"And now the whole country, indeed, the whole world seemed suddenly to be caught up in a mad chocolate buying spree..."
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was one of my favorite author's to read out loud to my children. His book, Matilda, had our whole family in tears laughing so hard. I read the BFG over and over again to one of my children. The worlds he created seemed real, despite the wildness of the characters. One could not help but root for Matilda, the innocent, incredible intelligent child, tormented by uncaring, stupid people in her life. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was one of his books that never really appealed to me, that is until now. Suddenly, a light bulb went off in my head and I began to see the sophistication of Dahl's story about a poor boy who wins a ticket to tour Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. So you, the reader of my blog, ask what does this have to do with human milk, infant formula,patents, breastfeeding? Well....read the book. Does fiction imitate life or does life imitate fiction?
"Nestle has joined a Government campaign to combat obesity--by rewarding families for buying Kit Kats, Smarties and Milky Bars."
an article in the UK's Daily Mail online 10/14/2010
In the Philipines a Nestle Promo, "Wellness 'Win A Laptop Every Week.' To join the raffle promotion one must register via mobile (SMS) phone and proof of purchase of at least one hundred pesos worth of participating Nestle products within the promotion period (Jan15, 2011 til March 31, 2011)." Some of the participating products were: Nescafe, Milo, Nestea, Maggi, Nido, Nestle Crunch, Kit Kat, Fox's, Smarties, etc.
http://www.nestle.com.ph/wellness/Mechanics.asp
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was published in 1964. I was already a teenager and never had the pleasure of reading the book as a child but only as an adult to her own children. Funny how life seems to imitate fiction. Nestle in real life owns Wonka, which makes gobbstoppers, nerds, etc. Augustus Gloop is the obese child in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who drinks from the river of chocolate and is duly punished by Willy Wonka. Augustus Gloop gets the chocolate squeezed out of him as punishment. Back when Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, childhood obesity did occur but was rare. The CDC documents that obesity rates in USA for children aged 2-19 years old is now approximately 17% or 12.5 million children.
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/data.html
Something has changed in the past 40-50 years. Blame it on the food or lack of activity, many of our children who are obese face a lifetime of health issues as well as being socially ostracized. Health organizations, governments, corporations have taken notice of this "epidemic" and have decided to wage a battle. How? By letting the very industries, the Willy Wonka's of the global food system "educate" us. We will learn portion control, we will become more active, and we will buy the food products that will fight obesity.
"Mr. Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets...he can make lovely blue bird eggs..." Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
In the USA, Nestle's obesity battle has joined forces with governmental organizations. In the state of Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder wants to attack childhood obesity. Gerber (which is now owned by Nestle) along with state agencies, the Michigan Grocers Association and the Michigan Health and Hospital Association have created a health and nutrition initiative. Gerber will lend to the state program its expertise in childhood nutrition and Nestle-owned meal planning and educational materials. Nestle's Gerber is also helping Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey. They will help Newark reverse its childhood obesity rates through an educational curriculum. Nestle is partnered with local community organization, including Newark Youth Policy Board and Rutgers University. Nothing like an independent educational system....
Other countries seem to be benefiting from Nestle's generosity in its fight against the global obesity epidemic. South Africa and it's governmental organization the CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, part of South Africa's Department for Science and Technology). "We expect the collaboration will help to provide the scientific basis for sound nutrition and food safety policies, as well as identify research needs for science-based regulations on food, nutrition and health."
"The Mozambican Nestle Global Healthy Kids Programme is a partnership project between Nestle Mozambique and Mozambican Ministry of Education..."
"The American University of Beirut joins forces with Nestle to fight obesity among Lebanon's schoolchildren through research and intervention programs."
Surprisingly or not so surprisingly I found that one of the USDA's National Strategic Partners is Gerber and yes, Nestle, as well as the National Dairy Council (many other corporations Dean Foods, Birds Eye, Chiquita, Juicy-Juice--oh wait that is a Nestle owned company).
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/partnering-program/national-partners/partner-list.html
It seems the food industry, in particular Nestle, is setting the scene to educate the governments of this world as well as academic institutions about obesity. Believe it or not, but how babies are feed in the early days influences obesity. Breastfeeding is recognized as important for healthy weight gain. Thus, the infant formula industry will educate us about breastfeeding. Huh? Roald Dahl (if he were still alive) could write a hilarious children's book about an infant formula industry teaching mothers to breastfeed. Nestle in its patent applications describes the problem and how to go about fixing it. Presto, chango...ta-da...create a better infant formula, more like human milk!!! Nestle seems more prepared to fight the obesity campaign than any other infant formula company. They have submitted over 50 patent applications to the US Patent & Trademark Office since 2003. Other infant formula companies have a few patents regarding obesity but Nestle is outstanding. Financially for this company, its a win-win situation. And this is what our adult world seems to be about, making money and just more money, more toys, more candy...gluttony, thy name is capitalism.
Anyway, just a small sample of some of Nestle's obesity patent applications.
Patent application 20120029080 entitles, "Reduction of risk of obesity."
"Increasingly it is believed that the first 6 months of life represent one of the most important post natal periods for human fat mass development and consequently may be critical window for programming excess of adiposity later in life."
Patent application 2012021977, entitled, "Promotion of healthy catch-up growth." This patent is about how catch-up growth might not be such a great thing, there are risks for babies who gain rapid weight on previous infant formulas.
Patent application 20118244072 entitled, "Modulation of infant fat mass."
"Weight gain during the first week of life has been associated with overweight in adulthood."
As someone who tried to help woman breastfeed, reading these patents creates some angry feeling. One of the main issues during the years I was involved with breastfeeding assistance (1985-2005) was breastfed infants who were not gaining enough. Pediatricians using infant formula provided growth charts would tell mothers that their baby was not gaining enough. When the person in the white coat, the doctor, tells a mother that her baby is not gaining enough and that supplementation is required; it is next to impossible to step-in and change the situation. Most often, I could not see that there was a weight-gain problem, just a "chart" problem. Growth charts provided by the infant formula industry, seemed well a little wrong for the breastfed infant. Supplementation with infant formula, usually is the beginning of the end of breastfeeding in most cases, unless the mother gets some guidance from someone who has a deeper understanding of supply-demand issues that govern breastfeeding. How many mothers during those years quit breastfeeding, believing that they didn't have enough milk? How many? In my practice, I was overwhelmed by these cases. And here we have these patent applications to develop an infant formula more like breastmilk so that babies will not become obese children. Some of the patent applications want to increase the protein content, some decrease the protein content...all Nestle patent applications. One patent thinks that Lactobacillus reuteri (a bacteria specifically identified from human milk) is an anti-obesity agent. Another considers Lactobacillus rhamnous an agent for weight control. One has to wonder why we think that obesity can be resolved by one ingredient.
One of the patent applications that became a patent in 2007 is called, "Pre-adipose cell lines," patent applciation 20030175957. In order to develop drugs, food ingredients and supplements against obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, Nestle has created a new immortalized human pre-adipose cell lines. The patent states, "Obesity has been declared a public health hazard by the National Institutes of Health....The effects of obesity, e.g. non-insulin dependent diabetes, coronary artery disease, and hypertension, are estimated to have resulted in $45.8 billion in direct costs and an additional $23 billion in indirect costs from, e.g. missed work."
This patent thinks it will be "useful to predict and measure a person's propensity or susceptibility to obesity." I have a better way of predicting and preventing obesity and it doesn't need patenting and is very cost effective. Infant feeding practices predicts whether an infant will be at high risk for obesity in later life. Nestle says so in its patents, they have done the research. I would say exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life would be a first step in prevention of obesity. And the question must be is how much does Nestle really want breastfeeding to succeed, when so much is riding on diagnosis and treatment of obesity through patent-pending products? How is it that our global world lets a corporation make profits from creating a problem and then watches it profit from its resolution? Curious our world.
