Selling Breastfeeding as "normal"

Breastfeeding advocacy has changed its strategy. Instead of describing breastfeeding as "best," "free," and listing "benefits," we are now told that breastfeeding is to be described as just normal. There are numerous problems with this strategy in promoting breastfeeding to the public. Normalcy is defined in communities by the majority. Does the majority in US communities perceive breastfeeding as normal? Despite many women attempting to breastfeed, initiation rates climbing to 70-80% in the last few years, continuation rates drop drastically by 3 months. I see relatively few women breastfeeding in public. We hear constant media stories of women harassed for nursing in public areas, despite laws to protect breastfeeding.

Yes, breastfeeding is the biological norm but it is not the cultural norm in the US. We may wish it to be a cultural norm, but just saying it does not make it so. In fact the reactions to statements like this may cause more harm than good. Is it formula feeding that is abnormal? Or is it our society that is abnormal? When the public hears the statement breastfeeding is normal, how do they perceive that statement? Do they wonder about the reality behind that statement?

If we read about words that sell a product or a concept, would we use "normal?" Reading on the web about words that sell, I do not see "normal." I do see the word, "free." But breastfeeding advocates have been told not to use the word, "free," because it implies cheap. Yet in all the marketing websites I looked at, free was one of the words that sells(one website states that it is the top selling words of all time). Benefits was another selling word. Yet again we told not to talk about benefits of breastfeeding. Instead I have read articles by breastfeeding advocates that state that there are no "benefits" to breastfeeding because breastfeeding is just normal.
Yet marketing pros, use the word benefits. Why bother breastfeeding, if there are no benefits?

Are those who write about effective marketing wrong? Will describing breastfeeding as normal promote breastfeeding? Already the infant formula industry in Australia and New Zealand has embraced the words, breastfeeding is normal. Why? One would suspect that they like "breastfeeding is normal," because it sells more infant formula.
Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

just add a little lye....manufacturing DHA

Rereading patents sometimes gives you a new perspective. I never noticed a statement made in a Martek Bioscience patent called, "Infant formula and baby food containing docosahexaenoic acid obtained from dinoflagellates," patent # 5397591 filed in 1992.

Part of the process of manufacturing microbial oils is to add sodium hydroxide or caustic potash to neutralize any free fatty acid.

"A base, such as KOH or NaOH is used to adjust the media prior to inoculation." [ KOH=caustic potash, NaOH=sodium hydroxide, lye]

How do we get sodium hydroxide or caustic potash? These substances are listed as hazardous. A process that is used is called the Castner-Kellner process which is a mercury cell process invented in 1892. This process uses electrolysis to create sodium hydroxide. The mercury cell process is gradually being phased out because the plant operations release mercury into the environment. Does sodium hydroxide have residual mercury that could contaminate the food that is being neutralized?

Martek Bioscience has another patent called, "Solventless extraction process," patent # 7781193 filed in 2007. Once again they are still using sodium hydroxide in the manufacture of their microbial oils. Their solventless extraction method does leave some trace metals: lead, arsenic, iron, mercury..all less than 0.02, and less than 3 ppm of hexane. I wonder the amounts of metals left with the hexane extraction method that has been in use until they invented this solventless method?

Mercury must be in caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) and caustic potash because there are standard test methods for determining the amount of mercury present in these substances.
see http://www.astm.org/Standards/E538.htm

It is hard to fathom that a food, particularly a food/supplement given to infants, children, and pregnant women would be processed with something so hazardous. I guess a little lye wouldn't hurt us.
Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Mercury, autism, and infant formula?

