The Birth of the Milky Way Empire

"A long time ago in a galaxy far far away....Mary Alactivst was one of the last of her kind. She was breastfed by her mother, an oddity for sure because the Empire considered breastfeeding revolting, disgusting, on the level of the Primitives. Mary's mother kept to herself, never nursing in public because she did not want to attract the attention of the Elites. The Elites were the movers and shakers of society. They governed the Empire. They owned the lands, the money system, and approved or disapproved who was allowed to be schooled in the Ways of the Empire. Survival was difficult if not impossible without their approval. There were those who lived on the fringes of society who risked their lives to be one of the Free. Mary's mother was one of the Free."

Freedom. Yesterday, an anole, a common lizard in Florida, hitched a ride on the hood of my truck. I didn't see him until I was moving down the rode. He hunkered down and clung to the hood. I was in heavy traffic, no place to stop. I said to him, "Hang on Buddy, I'll stop as soon as I can." He seemed to hear me and clung on despite the difficulty. I found a park and stopped by a tree. I jumped out of the truck and gave him a nudge to jump off my truck. He jumped. He jumped on me, which I really didn't expect. I jumped and he jumped off me and ran under my truck. I got back in my truck and very carefully pulled away not wanting to run over the guy I just saved. As I drove away, Mr. Crow flew down, and the chase was on. "Run Buddy, run!" Mr. Crow won. I saved Buddy so that Mr Crow could eat. Destiny.

Well what does that have to do with our saga about genetically engineering human milk components in plants? It's all about human Destiny. Now for a dose of the reality of our Biotech World. I'd like to introduce to you a company called Ventria Bioscience. This is the company that has sowed fields of rice with the genes for human milk components: lysozyme and lactoferrin. These components will be extracted from the rice plants (or barley or wheat-patent suggests a variety of plants but for now they are using rice) to be used in oral rehydration solutions and infant formulas. Ventria Bioscience was founded by Raymond Rodriguez in 1993. Professor Rodriguez is a professor at UC Davis and also Chairman and CEO of the Davis Bioscience Group. The current President and CEO of Ventria is Scott E. Deeter. Ventria planted their experimental fields in California first but were chased out by various concerns. They then had plans to plant their pharmaceutical crop in Missouri But Anheuser-Busch and Riceland Foods were concerned about contamination from this unusal crop with their supplies of rice. They ended up with their experimental fields in North Carolina and Kansas. Currently, both their lysozyme and lactoferrin ingredients are going through the FDA GRAS process (GRAS notices 191 and 235). GRAS for both these items is "pending." I found the GRAS letters written by this company to the FDA highly enlightening.

The use of evidence (scientific research) for its GRAS status is referenced by the DARLING Study. The DARLING Study is well-known among IBCLCs. Fascinating that the safety of genetically engineered human milk components is based partly on studies on human milk. Of course the FDA belief that gentically engineered organisms are equivalent to the real thing has alot to do with using this as evidence of safety. "The protective effects of breast feeding against infection, in a relatively affluent population, first year of life incidence of diarrheal illness in breast fed infants half that of formula. Dewey et al 1995") Evidence-based medicine. Sort of ironic that the safety of genetically engineering human milk components is based on the safety of breastfeeding. The safety that mothers aren't aware of because no one discusses risks of infant formula. Stay tuned for more on Recombinant Times....

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Rummage Sale: the connect between milk banks and the infant formula industry

The community of breastfeeding advocates accepts that non-profit milk banks gift/or sell their donor milk to projects that involve the infant formula industry. Is this correct? Is it acceptance or they just don't know or just don't care? I can't stop thinking about the relationship of a HMBANA milk bank-San Jose, CA and the UC Davis Milk Bioactives Consortium. So who cares? There is a bleakness and vast empty ethical space that seems to envelope a profession that is supposedly dedicated to helping mothers breastfeed. So the other angle is to help the infant formula industry/academia/US Government make a better infant formula? I now understand why the WHO Code is considered irrelevant in the USA. One can understand the recent research papers funded by milk banks that try to prove that milk sharing between mothers is risky. Or that using donor milk does not impact rates of breastfeeding among preterm mothers. Both papers written with major flaws but useful in building consensus among non-reading professionals. The goal is to monopolize the use of human milk, to make it illegal for moms to share milk. Patent related? You bet. The latest HMBANA Conference had researchers featured that own patents and patent applications on human milk components. This is not unusual--every HMBANA Conference seems to feature at least one researcher who has a patent or patent application on a human milk component. Are attendees to these Conferences informed of this? And do they even care? I guess all that matters is Business and this is the pervasive theme in the USA. To hell with ethics. What women don't know is their own fault. The recent Haiti fiasco to drum up donations for milk banks is a curiosity. So like the infant formula industry and its social marketing games.
The silence rains down and the Business of Breastfeeding grinds-on; building Empires for the makers of a "SAFER" infant formula, just like mom's milk.
Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

The Milky Way Galactic Empire Report: an introduction

"A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...."

Our heroine, Mary Alactivst, stood in a field of rice owned by a national biotech company. Rice, who would have thought we were related. She stared closely at the field. They have my genes, my genetic blueprint for making milk for my babies. Mary quietly sang a lullaby. These are her babies, her rice babies. Singing to them will help them grow. Grow and feed the starving and sick babies around the world, because women can no longer breastfeed. They have forgotten how. But now we will save the planet. Mothers around the world will be so grateful. And so begins the sad saga of the Milky Way Empire and the Second Invasion of the Clones.

Yes, just a parody on a science fiction movie. But the reality of biotechnology is that we are mixing human genes with animals and plants. How is this happening? Why do I believe that this inventing will ultimately destroy breastfeeding? Stay Tuned. First, let's look at a 2008 Annual Report from the California Dairy Research Foundation (CDRF which discusses the UC Davis Milk Bioactives Consortium. The document states that, "the Consortium is a public-private partnership with over $12M in funding...aimed at discovering compounds in bovine and human milk with proven nutritional benefits for human health." Funding was derived from several commodity groups, governmental agencies, and multinational companies with initial funding from the CDRF and UC Davis Discovery Program. Under 2004-2005 the Milk Bioactives Consortium states,"Relationships with the Milk Bank of San Jose, CA and Reno, NV established to provide supply of human milk for analysis."

nefits for human health."

Does this document mean the HMBANA milk bank at San Jose? Or are there other milk banks in San Jose? In 2007 they raise over $2.7 million from various agencies plus first industrial partnership with DSM Food Ingredients (DSM-Dutch State Mines, provides ARA for Martek oils). In 2008 the NIH provides a $3million award to study the effect of milk oligosaccharides and probiotics to decrease NEC in premature babies. Same year Nestle gives a multi-year donation to the Consortium. Page 7 of the document states, "ProLacta Biosciences and the Milk Bioactives program partner to secure supplies of human milk to mine for future bioactive components."

http://www.cdrf.org/doc/Research/CDRF2009Annual.pdf

I call this a fusion of interests in human milk components: industry, US Government, and academia-particularly UC Davis. And this fusion of interest seems to be mining human milk that is provided by milk banks--one milk bank being commercial. Do women who donate fully understand that their donations are part of a huge multi-million project to mine human milk components for use in commercial projects? What is the relationship between this huge project and other endeavors at UC Davis, such as the JHL, or Ventria Bioscience and its gmo rice containing the human genes lysozyme and lactoferrin? Science fiction? This is freaking scary. I was kicked off Lactnet in and around 2004-2005, coincidence? Discussions of human milk component patenting silenced, coincidence? Interesting........

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Feed the baby? FEED the MAMA

I was outside working on my yard, when I started thinking about my work as an IBCLC a few years ago. The mantra was "feed the baby," and it is probably still considered the IBCLC priority. I absorbed that thought at a Conference and had no reason to question it. It was on top of the list when I did home visits--feed the baby, feed the baby. As time went along and I became more experienced, I began to question whether that should be the top priority. No, I wasn't into starving a baby to "make" her or him breastfeed. But I had some real doubts about the use of infant formula, when breastfeeding "appeared" to be not working. It became particular difficult, when the health care provider was recommending infant formula for insufficient weight gain. Yet, the baby was gaining albeit slowly, and not according to the charts. When I was a practising IBCLC, donor milk was out of the picture--no milk banks in the State.

This morning I began to think that perhaps our profession ought to consider a new mantra, "Feed the Mama." By feeding the mama, the infant gets fed. Mothering the mother so that a mother has time with her baby. Our society needs to "Feed the Mama." I started thinking about the mothers I visited for breastfeeding problems. I think of the young mom who had a c-section who was scrubbing her kitchen floor, when I knocked on the door. She had her baby's clothes in the sink, washing them because she had no washing machine. She was struggling with breastfeeding but had no support system. No one to say, "Lie down. Rest, take what time you have and give it to your baby." How could she figure out breastfeeding? Who would take her clothes to the laundry mat? Who would cook her meals? I could say to her rest, take time with your baby. But we both knew that was a cruel joke. There was no one to do for her, to mother her so she could mother her baby. Another mother I visited had no privacy, she lived with a number of people. And during my home visit, various people came in and out of the apartment. She had her boyfriend put up a blanket, to give her privacy so that she could feed her baby. She never relaxed because the door was always opening and closing. Her living conditions and her powerlessness to control her living space made breastfeeding a challenge.

How do we protect breastfeeding? We protect the mother. Yet, in the USA, little is done to protect the mother. Economically, many mothers feel under the gun because they have to go back to work asap. So time, time for baby--you have to be kidding. Mama has no time. No time to relax, no time to take a bath, no time to cook, no time to eat, no time, no time.

I did a home visit with a teenage mother of a premature baby. Her boyfriend's mother was staying with them and she was mothering the mother. In fact it was the boyfriend's mother who had called me and asked me to come by. She was cooking meals and giving the new mom lots of information and support to breastfeed. It was an easy home visit. All they needed was reassurance that everything was OK and it was. I saw the teen mom and baby some months later, and the baby had gained alot of weight. So much weight that her pediatrician wanted her to start formula because he believed that breastfeeding was making the baby fat. Her support was gone and she succumbed to the belief that the medical "expert" knew more about infant feeding. She was a teenager and it was just amazing to see how far she went with breastfeeding. I met another teenage mother who breastfeed her infant for 18 months. These young woman contradict our notion that teenage mothers aren't interested or can't breastfeed. But both teenagers had adults willing to mother the mother (and not so surprising both adults involved with these teenagers were at one time La Leche League members, neither were leaders).

In childbirth, we know that mothers do better in labor, with female support--the doula, midwives. Breastfeeding, likewise, needs the same kind of mothering. Feed the mama.