"Of course they're real people. They're Oompa-Loompas. Imported. direct from Loompaland." Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. by Roald Dahl
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain
Two IBCLCs (Renee Hefti and Maria Parlapiano) are currently working hard to alert people to Nestle's partnerships with several governmental offices in Newark, New Jersey and Michigan. If you my readers are troubled by this kind of partnership, please consider signing the Health Petition to Stop Newark/Nestle Now at http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-newark-nestle-now#
You may also be interested in letters written by the organization, Public Citizen.
http://www.citizen.org/letter-to-booker
http://www.citizen.org/letter-to-synder
"If it's free it's for me."
A motto I have lived by since my early twenties. Obviously in this world there are many who live by this motto. So when US hospitals give away infant formula, one would suppose that this was manna from heaven. From what I have read on the Virtual, some mothers are livid that those "breastfeeding fruitcakes" are pushing for the end of free formula in hospitals. Although I tend to think some of those supposed "moms" are the PR people from the infant formula industry.
Funny how I have never questioned "free" when it comes from nature. My left- alone compost pile that surprises me with 5 pounds of potatoes or tomato plants galore. Or my loquat tree, we call Japanese plum, that fruits twice a year and gifts me with such sweet fruit. Or my free water supply caught by my big old rain barrels...no big water bill this month. Yet, I do question gifts given by corporations to the public. What is it about free toys from industry that makes us feel like we, the consumers, have finally caught a break from the reality of a monied world? We feel that we are strong-minded and that just because an industry gives us some free stuff, we are not ensnared by the industry.
One of the things the infant formula industry knows (because they do the research) is that the brand of formula given out in the hospital is usually what a parent will use for the first year of their infant's life. Thus, the introduction of a certain brand in the hospital has enormous monetary effect on profits of a particular infant formula company. Usually a baby that is fed Nestle in the hospital will be fed Nestle at home. The thinking of the parent is that if the hospital gave it out, then it must be the better infant formula, the safest infant formula, the medically approved brand. By default, this kind of give-away becomes endorsement by a medical establishment implying medical approval.
Getting something for free, is often a hook to snare the consumer. Think about the free cigarettes given out to serviceman in WW II. How many men from that era got hooked on cigarettes? Think of the drug dealer on the street, who wants some new customers..free drug trial for a short time. Think of the free samples of prescription medicine given out by your friendly doc. How grateful we are because the bill for some of those drugs might mean you need to rob a Brink's truck. So that free sample means that you are ever grateful to your doc and the pharmaceutical company. The pharmaceutical company that so kindly dropped it off to your doctor. Now why would they do that? Benevolence? Yes, drug dealers are very benevolent...at first. But when ya have a bad reaction to your drug, they disavow any responsibility. It's not their fault, that your kidney's shut down or your liver failed, or your skin fell off or you died. You should have known better. Didn't ya read the small print that came with your drug? No? You thought it couldn't happen to you. Yeah, it always happens to the other guy, not me, not my family.
Infant formula has no warnings on their label. Parents assume because you can buy it at any grocery store, pharmacy, or over the internet that it is a safe product, tested and approved by the FDA. Yeah...sure. The FDA approves nothing, it presumes safety based on the industry's own evaluations. Parents may hear about infants who have died or been neurologically impaired by contamination of infant formula by enterobacter sakazakii or salmonella or melamine (all those Chinese babies who died). But it's not going to happen to their child. This is kinda like the smokers who knew that other smokers died from lung cancer but it wasn't going to happen to them. Although they did not understand that smoking not only damaged the lungs but the cardiovascular system. Likewise, infant formula, impacts babies in many, many ways not discussed publicly. Nor is their any public discussion of the use of genetically engineered bacteria (for probiotics) in baby formulas and how this would seem to be a huge experiment on infants. The ramifications of the use of genetically engineered bacteria in baby formulas is unknown.
The infant formula industry studies human milk, collects it, and patents off of it. Human milk is their standard, the gold standard. The general public and the medical community seems to believe that infant formula is the standard and that human milk is always questionable, tarnished. Rather ironic and sad. Industry knows better than the medical community regarding the risks of infant formula.
A recent patent owned by N.V. Nutrica (infant formula company in
Europe) makes some interesting statements in its patent # 8114441 called, "Immune stimulatory infant nutrition," filed in 2005 at the US Patent & Trademark Office.
"The composition reduces-among others-the risks attached to feeding whey dominant infant formula."
"...whey dominant formulas do not optimally protect against infections."
"Moreover, the flora of infants fed with formulas containing whey dominant bovine protein source contain increased amounts pathological bacteria such as clostridia and enterobacteria."
Hm...parents ought to know this risk. The medical community ought to understand this risk.
The infant formula industry in order to combat this situation is trying all sorts of experiments to change the gut flora of the formula-fed infant. For instance, Mead Johnson has a patent called, "Probiotic infant products," patent # 8137718 filed in 2008.
"In another embodiment, the infant formula or children's nutritional product contains B. longum strain AH1205 or a mutant or variant thereof. The mutant may be a genetically modified mutant."
"Genetic modification includes introduction of exogenous and/or endogenous DNA sequences into the genome of a Bifidobacteria strain, for example by insertion into the genome of the bacterial strain by vectors, including plasmid DNA, or bacteriophages."
The infant formula industry is playing with bacteria and feeding it to our young. Why? Because they believe they need to create a substance more like human milk because human milk is the gold standard. Do parents understand what they are feeding their infants? Do hospitals understand what they are giving to parents to feed to their infants? Who is legally responsible for this situation, when this experiment goes haywire? Or will we even know if this massive experiment is going wrong?
Meanwhile in Spain, other inventors and another company-Hero Espana have decided to use micro-organisms isolated from the feces of children exclusively breastfed to create a probiotic for use in infant formula. They have a US patent application 20120076829 entitled, "Isolation, identification and characterisation of strains with probiotic activity, from faeces of infants fed exclusively with breast milk."
"Said microorganisms are used in the food or pharmaceutical industry, especially for use in infant formula milk, due to their probiotic properties which have beneficial effects on the health of those ingesting them."
Oh yes, women can't or won't breastfeed, so by golly, they will get human milk components genetically engineered by our men and women of industry. Of course, one might ask why parents want to feed their infants genetically engineered foods? Well, we know very well women can't or won't breastfeed. And since they can't or won't, the hospital will all so kindly provide these designer infant formulas for free, so that parents can try them out. And let's see what happens...parents need to wake up and the medical community needs to think about their legal responsibility in this mess. Unless of course, there is this belief in the safety of feeding newborns genetically engineered foods. Yeah, free stuff usually has a hook...and that hook is your child becomes part of an experiment.
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain
How do we know when something is not fit to drink, touch, eat or breathe? What happens when that something is invisible to the eye. We can not taste it, or smell it. With radiation we know that, NO DOSE IS SAFE. A panel of the US National Academy of Sciences recognized that there is no safe radiation dose.
http://www.nirs.org/radiation/radtech/nosafedose072005.pdf
Not what you heard? Yeah, I heard the PR people from the nuclear industry after Fukushima. It was the don't worry dance, a little radiation isn't going to hurt you. Or we read that fear is the bigger danger in Japan than radiation. Then the experts bring out the numbers and then confusion rains upon the American populace because the world measures things in System Internationale (SI), derived from the metric system and in the US we do the conventional. For example emitting radiation is measured in the US by the unit called curie (Ci) and in the SI system the unit is becquerel. Measuring the unit dose absorbed by someone in the US is the rad and SI unit system is gray (Gy). Biological risk is measured in the US by the unit rem and the SI unit is sievert (Sv). Mighty easy to get confused trying to figure it out. The CDC puts out a pdf that explains the system. A good example is the measurement of exposure to radiation. In the US one mammogram gives you a dose of 70 mrm (milli rem), in Japan that would be 0.7 mSv (milli sievert). In the US one dental x-ray is 4-15 mrem in Japan that would be 0.04-0.15 mSv.
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/pdf/measurement.pdf
Health effects to the body are dependent upon the dosage, and a person's age, and whether they are male or female. We know that the most vulnerable to radiation exposure is the elderly, women, and children. Women who are pregnant and fetuses are particularly vulnerable. Radiation increases our risk of cancers (blood and bone), cardiovascular disorders, immune deficiencies, birth defects, endocrine disorders-thyroid problems, and genetic mutations.
"Childhood disease clusters have been found in many communities with nuclear facilities. This list includes increases in childhood leukemia near reprocessing facilities in La Hague, France and at Sellafield in the British Isles and the Krummel nuclear reactor in Germany." from "Radiation and Children: The Ignored Victims" from Nuclear Information and Resource Service World Information Servie on Energy.
"In November 2009, Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Project published a study of newborn hypothyroidism near the Indian Point nuclear reactors in Buchanan, New York...During the period 1997 to 2007, the rate of newborn hypothyroidism in the combined four-county (nearest Indian Point) population was 92.4% greater, or nearly double the U.S. rate."
from Global Research, "Uranium Weapons, Low-Level Radiation and Deformed Babies" by Paul Zimmerman
Birth defects produced by the Chernobyl accident (in a book by Alexey Yablokov of the Russian Academy of Sciences: "cleft lip and/or palate, doubling of the kidneys, polydactyly (extra fingers or toes), anomalies in the development of nervous and blood systems, amelia (limb reduction defects), anencephaly (defective development of the brain), spina bifida (incomplete closure of the spinal column), Down's syndrome, abnormal openings in the esophagus and anus, and multiple malformations occurring simultaneously."
from Global Research, "Uranium Weapons, Low-Level Radiation and Deformed Babies" by Paul Zimmerman
According to the Say-Peace Project from the Asia-Pacific Journal, "Fetuses, babies, and young children are far more susceptible to the effects of radiation than adults. It has been estimated that babies and infants are four times as vulnerable as adults in their 20's or 30's..." and, "In Belarus, where the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident were most severe, the rate of thyroid cancer among children increased rapidly 5 to 10 years after the accident."
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Say_Peace-Project/3549
The Say-Peace Project mentions that standards for radiation (Iodine-131) in tap water in Japan are higher than other countries. US EPA standard is 0.111 Bq/L, Germany 0.5, Ukraine 2, Belarus 10, WHO 10 and Japan 300 (100 for infants). They also state,
"As for breast milk, we cannot simply generalize that mothers should avoid breastfeeding, considering nutritional (immunity) and safety benefits of breast milk, especially when babies less than three-months are concerned. According to a survey by the Breast milk Survey and Mother-Child Support Network, there were cases in which no radioactivity was detected in breast milk of mothers living in hot spots, while radioactivity was detected in breast milk of a mother in Mitaka, which is not a hot spot."
In the book, Breastfeeding Matters by Maureen Minchin (Alma Publications, page 28), "In the baby who is being breastfed, the body content of strontium diminishes[the baby excretes more than he or she takes in] but the bottlefed infant has increased strontium in his bones, as cows' milk may contain six times as much strontium as breastmilk and the mineral balance of cows' milk ensures that it is deposited in baby's bones."
In the book, Milk, Money, an Madness by Naomi Baumslag and Dia Michels (Bergin & Garvey, page 97), "Information from Italy and Austria shows that breastmilk contained one/three-hundredth the amount of radioactive iodine and caesium that was found in cow's milk following the Chernobyl accident." (this was confirmed by Swedish studies) and, "Resulting shortages of both fresh milk and infant formula put all artificially fed babies at risk. Additionally, the radiation levels in breastmilk were much lower than were the levels in the mother's body, leading researchers to conclude that some mechanism exists that reduces the radioactive materials in the milk as it is produced."
I wonder whether it is possible that the enzyme in breastmilk (and blood) called cholinesterase, is responsible for this reduction. The US Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense have been studying a nerve agent bioscavenger, Human ButyrylCholinesterase (a genetically engineered compound created in the mammary gland of a goat and derivative of cholinesterase)
http://www.bionity.com/en/news/100868/
The decisions that have to be made by citizens after a nuclear accident are complex. How does one make such decisions? How do we fathom such a scary world? Something we cannot see or smell can impact our lives now and into the future. My childhood spent for a few years near a nuclear plant haunts me with questions. Will I ever know whether my mother's breast cancer was caused by our closeness to a nuclear power plant? And now I wonder about Fukushima? Chernobyl's devastating health effects were covered up, will this also be covered up? I suspect that it can't be, it's too huge an accident.
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain
In an article published by EurActive dated April 2011, "The risks associated with iodine-131 contamination in Europe are no longer 'negligible,' according to CRIIRAD, a French research body on radioactivity. The NGO is advising pregnant women and infants against 'risky behaviour,' such as consuming fresh milk or vegetables with large leaves." The article states, "Fresh milk and creamy cheeses, as well as meat from cattle that have been outside eating grass..."may have been indirectly contaminated. I don't remember seeing any warning for Americans last year...maybe I missed the warnings. The article also states, "In normal times, no trace of iodine-131 should be detectable in rainwater or milk." (CRIIRAD had detected it in rainwater in south-eastern France and the French IRSN had detected it in milk)
"CRIIRAD notes that 'huge amounts of radioactive material have been released by the Fukushima Daiichi plant since Saturday 12 march 2011. On Tuesday 5 April, 24 days after the accident, the releases continue.'"
While contamination of radioactive material is greatest in Japan, particularly around Fukushima; this radioactive material is spreading around the globe through winds and sea (TEPCO of Japan has been dumping radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean). Truly our world is a small one, because an accident that happens thousands of miles away can impact us in very frightening ways.
So for mothers in Japan or mothers in our global community concerned about radiation contamination of breast milk, what is the safest way to feed a baby after a nuclear accident? I recently read a statement by a Japanese mother that said that while the government was saying it was safe to breastfeed, she did not trust what the government was saying and was bottlefeeding infant formula to her baby because she believed her own milk was too highly contaminated with radioactive materials. What do we know?
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain
"Shares in Nestle were up 1 per cent to 55 francs at the start of Zurich trading Thursday (February 16, 2012)"
--"Nestle Profit Up But Tough Year Ahead"--ninemsn website in Finance
According to this article, "the 2011 net profits for Nestle rose by 8% to 9.5 billion Swiss francs."
Meanwhile in India in January 2011 the India Resource Center writes about, "Nestle in Secret Pact with Public Universities on Nutrition." The article states, "Four public-funded national universities have entered into a 'confidential' pact with Nestle, one of the biggest baby food and commercial food companies, for nutrition awareness programmes for adolescent school-going girls in government-run village schools."
http://indiaresource.org/news/2011/1001.html
In February of 2011, "Nestle helps University of York students to be a 'class' act." According to the article by the University of York, "The company [Nestle] has been associated with York Students in Schools, which places nearly 600 students a year in 60 schools, since it started in 1994." The program has York University students volunteering as classroom assistants in schools in the city of York, UK.
In 2007 Indiana University Kelly School of Business in the USA, received $750,000 gift from Nestle. It was a "Gift to endow faculty chair, fellowship and support school's Center for Brand Leadership. "The Nestle gift is a recipe for future success in both the corporation and for the Kelley School. Alford [a Kelly alumni and in 2006 CEO and chairman of Nestle, USA] says that Nestle knows that the benefit of investing in the school is, ultimately, creating graduates who will be promising recruits."
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/6040.html
At the IMD, a business school Nestle offers a scholarship for women to help women obtain their MBA. The American Academy of Pediatrics pre-conference Symposium in October of 2011, was entitled, "Ending Childhood Obesity Within a Generation-Innovations in Practice," was supported by Nestle Nutrition Institute, Aetna Foundation, and Sanford Help Group. In October 2010, Nestle presented its "landmark" data on "Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (FITS) to the American Academy of Pediatrics Annual Conference. In a Gerber (now owned by Nestle) News Release they discuss the HALF Project, which is an AAP initiative. The funding and the research support is provided by Nestle. "The project was created after a comprehensive needs assessment of AAP members found the need for pediatric-focused tools and resources to successfully support pediatricians in communicating family-centered obesity prevention and care."
In the USA, Nestle has partnered with Reading is Fundamental, a nonprofit children's literacy organization. It's Nestle's ongoing commitment to education. Nestle will donate up to $250,000 to Reading is Fundamental when consumers collect the promotion codes from candy (Wonka, Nestle Crunch, Butterfinger, Babe Ruth, etc...all trademarked products from Nestle) This promotion ran from June of 2010-December 2011. Rather ironical wouldn't you say? Nestle being on this stop obesity in kids and at the same time enticing kids and adults to eat more candy to support a reading program? I guess we can call it, corporate world benevolence.
One of the more interesting stories of Nestle and academia is the one of Dr. Jose Saavedra, who is the medical and scientific director of Nestle Nutrition Division. He also is a professor in the department of pediatrics, Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition at John Hopkins University. Dr. Saavedra has had his research published in various medical journals regarding the positive effects of beneficial bacteria, probiotics. Of course one of the ironies of irony, is that the company he works for markets a product that competes with a substance that naturally contains beneficial bacteria, breastfeeding. Oh yes, I forgot, infant formula companies are now putting probiotics in their infant formulas. I haven't yet figured out how one puts live beneficial bacteria into a substance that needs to be sterile for the safety of infants, but heck I'm not a scientist. I guess genetic engineering can do about anything, particularly when funding comes from some very wealthy corporations. I find it hard to understand how this academic merging with corporations is beneficial to students at the university level. Do Saavedra's students know his relationship to Nestle? Obviously John Hopkins doesn't care about this merging of interests. But I think one must question the independence of thought regarding nutrition at John Hopkins, when such relationships are supported.
The tyranny in our society is one in which the infant formula industry has enormous influence in academics as well as in medical/pediatric societies. It isn't just Nestle who is using their profits to influence academics. Our society has been and is being "candied" into believing that breastfeeding is only a lifestyle choice. Academia is forever grateful in a tanked economy to accept the funding that infant formula companies provide. That gratefulness results in knowledge about the risks of infant formula being kept from consumers.
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain
I just read, "The Tyranny of Breast-Feeding," by Elisabeth Badinter in the March 2012 Harper's Magazine. It's a "feminist" rant against La Leche League, rather hard for me to stomach because I was a La Leche League leader for 10 years. I am somewhat amazed by her perspective. She has a wonderful detailed history about the founding of La Leche League. And seems to have some information, the facts, correct but her interpretation of those facts are really off-base.
In a NY Times article, entitled "In Defense of the Imperfect Mother," it states that Ms. Badinter says that "the baby has now become 'the best ally of masculine domination.' The impression I get is that Badinter believes that La Leche League is anti-feminist, that it's political objective is to make the stay-at-home mother the ideal. She believes that La Leche League's agenda is to make breastfeeding a moral decision.
Interesting. From my perspective, La Leche League's efforts from the beginning were to give mothers information on a wide range of reasons to breastfeed. What always interested me was the amount of medical/scientific papers La Leche League collected in order to present a rational reason for women to consider breastfeeding. And even back in 1982, when I attended my first La Leche League meeting, there was plenty of medical and scientific evidence regarding the health benefits to mother and baby regarding breastfeeding. Back then, I wondered why this evidence seemed to be suppressed, pages and pages of studies showing the risks of infant formula. Yet the public never heard it back then, just like the public has no idea of the patenting of human milk components to be used in baby formulas. The risks of infant formula were drowned out by an industry who controls the media. And nothing has changed much since then because the industry still controls the media.
How much control does the infant formula industry have? This article is an absolute example of the control the industry has over public knowledge. Ms. Badinter is a professor at the Ecole Polytechnique in France ( former military academy, a engineering school). But she is also a billionaire according to Bloomberg Market. A billionaire who inherited her stake in Publicis Group after the death of her father. Publicis is the 3rd-largest advertising agency in the world with $7.6 billion in 2010 revenue. Who is one of their clients, Nestle.
http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/20110726/bloomberg-markets-hidden-billionaires/slides/7
So is this the tyranny of breastfeeding or actually the tyranny of Nestle. Feminism has become a capitalist game. Feminism, as designed by billionaires who envision a world of men-like women. Liberation? Nestle, used slave labor during WWII (as well as some well-know pharmaceutical companies). And we are to believe that Nestle has an interest in freedom/liberation of women?
We are to believe that Ms. Badinter's only interest is in the feminist perspective of child-rearing? Give me a break.
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain
I shiver. The wind continues to blow. The tree tops sway and I smell something new, ozone? Change, change is a'coming this way. Cruel, dark, dank and full of sorrow, the winds of a world gone mad. And even more cruel, a world that does not feel the wind at their backs. A people afraid of the dark, no, afraid of the outside. How is it that a nuclear disaster can spew its toxic vomit into the sea, and no one notices. No one notices that dinner is from a box or maybe a can. Meaningless ingredients from meaningless companies, tasting like some kind of sweetened salt mixed with paper. Let's go for the banana. Strange texture, stranger taste, what has happened to food? What has happened to people? Pale, sickly-looking, drug-addicted people who wander through life buying their reality at the corporate kiosk. Nothing changes, except the wind and the speeding of time.
Walking, walking, walking, there is a dead lizard on the sidewalk. I look at him, what happened? Too many fast food dinners? Or was it that idiot drunk driver who mowed ya down? Or was it the drugs or the alcohol? I stare at the dead body and wonder whether it even matters. You don't look happy but then ya don't look sad. What happened? Does anyone care? Or are you just that strange dead body on the sidewalk of despair?
I see you in that casket, a flag pinned to your chest. Limbs crossed, tears and kleenex, tears and kleenex; what makes you cry? You were once handsome and now a shell of the person you once where. Tributes pour from the mouths of sad souls who wonder if they are next? Lies and more lies, to sooth our souls. Is this guilt or is it love? Do we even care about the persons we walk this earth with or is it all about our own misery?
I suspect that it really is about our own misery. Our own delusions of what reality should be or could be. We cannot feel the pain of others because we are too entombed by our own pain. A sad, miserable world for adults whose brains are warped by a unforgiving world.
A sad tribute to the many people in my life who have vanished into death. The older I get, the more I feel the loss. I wonder what it all means?
Ah cruel, cold wind a'blowing; I suppose I should continue with the purpose of this blog. Here's a patent for those who need a reality tea with a slice of lemon. Patent #8114441 called, "Immune stimulatory infant nutrition," filed in August of 2005 and owned by N.V. Nutricia with inventors Gunther Boehm et al.
This patent is about "reducing the risks attached to feeding whey dominant infant formula." Didn't know there were risks....
"It is particularly desirable to mimic the protective effects of human milk."
Protective effects of human milk? Moms and Dads, where are you?
"Moreover, the flora of infants fed with formulas containing whey dominant bovine protein source contain increased amounts pathological bacteria such as clostridia and enterobacteria."
Hm....
"As the very young infants have an immature immune system and immature intestinal tract, development of the suboptimal intestinal flora may result in infections, diarrhea, allergy and inflammation."
Who would have thought it? I feel the cold, cruel winds a'blowing. Why? Why do we continue to ignore the reality of infant formula? Twenty plus years of patenting and nothing changes but the need to fix the old version of formula because it causes disease and death. Choice?? Do parents really know what they are choosing?
Copyright 2012 Valerie W. McClain
