VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN & CHILDREN

“Each man’s [woman’s and child’s] death diminishes me,

 For I am involved in mankind.

 Therefore, send not to know

 For whom the bell tolls,

 It tolls for thee.”   John Donne, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

Today, May 7^th, is the 108th anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, torpedoed by a German U-boat in waters off the coast of Ireland (Queensland, now named Cobh of County Cork). One thousand, one hundred and ninety-five passengers and crew died that day.  Among those that died was my great-grandfather, his adult son and grandson.  His daughter (one of 763 survivors) survived. My Aunt Chris was only 16 years old at that time. She identified her Dad’s body, but her brother’s and nephew’s bodies were not found.  My great-grandfather was buried in a mass grave in Queensland.

It was always rumored that the Lusitania carried illegal munitions from the US to Great Britain for the WWI fight against Germany.  In the 1980’s divers discovered that indeed there was munitions on board the Lusitania.  My Aunt Chris who was in her cabin, when the torpedo hit, said the hit seemed mild, a thud.  But shortly after the torpedo hit, there was a huge explosion. The story of my Aunt’s survival was told and retold, when I was a child.  The anger and sadness passes from one generation to the next generation.  

War brings death and destruction to so many innocent people.  As the war rages on in the Ukraine, it seems that humanity refuses to figure out how to live in peace.  I live in a country that has always been on war-time footing.  Billions of dollars goes to direct wars or proxy wars, and spending on making peaceful communities thrive is not financially supported.  We are the Greek Spartans, our culture lives to fight.  Guns first, negotiate second or never.  It is a difficult society to live in, if you are a woman or child or baby.  Let the babies cry it out; toughen them up for the future of more wars, of a society without compassion or concern. Put the children in daycare, work for next to nothing, and have no time left for relationships. Schools and malls become the slaughterhouse of enraged young white males.  Violence like a plague of genetically engineered, mutant bacteria grows exponentially unleashing more violence.

Government leaders view women and children as an albatross around their necks.  Neither are allowed bodily autonomy, used and thrown out by the privileged.  How did Jeffrey Epstein’s game of sexually trafficking under-aged children survive for so long?  How many well-known wealthy people have been ensnared by his blackmail and financial games?  We live in a sick society.

I remember as a child, my parents harboring a next-door neighbor and her 6 kids from her abusive husband.  I was probably 4 or 5 at the time, so I didn’t really understand what was going on. Later I lived in a neighborhood in which the man across the street battered his wife regularly.  Every neighbor called the police at one time or another, it didn’t do any good. They had 3 kids. When she finally left him, she was executed by him in front of her 3 kids.  My husband at the time called the police, when another neighbor called for help.  She was being strangled by her boyfriend, when the police broke down the door. 

Does this behavior impact breastfeeding?  Yes, research has shown that women who are abused by their partners (usually male partners) are more likely to not breastfeed.  When I was employed by the WIC Program, we had electric breast pumps that we loaned out to moms who had premature babies.  I remember trying to get a hold of one of the moms who had one of our pumps.  She was very apologetic and told me her boyfriend had damaged the pump.  She did return it but the pump was totally unusable.  I talked about this situation with a Healthy Start nurse who told me that a study she had read that a pregnant mom who experienced domestic abuse had double the risk of preterm labor.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160309083114.htm

https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/identifying-abuse/what-is-physical-abuse

Over the many decades of my life, I think that at this point in time most people would spurn violence against people.  Male violence against women and children is an unfair match.  Most males are bigger and stronger than women and children.  Control is the issue. But control or power over others means very little because respect is the issue.  Control and power over someone else, dissolves respect.  Freedom is what is desired, and it only grows with respect not violence. “For whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

©2023 Valerie W. McClain

THE MARKET PLACE OF IDEAS

“Power is not brute force and money; power is in your spirit.  Power is in your soul.  It is what your ancestors, your old people gave you.  Power is in the earth; it is in your relationship to the earth.”  --Winona LaDuke

 

Rays of sunshine filtered through the stained glass window, the Biblical scene on that window shimmered and came alive.  I sat quietly in the pew mesmerized by the play of the light and shadow on the carpeted floor of the Church. I should have been praying, but instead I was watching the dance of light and shadow across the floor.  I spent a lot of my Sundays as a child and teenager in Church entertaining my boredom by daydreaming.  But in 1968 we had a new, young priest and his sermons were not boring.  He took the stories of ancient people in the Bible and made them relevant to current events.  For several Sundays, he talked about the war in Vietnam, and related it to the teachings of Jesus:  “love thy neighbor as thyself,” “thou shall not kill.”  It made sense to me.  It seemed like simple commandments to a naïve teenager, but the commandments of love thy neighbor and do not kill are not so simple for adults.  

One Sunday the priest began again to preach on Vietnam and the war. Suddenly, men quietly started walking out of the Church.  The Church slowly emptied out. My Dad was one of the few men who did not leave.  So I became very curious about why most of the men left the Church. Later that day I asked my Dad why the men walked out of Church in the middle of the sermon, my Dad said all the men worked for GE.  Well that didn’t make sense to me. What did GE have to do with it?  My Dad explained that GE had major contracts with the federal government for the war in Vietnam. 

 A few weeks later the priest was removed from his position in the Church. A new priest was chosen, and once again I found myself staring at the same stained glass window only this time as I watched the light and shadows dance across the carpet I began to recall one of my favorite songs.

“I’m sitting on the dock of the bay Watching the tide roll away, ooh I’m just sitting on the dock of the bay Wastin’ time”  --Otis Redding, Dock of the Bay

My reverie ended abruptly with the sounds of the Church pipe organ playing loud enough to wake the dead.  It certainly ended my wasting time!

About a month later I asked my Dad why the Church had sided with the men from GE, and dismissed the priest. I can’t remember exactly what my Dad said.  I believe he said something like, “If half the church walked out for good, the Church loses the ability to pay its bills, to keep its doors open.”  I found it baffling that the Church chose its economic survival over its values.  The men who walked out of the Church that day also chose their economic survival. Their solidarity in protecting their jobs had resulted in the outcome they desired.  Of course many decades later I understand the economic underpinnings of that decision, although I believe that the Church made an ethically wrong decision.

Ethical or moral decisions are not easy in real life, even for churches.  What I learned from being a witness to this situation is that economics is often the driving force in personal decision-making. The impact for me was a loss of trust in the Church.   

Nowadays I look at research papers and wonder where are the researchers employed, and what other funding do they receive? Does their employment or funding influence their choices of what to study, their methods of research, and impact their conclusions? I remember the Church I use to belong to, and understand the real impact of ethical challenges and how trust can be lost. 

Does funding influence research?

What does the Lancet 2023 Breastfeeding Series show us in regard to these issues?  The funding and employment of researchers can often give you insight into the underlying assumptions of researchers. We know that medical and scientific journals require researchers to declare their conflict of interest. 

What is a conflict of interest in research (COI)?

“A basic working definition of COI is a situation in which a secondary interest, such as financial or other personal condition has the potential to unduly influence the primary interest of objectivity in research conduct.”  P Knerr and RP D’Amelia, Introduction to the Ethics of Scientific Conflict of Interest (COI), 2020.

Knerr and D’Amelia also state that COI is not considered misconduct because “misconduct is limited to fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism.”  They state that “Trust is an essential ethical value of scientific inquiry.” And they state, “Fundamental to this trust is objectivity in the execution, interpretation and dissemination of research.”

How were the researchers of the Lancet 2023 Breastfeeding Series funded?

It appears from the Lancet papers that the Gates Foundation funded a number of researchers, or their places of employment such as: universities, nonprofit organizations, or governmental bodies such as WHO and UNICEF. Two researchers were social marketers, one from a company and one from a university. Some people call social marketing propaganda.  I think that is pretty accurate.  I don’t care much for being told what to think. One researcher was employed by the Gates Foundation, and another was retired from the Gates Foundation

The Lancet is owned by Elsevier which has an agreement with the Gates Foundation regarding open access policy.

“…requires authors to ensure research papers that have been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, and are supported in whole or in part by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funding, are published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CCBY) or an equivalent license, and are deposited immediately in PubMed Central (PMC), or in another openly accessible repository.”

I was surprised when I first started to read the 2023 Breastfeeding Series that I had free access to all of the papers.  I have tried to read other papers in the Lancet and encountered the inevitable pay wall.  The Gates Foundation pays most of the fees, and we all get to read their research for free.  While this appears wonderful, it is also troubling.  The Gates Foundation’s funding of so many researchers, universities, organizations, and governmental body’s means that we are reading freely what the Gates Foundation believes is important. Researchers are in all likelihood picked by the Foundation, because their research aligns with the Foundation’s views.  Will we be able to read alternative views freely? No, because research not funded by Gates is behind a pay wall.  Gates has gained a monopoly on our minds by providing an open door policy to his research, when other research is shuttered by paywalls. 

The Cochrane Studies received funding from the Gates Foundation of $1.15 million for 2016-2017. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants/2016/09/opp1158795

The Cochrane website states that “they do not accept commercial or conflicted funding.”  They are supposedly the source for “trusted evidence.”  Is the Gates Foundation funding “conflicted?”

The British Global Justice Now organization in a report from 2016 concluded that the Gates Foundation’s:

“…giving is far from a neutral charitable strategy, but instead an ideological commitment to ‘promote neoliberal* economic policies and corporate globalization.’”

* “A policy model that encompasses both politics and economics and seeks to transfer the control of economic factors from the public sector to the private sector.” Definition of neoliberalism by Investopedia

Vandana Shiva has stated,

“Gates has hijacked the WHO and transformed it into an instrument of personal power that he wields for the cynical purpose of increasing pharmaceutical profits. He has single-handedly destroyed the infrastructure of public health globally.”

To be continued on 3/20/23 at https://valeriewmcclain.substack.com  “Breastfeeding or Bust:  Infant feeding in an Age of Half-Truths & Outright Lies” Subscriptions are free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BREASTFEEDING OR BREASTMILKFEEDING?

“By the time my youngest had moved onto solid foods, I had spent hours on hours staring at my breast pump, imagining all the ways I could improve the design…” -Melinda Gates quoted in an article https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/03/melinda-gates-its-time-to-talk-about-breastfeeding-at-work.html

The title of the article in which Melinda Gates is quoted is, “Melinda Gates: It’s time to get real about breastfeeding at work.” I am vaguely amused by the title because I don’t believe that getting “real” about breastfeeding is about pumping. Yet so many people, including breastfeeding advocates, use the words, breastfeeding and breastmilkfeeding interchangeably. Even the Lancet 2023 Breastfeeding Series implies by some of their comments that breastfeeding and breastmilkfeeding create the same health benefits to moms and babies. I’d like to see the research papers on that! I haven’t seen any studies that do such a comparison.

The title should have been about getting real about breastmilkfeeding at work. How come one of the wealthiest women on earth must use a breast pump to work? She is not working on an assembly line, in a factory where stoppage of the line would not be acceptable (other than official breaks). Was breastfeeding unacceptable at the Gates Foundation? One would assume she could have an office for privacy and a nanny to care for the baby, if she was uncomfortable about breastfeeding publicly.

The article about Melinda Gates goes onto state:

“In fact Gates says she toyed with [the] idea of patenting her own design. ‘I like to think that in an alternate life, I’m a breast pump tycoon.’”

Was she joking? Perhaps she is thinking of the Gates Foundation’s global agenda of a technological solution to any problem? In this case the problem is employment and breastfeeding. What is acceptable to the US corporate world is getting rooms to pump not keeping mothers and babies together. Do people understand about the cost of infant care? In the US infant care costs way more than child care. And it should cost more. Mothers are irreplaceable. Babies miss their mothers, and strangers are not who they need. Babies cry for many reasons. One unrecognized reason is the need for the presence of their mother. Babies get overfeed in care-giving situations, because the crying is misunderstood for the need to eat, and not the need for physical comfort of the mother’s presence.

I suppose I am fascinated by the Lancet 2023 Breastfeeding Series and its views on crying. Their views made me want to cry. I suppose everyone thinks that crying babies are the norm. Yet there are cultures in which babies don’t cry very much at all. The babies are held or carried most of the time. There are babies that live in communities in which babies’ feet don’t touch the ground until the babies start to walk. Babies are a part of the community, not isolated away from the community. And yes those babies are breastfed.

Some years ago I met a young woman from Liberia, and we were talking about her life and my life. She talked about walking to school and how a Black Mamba snake (one of the most poisonous snakes in her country) appeared in her path. Luckily, she didn’t move, having been taught to stay still. Finally the snake moved away into the brush. She taught me how to cook plaintain, and showed me how to wrap material around my waist to make a skirt (fanti). I talked to her about my desire to become an IBCLC, and she didn’t understand what I was talking about. I tried to explain and said I wanted to teach breastfeeding. She started laughing so hard, and I asked her why she was laughing. She told me that all mothers in Liberia know how to breastfeed, they don’t need teachers. She thought the idea of teaching breastfeeding was crazy, and I felt somewhat offended by her laughter. She was such a delightful person, and her laugh contagious that I laughed just a little bit. It’s only years after teaching US moms to breastfeed, that I understand more fully what she was teaching me. Knowledge of breastfeeding in US culture is buried in technological babel, and in products like pumps, bottles, and pacifiers.

“Breastfeeding is time-consuming for women, which takes away from time that could be spent on income-earning activities.” https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01933-X/fulltext

The above quote is from The Lancet Series 2023, Breastfeeding 3-”The political economy of infant and young child feeding: confronting corporate power, overcoming structural barriers, and accelerating progress.” Guess what else is time consuming besides breastfeeding? Yes, breastmilkfeeding and/or infant formula feeding. Heaven forbid mothers breastfeed rather than spending time on income-earning activities. Instead, maybe the request for funds from foundations like Gates should be on giving mothers an income, rather than spending money on programs that end up being beneficial to employers who gain cheap labor. Meanwhile mothers and babies gain what? A pumping room with fancy equipment. Is the solution to global poverty the exportation of pump technology, and mother-baby separation?

Valerie W. McClain

BREASTFEEDING OR BUST: iINFANT FEEDING IN AN AGE OF HALF-TRUTHS & OUTRIGHT LIES

READ ME ON SUBSTACK!

 

https://valeriewmcclain.substack.com/p/the-lancet-2023-breastfeeding-series

 

THE MYTH OF ROMULUS & REMUS

Romulus and Remus—Peter Paul Reubens from Google Art Project

 

“We are a therapeutics company leveraging human milk biology to create new medicines to transfer gut-brain axis (GBA) disorders with large populations underserved by current treatment options.” Statement made by Lupa Bio/also known as Intrinsic Medicine.   https://sosv.com/company/intrinsic-medicine-fka-lupa-bio/

LUPA, a Wolf Goddess or a Biotech Company?

Do our myths and legends become reality?  Does a myth shape some of our reality?  How influential are these myths to our present day reality?  Do tales of Empire impact our science, and what we believe about the nature of men and women?  

Take for instance the myth regarding the founding of the city of Rome.  A female wolf saves two human baby brothers, and nourishes them by breastfeeding them.  According to the myth the female wolf was Lupa, the Roman wolf goddess.  The twins had been thrown into the Tiber River, and found by Lupa.  There are numerous statues and paintings of the mother wolf with Romulus and Remus.  The twins were the children of Mars, God of War, and Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin.

The wolf goddess and the twins are a symbol used by the city of Rome. Interestingly, I have seen this same symbol of the wolf and the 2 babies in two mammary gland biology labs of different universities. UC Davis is one of those universities.   https://hovey.faculty.ucdavis.edu/

Nowadays we have companies who believe that the survival of infants is dependent upon infant formulas because many (many-many?) mothers can’t or won’t breastfeed.  Therefore other mammal milks (cows, goats, etc) or cell culture (cloned milk) is the answer. Of course the question that is not asked is how many mothers cannot or will not breastfeed?  Since 1990 the number seems to increase with every decade.  Medical science seems to produce all sorts of reasons why women can’t breastfeed. No one appears to question a society that has strange views on women, and their “place” in our society.

The amazing survival of the twins on wolf milk seems to imply that wolf milk made them strong, politically bright, with a tendency towards violence.  Is the lack of a mother and her breast milk representing the belief that the human mother is a symbol of weakness of women? Romulus supposedly kills his brother in an argument.   The Roman Empire is considered by some to have been one of the more violent societies in history.  Slavery was part of their society, with supposedly 1/3 of the population slaves. According to myth, Romulus was responsible for the abduction and rape of young Sabine women who were made to marry their Roman captors.

Has the views of Empire and a woman’s place in an Empire changed?  Currently in our US Empire women will no longer have control over their own bodies.  How different is the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking of underage girls to powerful men from the rape of young Sabine Women?  How different is the current medical belief system that women can’t and won’t breastfeed, therefore men of science will create the perfect milk for babies?  Are our babies  bereft of their mothers and given genetically engineered milk from our scientists, any different then Romulus and Remus?  And is our Empire any different than the Roman Empire?

I read an article in Environmental Health Perspectives published in 1994 called, “The Mammary Gland:  Protein Factory of the Future,” by Romagnolo and DiAugustine.

“In evolutionary biology, lactogenesis, or milk secretion, is considered one of the more important functions for the survival of mammals.  Milk consumption by the newborn is critical during the early stages of life.  Colostrum, which is produced by the mammary gland postpartum, provides the newborn with immunity and precious nutrients that enhance survival.” https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.94102644

What is it about babies surviving without a human mother and raised on other mammal milks that is so fascinating?  I think breastfeeding is far more fascinating.  Maybe it is mammary gland envy mixed with capitalistic tales of wealth, power, and control by focusing on substitutes for mothers?  Is it so strange that a company that uses human milk research to create medicines calls itself Lupa?

Glycosyn licensing agreement with Lupa Bio (also known as Intrinsic Medicine)

Glycosyn is licensing out their patents to Lupa Bio also known as Intrinsic Medicine.  Who is Glycosyn?  A company founded by Ardythe Morrow, David Newburg, and Guillermo Ruis-Palacious that has created patents on manufacturing and using Human Milk Oligosaccharides. Ardythe Morrow and David Newburg are listed inventors to some of these patents. https://contracts.justia.com/companies/intrinsic-medicine-inc-14849/contract/234677/

Both Ardythe Morrow and David Newburg have been involved in milk banking (both listed as on the Research Advisory Board to the Mother’s Milk Bank of New England). David Newburg tested 8 human milk samples provided by Inside Edition.  The February 2016 article states that Newburg said, “Seven of the eight samples acquired over the internet I would not feed to infants.”  And, “He said [David Newburg] 87% of the samples contained potentially dangerous bacteria.”  https://www.insideedition.com/14736-breast-milk-bought-online-may-contain-bacteria-that-could-harm-your-child-investigation-finds

This sounds frightening but it is 87% of 8 samples.  Eight samples is far too few samples to determine public policy.  And rather curious that David Newburg is a founder of Glycosyn in 2002, and a listed inventor to a number of US patents owned by Glycosyn.

At about the same time as Newburg was published in Inside Edition about the dangers of buying human milk on the internet, Glycosyn and the infant formula company FrieslandCampina formed a partnership for the development of a new infant formula ingredient-Human Milk Oligosaccharide. https://www.foodbev.com/news/frieslandcampina-and-glycosyn-form-new-infant-nutrition-partnership/

In 2019 Glycosyn formed a partnership with BASF.  https://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Article/2019/05/24/BASF-and-Glycosyn-partnership-to-capitalise-on-HMO-and-gut-health-interest

There are 2 new US patents published in May of 2022.  The listed inventors to both patents are Ardythe Morrow, David Newburg, and John McCoy

Patent #11331329, “Fucosylated Oligosaccharides for Prevention of Coronavirus Infection.”

“The invention provides compositions and methods for utilizing oligosaccharides, such as human milk oligosaccharides, to attenuate a respiratory pathogen infection and/or promote recovery from a respiratory pathogen infection in the respiratory systems and/or GI tract of a subject.”

Patent #11324766, “2’-fucosyllactose For The Prevention And Treatment of Coronavirus-induced Inflammation.”

Meanwhile, Ardythe Morrow will be the Principal Investigator from the Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital Medical Center for the PREVAIL Cohort Study.  It will last 3 years from a mother’s 3^rd trimester of pregnancy until her baby is 2 years old.  It’s a $31 million grant from the NIH on a new flu study in babies.  The CDC website explains, “In order to develop effective vaccines, it is important to understand how these viruses interact with a child’s immune system and how the mother’s immunity may help fight these infections in the United States.” https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/nvsn/prevail.html

I find myself being rather cynical about the outcome of this study, particularly since the Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital Medical Center co-own’s patents in which Ardythe Morrow is a listed inventor as well as David Newburg. https://patents.justia.com/inventor/ardythe-l-morrow?page=2

Will breastfeeding be considered?  Or will the more narrowed view of, there is some magical component in human milk that can be used in vaccines and medications to save our babies from “the flu.”  Will Glycosyn reap the benefit of the myth that some women can’t or won’t breastfeed?  Of course they are not the only company investing in HMO’s (Nestle, Abbott, and others are investing in human milk components, made synthetically or genetically engineered).  Has myth become reality?  Do we have our very own wolves, goddesses of our new Empire?

© 2022 Valerie W. McClain

OF HURRICANES, AN INFANT FORMULA RECALL, AND MORE PATENTS

“A single, one-dimensional way of thinking has created a monoculture of the mind.  And the monoculture of the mind has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  This is the root of why we have pitted equity against ecology and sustainability against justice.”  --Vandana Shiva

Mesmerized by the Niagara Falls coming off my roof, I was too tired to be worried.  Hurricane Ian was making a grand entrance, high winds and lots and lots of rain. Niagara Falls lasted about 2 hours, and then gradually dissipated to a steady drizzle of rain for many hours. 

Morning arrived and I went outside to find that my street had become a river, and my front yard was just part of that river.  I now had riverfront property or was the river really a lake?  I always wanted to live close to the water.  But frankly I really didn’t want a river to run through my house.

The water had tried to sneak in the back door, but had gotten trapped by several layers of towels.  But that was it, no water snaking though my house.  I was one of the lucky ones, 4 blocks away homes were swamped with water.  How did I luck out?  Even my electricity was still on?  Why was I so lucky, and so many other people unlucky?

Life is a puzzle. I have always wondered and questioned the whys of life.  My great grandfather, one of his sons, and 2-year old grandson died on a British ocean liner that sunk in 1915.  His daughter, my Aunt Chrissie survived the sinking of the Lusitania.  The ship had been torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk off the coast of Ireland.  The sinking of the Lusitania was one of the events that indirectly precipitated the entrance of the US into WWI.  My great-grandfather and his family was suppose to travel on a different ocean liner, but at the last minute had been transferred to the Lusitania.  My understanding is that although the Lusitania was a passenger ship, it was rumored to be carrying munitions to aid Britain’s war effort.  Officials denied for years that ammunition was on board the Lusitania. In the 1980s divers confirmed that munitions were on board the Lusitania, and efforts have been made to recover them.  https://archive.archaeology.org/0901/trenches/lusitania.html

Who lives and who dies?  Is this just another war time story of bombs and bullets, and human beings getting in the way?  Hurricanes are not wars.  Yet I have heard that weather can be used as a weapon.  It does throw our lives into shambles, depending on whether we are at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I suppose that is enough about a hurricane and luck or fate during a disaster.  Speaking of fickle fate, once again Abbott is in the news. It is another recall of its infant formulas.  This time it seems to be a problem with bottle caps on 2oz liquid ready-to-feed formulas and Pedialyte not sealing completely.  For information on products recalled, countries effected, and phone numbers to call for questions, I have an article from the Miami Herald.  https://www.miamiherald.com/news/recalls/article267468118.html

And from Abbott: https://www.similacrecall.com/us/en/home.html

 

I am sure Abbott is not a happy camper right now. Their stock prices may slide downwards. Supposedly this will not impact the supply chain, according to Abbott.  I thought I’d share a couple of patents owned by Abbott. And one interesting one on myelination of the brain and duration of breastfeeding from Duke University.

US Patent #8802650 entitled, “Method of Using Human Milk Oligosaccharides for Improving Airway Respiratory Health,” owned by Abbott Labs.

One statement in the patent, “Breastfeeding has been associated with enhanced development and balanced growth and maturation of the infant respiratory, gastrointestinal and immune systems, thereby providing protection of the infant to infection and inflammatory diseases.”

Are you surprised that an infant formula company makes such a statement on a US patent document?  And should one ask how Human Milk Oligosaccharides are created by our men and women of science?  And how man-made Human Milk Oligosaccharide is the same thing as that which is made in the mammary glands of a mother?

US patent # 9539269 entitled, “Method for decreasing the incidence of necrotizing entercolitis in infants, toddlers, or children using human milk oligosaccharides,” owned by Abbott Labs.

“During postnatal development, a newborn’s intestine experiences a process of maturation that ends with the production of gastrointestinal epithelium that functions as a selective barrier (i.e., gut barrier).”  

“Barrier formation and maintenance has been found to be affected by the diet.  Breast milk contains components that not only act as pathogen receptor analogues, but also activate immune factors by infant intestinal epithelial cells and/or associated immune cell populations to enhance development and maturation of the infant’s gastrointestinal and immune systems.”

There is the belief that one component, Human Milk Oligosaccharide (HMO), manufactured by Abbott, will work like the real human milk component and create a barrier against pathogens and activate the immune system.  Have they proved that in clinical trials, compared breastfeeding vs. infant formula with HMOs? 

US Patent # 11426419 entitled, “Compositions and Methods for the Repair of Myelin,” owned by Duke University

“Human breast milk is associated with improved cognitive development.  Recent studies have shown that a direct correlation between duration of breastfeeding and the integrity of myelination microstructure exists in humans.”

I think this is fascinating particularly since media articles from a few years ago often stated that the reason children who are breastfed tested higher on IQ scores was because women who breastfed were more likely to be of higher education and economic status and spent more time with their infants/children.  According to those articles there was no physical reason for this difference.  But lo and behold, this patent inventor/researcher believes that some substance from human milk is supporting the myelination of a baby’s brain.  I actual think that there is likely more than one substance in human milk that supports myelination of the brain.  I believe the act of breastfeeding also helps accelerate the cognitive abilities of infants.  Breastfeeding means time spent with a baby, and the magic of oxytocin creates a bond of love that forms a base of attachment in which learning is facilitated. 

Our society knows that breastfeeding is better than infant formula feeding.  Yet the investment in our society is in human milk, and pumping so that mothers can separate from their babies and children.  It is part and parcel of society that invests in things over people.   La Leche League often spoke of people before things.  Things are replaceable, people are not.  Hopefully, we will remember to hold dear the time we spend with family and friends, with our babies and children (grandchildren and great- grandchildren).  No regrets, instead an understanding of what is important, and what is not so important.

©2022 Valerie W. McClain