"Algae eat up mercury in Chinese lake," a title of an article in Geotimes of March 2008. "Nutrient enrichment from agricultural runoff and sewage into lake ecosystems can produce large seasonal increases in algae, called algae blooms..." Algae scavenge arsenic and mercury in the water. The algae are eaten by fish, and we eat the fish. Thus, we are eating our pollution and suffering the health consequences of metal contamination. Mercury is toxic and can cause brain and neurological injury. It is especially dangerous for pregnant women and young children. Mercury, besides occurring naturally, is the product of coal burning factories and electric power plants. It becomes airborne and then falls into our lakes, rivers, and oceans.
Martek Bioscience is using algae to produce the DHA in baby formulas. I find myself wondering about the availability of non-polluted waters for generating large quantities of DHASCO (the oil produced by the algae).
Fermentation tanks for algae must have water. Where does the water come from--tap water? Is the water tested for toxins everytime a new batch of algae is produced? Who monitors the situation, since algae is known to scavenge heavy metals? Two of Martek's production plants are located in areas near coal burning power plants (Winchester, Kentucky and Kingstree, South Carolina). Kingstree is in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina known to have particularly high contamination of mercury. So how does industry keep an eye on this situation, particularly since this substance is going into infant formulas for premature infants, babies, and as a supplement for pregnant women? How does the US government monitor the situation? Forty percent of mercury emissions in the US are caused by coal burning power plants. Eastern coals have a high chlorine content. This high level of chlorine makes mercury more water soluble.
"Grown in Martek's labs in 130-gallon vats of water surrounded by fluorescent bulbs [broken fluorescent bulbs leak mercury] and injected with a mix of nitrates, potassium, phosphates, carbon dioxide, and other elements."
and
"Of the 10,000 to 30,000 strains of algae believed to exist by 1988, Martek's scientists had worked with 50-100 purified strains, manipulating the cells' manufacture of fats, proteins, and other products to yield food colors, nutritional supplements, lubricants, and chemicals for use in medical diagnoses."
a company profile-history
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/8/Martek-Bioscience...
Note the words, "Manipulating the cells' manufacture..." does that mean genetic engineering? Martek Bioscience states they do not genetically engineer DHASCO. The rise of autism in children has coincided with the rise in vaccinations for infants, but also with the use of infant formulas containing these manipulated oils. Many parents believe that it was vaccinations that caused their child's autism. Yet no one questions the use of a manufactured food for infants as a cause of autism. Well, except a father called Mike, who wrote me over a year ago asking questions about these oils and giving me references/research regarding his concerns. He has written the FDA, the NIH, wanting answers to the cause of autism, driven by his own son's autism. I always believed it was the vaccines (having had children who had mild to severe reactions to vaccinations). So it was quite easy to believe that the mercury in vaccinations is causing the rise of autism. But Mike and his questions and his references to studies got me wondering about whether autism might be caused by our infant formula with its new space-age oils.
Do these oils cause oxidative stress in the body? Do they cause mitochondrial dysfunction which causes autism?
Mike sent these references which I would like to share with readers on studies regarding of DHA as a potential inducer of neuronal cell death.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2659540/pdf/nihms-94427.pdf

http://www.hriptc.org/pdfs/Autism%20Phenotype%20Brain%20Tissue%200108.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2459249/

Most babies in the US have had infant formula at one time or another (there is not much exclusive breastfeeding due to interventions in hospitals where babies are born or by lack of understanding of its importance by parents). Many parents use the powdered infant formula because it is less expensive than ready-to-feed or concentrate. So the water source when using powder is important. How free of heavy metal contamination is the water used by parents for mixing infant formula?
Recently an article linked jaundice in newborns to autism. Is it the jaundice? Or is it the use of infant formula to treat the jaundice? Breastfed babies are often taken off the breast and given infant formula to bring down the levels of jaundice. Many of those babies never go back to the breast (in part because their is an implication that the jaundice was caused by breastfeeding) Premature infants are also more likely to be autistic. Most premature infants get some form of infant formula. In fact infant formula with Martek oils was first given to premature infants.
I believe that autism could be caused by a variety of causes: a genetically predisposed infant, vaccinations, infant formula, a mother who was exposed to heavy metal contamination. All these factors could be linked to autism. I believe that we need to take a harder look at infant formula and these novel oils to determine whether our new food technology is creating autism. For too long the public has assumed the safety of infant formula.
Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Autism, infant formula with Martek's oils