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Black box warning

Wyeth has a recent patent that is about the need to reduce the adverse effects of infant formula by 20-50%. So why don't we have a black box warning on cans of infant formula?? "The Surgeon General's Warning: Infant formula feeding is hazardous to a baby's health. It may cause diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration, disease, cancer, and death." The industry has been trying for years to correct all their mistakes by new and improved formulations, yet we still have a product that is risky. And now we have the added unknown risks of genetically engineered infant formulas. We still have a general public that believes in the safety of this product. Why for heaven sakes do mothers have to have a prescription for donor milk but mothers don't need a prescription to buy infant formula? Why aren't mothers being adequately warned of the risks? Why do breastfeeding advocates skirt this issue? They skirt the issue by calling the risks of infant formula, the risks of not breastfeeding. Heaven forbid we address this issue head-on, we might offend someone. No one seems to be afraid of offending smokers--"smoking kills." Hey, I know smokers and they are perfectly healthy. This is a democracy, smokers have rights. It's a free country. All these issues and more, and yet at some point in time, most people began to understand the health risks of smoking. Why is formula-feeding any different? Why do we accept the ill health and death of formula-fed infants? I also wonder why we are accepting of the high infant mortality rate of our black infants in this country? Shouldn't we be up in arms about this? Genetics, my blankety-blank....no this is about poverty and lack of information caused by discrimination. Society makes its choices. This society has chosen to reward the pharmaceutical/infant formula/dairy industries. No questions asked. These industries wage a public relations game that muddles the picture. Add to this, human milk researchers who are paid by industry, yet clearly support breastfeeding. How much of our research on infant feeding is politicized? How much is white-washed to not offend? Isn't it time we had a black box label on infant formula?

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Endangered species: the suckling mammal

Suckling mammal sounds like a song or a poem written by a biotech engineer during a lull in watching his petri dish or his micro scope. I thought mammals were animals that nursed their young. So suckling mammals is rather redundant. On the other hand, we do have non-suckling mammals. We have created them. We have infant formula for kittens and puppies because well, you know....they really don't want to do that, that, that primitive, instinctual stuff. Actually many female dogs and cats are prone to not enough milk. And well they prefer a choice. Liberation from mammalian captivity, just ask Nestle's Purina....

Silly me. See what happens when ya read infant formula patents. The words, suckling mammal, snared my mind and danced upon my funny bone. Before I knew it, I had to write it. I thought about my Neeko, my cat who nursed her babies until they were bigger than her. For shame, Neeko, nursing your big baby-children. Neeko hasn't negotiated the grocery store aisle and seen the great kitten formulas--even has DHA and ARA. She does watch TV and stares at the computer screen. So she could be a well-informed consumer. Instead, she seems caught up in grooming and nursing her babies...and chasing anoles and biting their heads off and leaving them at the front door. She shares unlike the dog, who eats everything in sight. Now he got the canned puppy milk cause he became an orphan at an early age. We call him Fat Boy, the not-so-lean eating machine.

Silly me. Sidetracked again by the animal farm in my house. Let's get down to the nuts and bolts of the suckling mammal. "There is a need for a nutrient for the manufacture of a nutritional composition for suckling mammals which promotes an intestinal flora pattern similar to the one present in mammals fed by their mother." Thank you Nestec (Nestle). That is patent # 7666830 called "Nutritional composition preventing bacterial overgrowth." Now the grand entrance of the miracle component, a protein hydrolzate. Don't ask, I don't know, and don't care to know about their miracle. It is suppose to prevent necrotizing enterocolitis and septicemia. Obviously, previous infant formulas have failed to prevent these bacterial diseases. Of course, the suckling mammal doesn't seem to have this problem. But where oh where is the suckling mammal?? Please Nestle, tell me where is the suckling mammal?? Endangered species??

Wyeth has a better patent called, "Methods for reducing adverse effects of feeding formula to infants," patent #7651716 published this January of 2010. They are going to reduce the side effects of their infant formula by 20-50%. Ask me how? They are going to make it more like human milk by increasing the levels of alpha-lactalbumin and tryptophan. Ya didn't know that infant formula had side effects did ya? Not written on the can. Of course, I haven't bought infant formula since......1982 and if I had only known then what I know now. But back then it was the new and improved SMA and we had heard by good authorities (medical, I believe) that this was a safe formula. The child now adult survived but as a baby she threw alot of that stuff up. It was the inspiration to relactate and it did set me on the road to breastfeeding advocacy. So thank you Wyeth.

The nonsuckling mammal needs arachidonic acid or so they say. Yeah, you remember the ARA to the DHA, the essential long-chain polyunsturated fatty acid? This is from Martek Bioscience (they have a bunch of these patents on DHA and ARA). This one is called, "Method for production of arachidonic acid," patent #7666657. Their goal is to produce the amount of arachidonic acid that "approximates the concentration of human milk." Once again, Martek touches the touchy subject of genetic engineering this component. "It will be obvious to one skilled in the art that mutant microorganisms of the present invention also include arachidonic acid-producing microorganisms that can be obtained by genetically-engineering microorganisms to produce increased amounts of arachidonic acid." They have been writing similiar statements since 1992 in their patents on DHA and ARA. This is a company that was founded by genetic engineers but interestingly enough they say they are not genetically engineering DHA and ARA. What should the consumer believe? That these substances are just algae and fungi that hang out in the ocean or under some log? And yes we will give it to the nonsuckling mammal. We do have bolder companies regarding the production of arachidonic acid for infant formula. E.I. du Pont de Nemours (patent # 7588931 called, "High arachidonic acid producing strains of Yarrowia liploytica) just states they will be using a "recombinant" oleginous Yarrowia yeast cell for the production of arachindonic acid and the primary purpose of doing that is for infant formula. Recombinant is something genetically engineered. Why are we doing this? Because the suckling mammal is an endangered species.

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

The illusion of a safer infant formula

We are a society that believes that infant formula is a safe substitute for not breastfeeding. We believe it because we are told to believe it. We are told that infant formula is only unsafe in developing countries. The safety of infant formula in developed nations, like the USA, is never questioned. When we look at infant mortality rates in the USA, we discover that it is the poor and black communities that have the highest infant mortality rates. (two-three times the rate of the white population) And not so surprisingly, we find that it is the poor and the black mothers who are the least likely to breastfeed their babies. The connection is there between how babies are fed and the infant mortality rates. But our society has chosen to use the power of public relations and place the issue of infant feeding as one of women's liberation and choice. We cannot tell women that their "choice" will lead to an infant's increased risk of disease and death. Who would believe that anyway? Women don't need prescriptions to buy infant formula but they do need prescriptions to buy donor milk. Death certificates do not say that a baby died from lack of breastmilk. They die from various diseases: pneumonia, septicemia, SIDS, gastroenteritis, diarrhea. And who would believe that breastmilk would prevent that from happening? Well, maybe parents need to read a few patents written by the infant formula industry to understand what the industry knows about human milk. The industry knows that infant formula is a risk for all infants. It is the basis for the continuous quest for a safer infant formula. That quest over the years, has resulted in infants being the guinea pigs to a variety of synthetic substances. It has resulted in a number of deaths and injuries because we do not truly understand the limitations of infant formula. Nor do we seem to understand that not all infants can tolerate those synthetic variations. Yet, we continue onward with this quest for a fake breastmilk. Now we have genetic engineering and the quest is intense because it is coupled with the belief that genetic engineering can duplicate the real substance. Duplicate? Or is it just another synthetic imitation? What will the future hold for those infants sustained on substances created by the corporate world?

We are spending enormous sums of money on the creation of a safer infant formula. We are using up water, oil, electricity, air quality to create an unnecessary food product. And to top that waste of resources, we dump the containers and plastic pieces used for that product in landfills. Yet our society is convinced that women want to escape the prison of breastfeeding and have a choice in how a baby is fed. But what if choice is just a public relations scam by the corporate world who wants to make profits. What if choice is just a way to obtain cheap labor (poor women's wages are always lower than poor men's wages)?

As a past LLL leader, I always delighted in the awe of a young woman's first realization that she helped grow that baby, not Mead Johnson, not Nestle. She did it. She sustained life by breastfeeding her baby. It's a powerful and transforming moment. And maybe that is what the corporate world is so afraid of and why discussions of choice has become the only discussions. Such power, the power of not being dependent on the corporate world for the well-being and safety of your infant is liberation. And the corporate world is mighty afraid of that kind of liberation.

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain