corporate system that is ramming this technology down our throats?
I guess the shocking part is that this system is so willing to make guinea pigs of our babies. And the ideology is that women can't and don't want to breastfeed so we are going to invent a better infant formula. No questions are asked about whether the reason for not breastfeeding is partially created by corporate marketing of products. Or that birthing has become a medical technological nightmare which impacts breastfeeding. Or that US society creates enormous financial hardships on women who have babies. Unless a woman is financially well-off, the burden of earning a living means abandonment of her baby to other caregivers.
So here we are at the Edge, a society whose brightest and best are creating a better infant formula. What does that mean? Genetic engineering. Cloned milks.
In past posts, I wrote about BSSL, bile salt-stimulated lipase, a human milk enzyme not found in cow's milk and because it is an enzyme, heat destroys most of it. In a article written in the Biology of Reproduction authored by researchers from PPL Therapeutics of Roslin, UK and Blacksburg, Virgina in 2002,
"The transgene used in these studies codes for a potentially therapeutic protein, bile salt-stimulated lipase (BSSL). BSSL is an orally active enzymatic protein that is normally produced by the human pancrease and is present in human breast milk and that helps break down fats to make them more available for use by the digestive system. This protein has significant potential for use in replacement therapy for patients with pancreatic insufficiency (including cystic fibrosis patients) and for premature infants who do not receive human breast milk."
http://www.revivicor.com/BovineBSSL.pdf

PPL Therapeutics has a patent filed in January 1995 called, ".alpha.-lactalbumin gene constructs," patent # 5852224.
"The present invention utilizes genetic engineering techniques to prepare non-human transgenic mammals that express human .alpha.-lactalbumin in their milk at a concentration of 2 mg/ml or greater."

A patent by Pharming B.V. of Leiden, Netherlands filed in 1998 called "Production of recombinant polypeptides by bovine species and transgenic methods," patent #6066725 states, "The invention also includes transgenic bovine species capable of producing recombinant polypeptides in transgenic milk as well as the milk from such transgenic bovine species and food formulations containing one or more recombinant polypeptides."
Old patents, dated from the 90's, the companies have been sold and bought. Has this technology ended? Who is invested in making a better infant formula? Is it just the infant formula/pharmaceutical industries? Back in 1991, The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of (Washington, DC) owned a patent called, "Preparation of simulated human milk protein by low temperature microfiltration, " patent #5169666 stated, "Breast feeding is generally recognized as the preferred method of feeding human infants, however, when for a variety of reasons mother's milk is unavailable, infant formulas based on cow's milk are used. The use of modified or "humanized" bovine milk in infant formulas designed to simulate human milk as a substitute or supplement, has long been a subject of continuing research."
The patent is interesting to read because of the manipulations done to cow's milk to make it more human. I am fascinated that the US Government was so involved in developing a better infant formula. Patenting is monopolization, why is the government doing this? Simple I suppose... to make money. That was back in 1991 and we have come a long way to create a better infant formula, rather than filtration or ultrafiltration or microfiltration, we now take human genes and place those human milk component genes into cows. Is the US Governement still financially involved in creating a better infant formula?
Copyright 2011 Valerie W. McClain