Awhile ago, a father whose son was autistic contacted me. He believes there is a relationship between his son's autism and the infant formula his son consumed. In particular, his concerns were about the DHA and ARA oils manufactured by Martek that are placed in almost all infant formulas on the market. He has written the FDA, various government agencies, and researchers looking for answers. And more importantly to register his belief that his son was injured by these additives that are used in over 90% of all formulas manufactured. When he first contacted me, I was set in my thinking that autism was related to vaccine damage. And I haven't changed that belief, yet his concerns, his questions made me start to question what I thought I knew. According to Wikipedia the steep rise in cases of autism began in the years 1996 thru 2007. What changed during those years besides vaccinations? What about infant formula? And particularly infant formula with the added Martek "novel"oils? When was Martek's oils introduced into infant formula? According to Martek's company history, the first preterm infant formula with these oils was on the market in 1994 and the first term infant formula in 1997.
http://www.martek.com/About/History.aspx
In 2001 Martek declared that the oils were GRAS and the FDA affirmed that position. The FDA GRAS system is no longer an approval system but rather an affirmation system. Still people assume the safety of the oils since the FDA had no questions regarding Martek's declaration. The safety of new ingredients in this system are learned after the fact (meaning the consumer is the guinea pig) and only by consumer complaint or a massive incident with injuries and deaths (Chinese infant formula contamination tragedy). With infant formula it is up to the parent or caregiver to make the complaint. The US FDA system is dependent upon a highly literate/articulate and computer savy parent/consumer. The industry does its own safety evaluation and that is like allowing a student who is taking a test to score his/her own paper. Some students will be honest. Similiarly some manufacturers will be honest in the GRAS process and some won't be.
There is a current belief in some research circles that "substances released in the gut give rise to autism." There has been a recognition that autistic children seems to have "metabolic abnormalities and gastrointestinal problems--gut pain and diarrhea."
The New Scientist, "Gut bacteria may contribute to autism" by Linda Geddes June 2010
The recognition that bacteria in feces of children with autism is different than children without autism has created a new diagnostic test for autism. The belief is that the gut bacteria is creating a toxin that interferes with brain development. In particular researchers are looking at the clostridium bacteria. A study done in 2002 in Clin Infect Dis 2002 by Finegold et al. called "Gastrointestinal microflora studies in late-onset autism states, "The number of clostridial spores found in stools of children with autism was greater than in stools of control children." In the 1980's research linked clostridium difficile with SIDS and with the possibility of an association to infant formula feeding. "Infants fed formula were nearly four times more likely to carry C. difficile than were those exclusively breast-fed (62 versus 16%). whereas breastfed infants also receiving formula or solids had an intermediate rate of colonization (35%)."
Pediatrics, "Clostridium difficile in Normal Infants and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: An association with Infant Formula Feeding" by Cooperstock et al. vol 70 no1 July 1982, p.91-95
What we know, "Human milk populates the intestine's with Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli, generating a very different gut flora than that seen after formula feeding." US Patent #6682744
There are many patents on harvesting bacteria from breastfed infants poop or the sugars of human milk to create prebiotics and probiotics.
What is Clostridium difficile? Its a bacteria that some people get after taking antibiotics, it causes a very severe diarrhea. Human milk has factors that are active against C. difficile (in vitro): secretory IgA, Carbohydrate, free secretory component, and unidentified factors.
Research shows us that the stools of the breastfed infant and the formula-fed infant are very different. More formula fed infants have the bacteria clostridium difficile in their stools. Researchers believe that this bacteria creates a toxin (possibly causing death from SIDS-research in the 80's). The bacteria is now implicated in autism. And we know that more infant formula infants have this bacteria in their feces than exclusively breastfed infants. Is there a relationship between this bacteria/toxin and autism? Is exclusive breastfeeding protective against autism? Are there toxins created by ingesting Martek's DHA/ARA oils in baby formulas, foods? What do novel ingredients,these oils, do to the gut of the newborn? Create a leaky gut? A gut susceptible to bacterial invasion? One would suspect that mammals who ingest the milks of other mammals rather than their own species have damage done to their intestines. The Pharm Woman patent owned by Baylor College of Medicine, states that the growth of the gut (activation of the DNA) occurs when mammals are feed their own species milk. Short gut syndrome is caused by the use of infant formula--which means digestion is impaired. We do unknown damage to newborn mammals--particularly the human mammal when artificial milks are used. Damage to the gut, damage to the brain from the intestines inability to colonize the good bacteria. A gut colonized by an overgrowth of the wrong bacteria creates sickness and death and perhaps even autism?
Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

A Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies

It's not Christmas. It's just bake day at the lab, creating food for the hungry people of the world. Petri dish and microbes sitting on the bench. See them dancing? Come on look in your microscope. Hear the music? It's the dance of the sugar plum fairies. Little cloned algae twirling and swirling, swooping through the carbon. See how they dance? Time for a glucose break, and more dancing.

Hey look over there, cloned fungi, filamenting (microbiology term for flamingo dancing) It's wild, it's crazy, it's micro-food technology, feeding the world's hungry. Tell little Johnny that his food doesn't come from the land or the sea, it comes from a petri dish. Men of science, can make life happen. They are the new chefs, directors of the Dance, the dance of the sugar plum fairy. And, we believe, we believe that the Nutcracker knows what he is doing. Yes, he is saving the world from hunger, because hunger is about not growing enough food for the people. Forget the politics of food. Farmers just cannot grow enough food, so we will make it for you in the lab. We offer you cleaned up microbes, the gene spliced option to food from the earth or sea. They can live on anything, they love petroleum. What's a little oil in your food, paraffin-smaraffin. Come on. Babies need our formula ingredients, just like breastmilk. Yeah even tastes like it. Same benefits. Get this in your head, we can't grow enough food for everyone and women can't or won't breastfeed. That is the first lesson. And my god we have learned our first lesson well. Farmers can't or won't grow enough food. (liberation from the land) Fishermen can't or won't catch enough seafood.

(liberation from the sea) Women can't or won't breastfeed (liberation from the body)

Hunger isn't about injustice, the haves and the have-nots. It's only about farming. (funny how an oil company that started the food from oil process, massively pollutes the land and oceans with little remorse and lots of PR--now ya gotta eat our petri dish paraffin microbial foods). And so the dance goes on and on and the people believe their Nutcracker.

"Sugar plum receipe from the Lab"

tap water

mortierella alpina

potato dextrose medium

stir and agitate

freeze and dry

extract with hexane

or:

artificial sea water

concentrated yeast

glucose syrup

C. cohnii

agitate and add

glucose syrup

freeze and dry

add hexane

Sorry guys, ya have to have a white coat and a lab to be a chef today.

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

BP + Martek Bioscience=fuel + food

"BP and Martek Biosciences Enter a Joint Development Agreement to Deliver Advanced Biodiesels" BP Global Press Release August 11, 2009. This is about the development of sugars into a biodiesel fuel using microbial fermentation. Fascinating, particularly when you know the history of both companies. BP, the oil company, developed in the 1960's a "protein-from-oil process" (single cell protein)to create food.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_cell_protein

Yeast was fed by n-paraffins, a petroleum product. This product's intended use was in animal feed. By the 80's there was manufacturing plants in France, Japan, Italy, Russia, UK and USA. Microbes that were used in this manufacturing process were yeasts, bacteria, fungi, and algae. Spirulina, toprina, pruteen, torutein were some of the products. (Quorn is a food that is made by this technology--I have eaten it, tastes like chicken) There was some concerns about product safety. "High concentraion of nucleic acids, elevates serum uric acid levels and results in kidney stone formation, skin reactions to foreign protein, and gastrointestinal reactions.

http://ayushveda.com/blogs/education/single-cell-protein

The reasoning behind this new process was the "prediction" of future protein shortages, particularly in developing countries. Some of these manufacturing plants used hydrocarbons to feed their microbes and some used other substances such as bagasse, citrus wastes, sulphite waste liquor, molasses, animal manure, whey, starch, sewage. etc.

-Professor Cleanthis J. Israelidis, "Nutrition-single cell protein, twenty years later"

One of the more successful single cell protein manufacturing companies is Martek Bioscience. Their algae (DHASCO) and fungi (ARASCO) use the technology of single cell protein production. Their product is in infant formula, supplements, animal feed, and variety of human foods. The assumption by consumers is that the algae is harvested from the oceans (fishermen) and the fungi harvested by farm workers. The algae and fungi actually originate from cloned cultures in Martek's research lab. Although you, too, can buy the Crypthecodinium cohnii that Martek uses for its DHASCO at the ATCC (ATCC Number 40750 for a mere $205 per frozen ampule) ATCC states in their notice and disclaimer section, "ATCC products are intended for laboratory research purposes only, unless noted otherwise. They are not intended for use in humans." Of course this algae is intended for human use--baby use. And the ATCC references this algae to the Martek patents on use for infant formula, baby food, pharmaceutical and dietary supplements.

Over the years I have noticed that many oil industry executives are involved directly or indirectly with biotech industries (genetic engineering being the prime focus). The alliance of BP with Martek in creating a biofuel is fascinating in that you have a company that is making a food, also making a fuel. In regard to creating this biofuel, Martek readily admits to genetic engineering techniques. But in regard to creating its food for babies and adults, they only admit to the single cell protein process. Maybe, just maybe, this alliance with BP will create a sugar fuel that not only we can put into our cars but we can also drink. "Yep, I am just going down to the 24-hour jiffy store for a gas-up for me and my truck--just one spigot for both of "us." Man and machine, have you noticed how much everyone looks like their car/truck. We are one.....OM.........I look like my silver toyota tacoma--curvy, silver-grey, with battery charged, idling at the red light.......waiting for the green.....v....r...oom and she's off and running.

stay tuned for more exciting news about DHASCO and ARASCO, our fine single oiled proteins

copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

the smell of things to come, creating a better infant formula

The sizzling aroma of bacon frying in the great outdoors assaults my nostrils. Despite being a vegetarian for many adult years I feel hungry, my stomach rumbles and grumbles. Give me bacon. Yet at the same time I feel great sorrow for the animal that has been sacrificed. My body betrays my philosophical views about life and living on this planet. No, I don't eat the bacon. Yet, I feel repulsed by how easily the odor penetrates belief. Why aren't I repulsed by the smell of cooking flesh? Does the odor remind me of my childhood; the good memories of our family camping? We remember our past by odors. Sometimes a certain smell reminds me of a memory long forgotten. There is often pleasure in that memory, sometimes saddness, sometimes wistfullness for those now gone. Lately, the odors of perfumes in a crowded mall or at my job, bother me, choke me with their strange scents. I feel assaulted by their foreign presence. It isn't a pleasurable smell but a smell that repells me; that makes me want to run to the ocean to breath in the sea and the air.

So it is with great curiosity that I recently found a patent application called, "INFANT FORMULA CONTAINING AN AROMA COMPOSITION FOR USE AS FRAGRANCE." (patent application #20100129312 at the US Patent & Trademark Office) The inventor is Andrea Buttner (German scientist at Fraunhofer Gesellschaft working in sensory analytics). Her name is also spelled Buettner. Fraunhofer Gesellschaft is a applied research company in Germany that is funded mostly by industry and about 1/3 of funding comes from the German government.

The patent application is of interest to me because it states, "babies prefer the odor attributes of human milk compared to those of artificial infant formula or milk products based on milk compositions of animal origin..." The intent of using this aroma is to "improve baby or newborns acceptance of a nutraceutical composition, especially infant formula." It will be used in such products as pacifiers, pillows, toys, breast comfort aids, clothing, incubators, medical equipment, cream, ointment, etc. Wow. So researchers study the odor of human milk, a complex job because the odor is not the same from one feed to the next. The odor dependent on the mother and the food she eats and her chemical contact. So I am fascinated by industry...we will recreate the odor that babies prefer and use it to entice the next generation to accept man-made products.

If that isn't curious enough, this particular researcher was part of a couple of researchers who studied the changes of aroma on stored human milk. From an article in Gas Chromatography in Jan 4, 2010 on their research on the aroma of stored human milk, "The pressures of modern living can limit the opportunities for mothers to breastfeed their babies, directly, but there is always the option of expressing milk for storage and consumption at a later date." The study showed that the odor of stored human milk was very different from the odor of fresh human milk. ("fresh milk to be low in overall odour intensity," "thawed stored milk was strikingly different...dominated by metallic and fishy odours") The study showed that while mothers found the stored human milk distasteful, babies did not seem to be bothered and drank the stored human milk. It would appear that this study was beneficial to breastfeeding and a greater understanding of storage issues of human milk. Since one of the scientists involved in that study is the inventor to this patent application on using a fragrance in infant formula, I start to wonder about the real intent of studying human milk. And then I wonder about the women who donated their milk for this study, that will in all liklihood benefit the infant formula industry. And then I wonder about breastfeeding advocacy organizations and how blinded they seem from the reality of human milk research. Who benefits from human milk research? And do mothers who donate their human milk understand that the research benefits the infant formula industry?

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain