Breastfeeding is Not a Lifestyle Choice

Its World Breastfeeding Week and I read that some breastfeeding advocates along with some social media experts believe that we should support not just breastfeeding mothers but also infant formula feeding mothers.  Yes on World Breastfeeding Week we are being told that it is not nice to support only breastfeeding mothers but we should support all mothers.  I guess they forgot we do have a Mother's Day.  But that is not good enough, I guess.  So on World Breastfeeding Week, we will make it into World Babyfeeding Day and support women whatever their choice?  Is that breastfeeding advocacy?

If breastfeeding is a lifestyle choice, I would absolutely agree with the people who propose this dual support.  What difference does it make if we mute the message of breastfeeding advocacy? If breastfeeding is only a lifestyle choice, then it matters little where we pledge our support.  If on the other hand breastfeeding is a health issue of major importance to all communities, then is this twist in advocacy a wise course of action?

I can hear the comments.  Breastfeeding mothers are mean to infant formula feeding mothers because I read it on the internet.  I read it on a blog.  The social media of an industry has at its grasp on many websites where they can massage a message.  In the many years of advocacy, I never heard a breastfeeding mother be rude or mean to a infant formula feeding mother in person or vice versa.  The difference from my years as a breastfeeding advocate is the rise of the internet.  With the internet one can be anonymous, and being anonymous means that one does not have to be responsible for one's comments.  The internet seems to bred a level of mean and rude behavior that sometimes I suspect is part and parcel of the social media crews that comb the internet in need of controversy.

As for breastfeeding advocates saying rude or mean things to infant formula feeding mothers, I heard that rarely.  I believe in some cases what is perceived to be meaness by breastfeeding advocates is the fact that truth (that infant formula has risks) sometimes hurts like hell. In the earlier days when the stop smoking campaigns took off, were advocates told to support smokers?  What is advocacy?  Is the goal to make everyone comfortable about what they are doing?  Should we make the smoker feel comfortable?  Will that bring about change?  Should we support them in their habit, allowing industry to continue to make profits on creating ill health and death?  Who will say what needs to be said, when we are told its not nice to tell the truth?

Does that mean we say mean things to individual mothers?  No, it means we speak the truth and accept that some women will never consider breastfeeding important nor understand that it is a public health issue.  And, yes some women will take it personally.  How does someone feel when they are told to stop smoking, exercise, eat more varied and fresh foods?  Happy that some health care professional has made a judgmental call on their choices? Or do some people react with anger and unhappiness?  Does advocating for better health for moms and babies mean that we cannot tell the truth for fear that we will make someone unhappy?  The infant formula industry understands all too well, the health issues of artificial baby milks.  Their patents are about the adverse effects of their product, the need to make it better, and how breastfeeding prevents morbidity and mortality in babies. 

The infant formula industry wants us to believe that breastfeeding is just a lifestyle choice with some small benefits.  And that publicly speaking about the risks of infant formula is rude and mean to mothers who use infant formula.  If breastfeeding advocacy embraces this ideology, then they have forsaken  the fact that breastfeeding is a public health issue that impacts the health and lives of women and  babies everywhere.  Muting the message may be socially polite but it certainly will not save lives from ill health and death.

Nestle has a new patent on lactoferrin.  Patent # 8445429 entitled, "Lactoferrin and neuronal health and development in the infant gut."  The lactoferrin may be purified from milk (source may be bovine, human, goat, camel, horse, or donkey) or it may be produced recombinantly (genetically engineered).  This patent is trying to protect the neuronal cells in the infant gut.  Why?  Because we know that lactoferrin in human milk protects the infant's gut when they are breastfed.  Artificial baby milk creates short gut which impacts how well the immune system works.  Should we tell mothers and fathers this?  Or should we stay silent in support of a balanced "choice" to not breastfeed?
Copyright 2013 Valerie W. McClain

Memories of Breastfeeding in celebration of World Breastfeeding Week

My Labor Day baby.  Born so many years ago, that baby now an adult with her own baby.  Born at home in the quiet early morning hours.  Born in awe and wonder.  Our house just glowed with the joy of this new person's appearance.  Birth at home was easy in comparison to learning to breastfeed.  It was a struggle that is hard for others to understand, except for mothers who have also struggled with breastfeeding.  I gave up on Day 11.  You see, I still remember like it was yesterday.  I gave up in tears of sadness, pain, and frustration.  Two months later, I relactated and once again we were a breastfeeding mom and baby.  I learned a lot about myself and breastfeeding during those months.  I learned a lot about people's views when breastfeeding fails.  People told me it didn't matter whether I breastfed or not--even her pediatrician.  But why did I feel so broken?  Why the tears?  Why the feeling of loss so deep, I could not even speak about it?  I feel that deep in a woman's heart we know breastfeeding matters.  I was one of the lucky ones, I successfully relactated and went on to breastfeed her for 4 years.  And, went on to breastfeed my other two children.  Not without problems, because problems are a part of living.  But I realized my gut instinct about breastfeeding and its importance to me was right.  And the more I learn, the more I realize the importance of breastfeeding for families, communities, and the world.

I have about 4-5 pictures of me breastfeeding my children.  Yet it was so much a part of my daily life for many years that I feel a sense of sadness that there weren't more pictures.  There are many pictures of my children and babies but only a few of what was part of my life for many hours, days, nights, years.  It's a part of our family history that is relegated into so few pictures.  How can this be?  Me, who has advocated for breastfeeding for many years, having so few pictures of what was so precious to me?  One of those pictures is rather humorous.  My last baby/toddler wore sunglasses to nurse.  Obviously, a reflection of living in the sub-tropics and seeing her sisters wearing sunglasses everywhere.  My head got cut-off with this picture.  I think the photographer was another child of mine. 

In celebration of World Breastfeeding Week, I thought I'd briefly share my memories and my few pictures of breastfeeding.  Should we treasure patents on human milk components, or treasure the time spent breastfeeding?  

Breast pumps, donor milk, and human milk products...

Breastfeeding?  Where be thee?  In the yard sale of life, there lies the breastpump, a machine of plastic pieces with its never-ending assortment of bottles and nipples.  The Destiny of all Things is that they end up discarded in the landfill of forgotten desires.

The choice to breastfeed has become tied to technology, human dairy technology.  Women believe that to breastfeed, one must have a pump.  Savior?  Or the monkey on our backs, destroying what it seeks to preserve?

Without pump technology, would we have so easily created networks of donor milk banks?  Would we have a company that creates human milk products?  Yes, human milk products. Is human milk products the same thing as the milk that flows from a mother's breast?  Is it the same milk that an employed mother stores in her fridge?  Is it the same substance as the donor milk stored by non-profit milk banks? 

Why do we accept that a for profit company that collects human milk is a service industry?  Why are women donating their milk to an industry whose sole imperative is to make a profit?  Is it acceptable to standardize human milk?  Is not the very essence of breastmilk the fact that it varies?  What have we told mothers for years?  Breastmilk varies from month to month, day to day, hour to hour.  It is species specific but not just species specific but specifically made for the mother's baby.  What is the evidence that pooled, pasteurized donor milk from a variety of mothers with the fat content removed and then added back in some standardized fashion is what premie babies need? (Most fortification studies were funded by the infant formula industry--which has a stake in selling fortification products for babies)

Will having human milk products in the NICU, encourage breastfeeding?  Or have we so idealized human milk, as a product, that we will believe it unnecessary for mothers to actually try and breastfeed their babies?  Will we perpetuate the continued belief that some women can't or won't breastfeed?  What are the reasons why women can't or won't breastfeed?  What good is pump technology, if women learn to distrust their ability to put their babies to the breast?   What evidence do we have that manipulating human milk to some standard created by an industry is in the long run beneficial to infants and mothers?  The manipulation of cow's milk in the dairy industry to create a safer infant formula has not created healthier infants.  Should we believe that somehow our human milk dairy industry will create a healthier human milk formula?
Copyright 2013 Valerie W. McClain

Game of Patents: Myriad Genetics, a loss?

Is the decision made by the US Supreme Court a great victory?  Or is the decision just part and parcel of what I call the Game of Patents?  The media would have us believe that this decision ends once and for all this patenting on life.  Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the Court and the decision was unanimous.  Myriad Genetics' patents on the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes were struck down.  After this decision was made, "Shares of Myriad Genetics popped nearly 11% to a four-year high,"  according to investors.com.

Curious, curious indeed.  Why would their stock rise? If this was a great victory for those opposed to patents on life, wouldn't Myriad's stocks fall? What does this decision really mean?  So I decided to play Sherlock Holmes and let you the reader, be Watson.

What do we know about Myriad Genetics?  Well I do know that Myriad Genetics partnered with Monsanto in 1998 in a licensing agreement.http://www.techagreements.com/agreement-preview.aspx?%20License%20Agreement&num=65914

Myriad owns some 90 patents (not sure how many applications for patents).  But I don't know which patents were struck down.  From media reports it was patents that would have run out in 2015.  Patents have a life of 20 years.  So it would have been patents filed in 1995.  There are 5 or 6 patents filed in that time frame.  Would all of them been struck down?  Wouldn't it depend on the patent?  For instance patent # 5710001 of Myriad Genetics claims a method used to isolate and detect a human breast and ovarian cancer predisposing gene.  This particular patent is not only owned by Myriad but also by the University of Utah Research Foundation, and the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of Health.   Yes, the US Government has partial ownership in this patent.   I can't imagine the US Supreme Court going against the business interests of the US Government.  I imagine that this particular patent was not one of the patents struck down.  But I don't know, since no article that I read listed the patents that were struck down.  How is it that Justice Clarence Thomas, ex-lawyer for Monsanto, is allowed to write the opinion of the court;  when it appears to me that Myriad is/was partnered with Monsanto in a licensing agreement?  It would seem to me that such a situation would require a judge to recuse himself from the case.  

Does this change what has been going on with human milk component patents and gene technology?  Most patents on human milk components are patents on genetically engineering the DNA.  The Supreme Court decision allowed Myriad to keep the patents that involved cDNA (genes that are genetically engineered).  Even the Nestle patent (the one in the petition I started) made dual claims.  Meaning they also claimed the genetically engineered component, not just the real component.  Will this stop the hunt on human genes and commercialization of products?  Don't think so.  This decision supports genetic engineering of life and its commercialization.  Yes, corporations will not be allowed to claim ownership of your genes.  But patents are a marketing strategy, thus your genes are still part of the game.  Only corporations will call those claims methods, and will call the rearrangements of those genes, corporate invention.  Will we recognize the dangers inherent in rearranging genes? Particularly when there is legally approval of genetically engineering your genes?  So is the Supreme Court decision a great victory?  Where lies the truth?

As Sherlock said to Watson, " when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth." 

~~Valerie W. McClain~~

Nestle, stop patenting human milk components.

For the perpetual doubters, a snip view of the Nestle patent....click on the image and it is large enough to read.  Please sign the petition.

Discussion group forming on the issue of patenting of human milk components

If you are interested in discussing the patenting of human milk components, I am starting a discussion group.  Please contact me, vewickstead@yahoo.com

Nestle's seed patent application and its human milk component patent

I have received a variety of communications regarding Nestle and its financial interest in a plant called Nigella sativa (Black Cumin, Black Seed).  In fact most of the communications are about signing a petition to, "Tell Nestle to stop trying to patent a natural cure."  So I decided to look up their patent application and get an idea of what was going on.  Nestec S.A. (Nestle) has a US patent application called, "Opioid receptors stimulating compounds (Thymoquinone, Nigella Sativa) and food allergy," #20120142580 which was filed in 2010.  The abstract states, "It was found that the stimulation of opioid receptors could be used to treat or prevent food allergy." and "One of the plants containing thymoquinone is Nigella sativa (Black Cumin, Black Seed).  It has been used for centuries as a spice and medicinal plant in Southern Europe, Northern Africa, Asia Minor, and India."  They detail various methods to extract thymoquinone, although Nigella sativa is one of several plants they might use.  They mention the possibility of using Eupatorium ayapana ( white snakeroot, Philippines), Satureja montana (winter savory), or Thymus.  It kind of reminded me of the human milk component patents in which Nestle might use human, bovine, or buffalo milks.  We don't know and they aren't going to tell us.  For those interested in signing the petition,
http://action.sumofus.org/a/nestle-nigella-sativa/6/2/?akid=1576.861564.bnIsWh&rd=1&sub=fwd&t=3

I find myself somewhat baffled about this petition.  At least 3 or 4 different people or organizations sent me the information on this petition.  So I scratch my head and wonder why no one is interested in the patents (not just applications) that Nestle owns on human milk components.  We are upset about their declarations of methods to extract a component from a plant (actually plants and we know not which plants) but we aren't upset over their declarations of methods to extract a component from human milk.  Human milk has also been used for centuries to cure various ills:  eye infections, wound healing, etc.  It is human survival against the pathogens in our environment.  It is a child's true genetic inheritance. Breastfeeding is the heirloom of heirlooms.  It is a richness we should not abandon to commercialism.
     
Let us look at patent #7524815 entitled, "Osteoprotegerin in milk," owned by Nestec (Nestle).  The source of osteoprotegerin is from milk:  human, cow, and maybe buffalo.  And then maybe it will be genetically engineered.  Like the above patent we will not know what they use.  Osteoprotegerin will be used to prevent or treat "disorders associated with bone metabolism and immune function."  Surprisingly or not so surprisingly, the patent discusses very little about cow or buffalo milks.  Its all about human milk.

"In the studies leading to the present invention, it has now surprisingly been found that in addition to its presence in e.g. bone tissues, osteoprotegerin may also be found in human breast milk."  One of the advantages of human breast milk is its stability and its resistance to degradation in the gut.  It will be used in foods (infants and particularly preterm infants) and treatments or prophylaxis of bone remodeling.  

Words escape me.  Wake up, people, wake up....
Copyright 2013 Valerie W. McClain