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

"It was the winter of despair...."-Charles Dickens

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way....."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

It has been the winter of my despair for quite some time. Humanity has entered into a season of Darkness. Our science has brought us to great heights. Yesterday I heard the shuttle go up. I live about an hour north of the Cape. The ground shakes and vibrates in waves. I had forgotten that this was the last shuttle trip. I went outside to see the white plume trail. Ah, how many pounds of rocket fuel vented today. A respiratory therapist told her mother (a friend of mine) that after a shuttle launch, the ER has a significant rise in asthma attacks/breathing difficulties. Anecdotal information not worthy of serious consideration?

Will someone investigate it? Not when the job situation in this area is so bad, stop the space program-you have to be kidding!!! I see that white plume and remember the Challenger. I didn't go outside that day-babies napping. Just saw it replayed over and over again on TV-embedded in my brain like the 9-11 plane hitting the World Trade Center. Traumatized by those images, can't forget, never will forget. How the media impacts our lives....not the same as seeing it happen, yet emotionally I feel I was there. Lives lost. Why?

The pursuit of knowledge is the quest for truth. Truth is on who's side? Is there a side? Is the infant formula industry truthful? Are breastfeeding advocates truthful? Is truth relative? Is truth dependent on what side of the fence you live on? Is honesty ditched because your side is the right side? What is the right side? What is academic scholarship? What is intellectual honesty? Where be thee? Is publication a game of roulette? What does it mean, when publication becomes a means to an end, not pursuit of truth. How can we depend on publication, if it can be changed at the whim of the researcher/publisher/editor? I mull this over this morning, wondering if I will ever bother reading online journals again. Despite it being "the spring of hope," I feel winter has not left us.

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Dali, Fountain of Milk....

Some years ago I saw a Dali exhibit and was entranced by his art and what I perceived to be a visionary perception of the future. I was particularly struck by his "Fountain of Milk Spreading Itself Uselessly on Three Shoes." This is dated 1945.

Are we there, yet?? Woman, on a pedestal, allowing her milk to fall to earth. No baby in sight. Barren landscape, except one man standing by a shoe.....

Jamming

Well what do you know, my computer keyboard jammed and I couldn't go forward or backward, couldn't do anything. These computer viruses, sure get around town.

Okay, so lets see, if it will let me continue or totally shut me down.

I was writing that Dr. Lisa Amir was involved with a milk bank in Geelong, Australia. see

http://www.gsdm.com.au/newsletters/deakin/june09/7.html

If you want to read the article on milk banks that I commented on see

http://www.internationalbreastfeedingjournal.com/

What do you think? What should I think? Should I believe that all this mess was accidental? Yeah, sure, give me a break. The push to sell milk banking down our throats has just begun. Who wins? Yeah--researchers cause they get a resource easily and free to do research on. Corporations win, cause they get a product to develop and sell to consumers and yeah its free to patent and monopolize. Who loses? Well, just mothers and babies. Mothers cause they will be sabotaged into believing that the product is just as good as breastfeeding. And babies who will be denied access to the breast because the mother believes the world of "medical research."

I was amused reading Lactnet and the hoopala regarding the media article on the rotovirus vaccine and breastfeeding. People still don't get it. The rotovirus vaccine is derived from research done on human milk components, genetically engineered, and then sold to our medical community. And yes, this will directly sabotage breastfeeding. It's the money, guys, wake up!! We don't need the freakin vaccine, if women would exclusively breastfeed. But we can't have that can we?? So thank your milk banks for their generosity to researchers around the world!! Yes, feel the heat. Who controls what research gets printed? Editors....and don't tell me about how fair-handed they are regarding what gets printed and what doesn't. Where is truth? Obviously lost forever, because who controls what is printed/what is believed controls human life and activity. The earth is bleeding, we see that in the Gulf. But the lifeblood of mammalian survival is like that geyser of oil in the Gulf. Steadily leaking into a lab filled with empire builders, who care not if women breastfeed. Like the Gulf oil crisis, the care is only about profit.

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain