More about formula - this time about the multi-national corporations

[theatokos]

I'm 2/3 of the way through The Politics of Breastfeeding. The author is at her best when discussing the social history of breastfeeding and the rise of the formula companies. The snark present when talking about women and choices is absent. It's worth reading these chapters. The back of the book has a quote comparing this book to Fast Food Nation at al, and this is where I can see the comparison.

If a mother has a healthy baby, adequate sanitation, access to clean water and reliable refrigeration, using formula is relatively fine. I think anyone reading this knows that. However, the vast majority of the profit of formula companies comes from the developing world, where women do not have the last three very important components for making formula. The evidence the author documents is HORRIFYING. For example, Nestle, until the 80s had a practice of dressing up saleswomen in Africa as nurses and sending them round hospitals and clinics encouraging women who had just given birth to use Nestle formula. The women believed that medical professionals had given them advice based on their personal situations. In Nigeria, which had had a good/low infant mortality rate thanks to a history of breastfeeding, medical professionals had to come up with a new name for the formula-induced diarhhea that started killing babies en masse. The aggressive ad campaigns used in Africa were deliberately misleading - particularly if you were a relatively uneducated woman in a developing country.

It makes me ILL to think that I supported this industry, albeit in a small way. I will work doubly hard to not need even the slightest amount of formula next time around.* More and more I really believe that the Medical-Industrial Complex** hates women and children. How else could formula companies so blatantly disregard the lives of these babies? Another example: between 1978-79 a formula brand took out all the salt from its recipe, causing many babies to suffer from problems brought on by lack of sodium chloride. After the case went to court in the US, the company won approval from the USFDA to 'donate' the recalled formula to the Third World.

So.... Hi. A happy, uplifting post to start your weekend.


*I hope by now everyone knows that I feel very differently about mothers who cannot breastfeed, and I recognize that your politics may not be my politics.

**Patriarchal in general, for though there are doubtless women who work for these companies, it is historically the work of men who created and continue these practices. And I don't think that all men are complicit in this.

Comments

[seaivy.livejournal.com]

I will tell you a formula story.
My part is not relevant. It is only here as prologue.
My son had sever lactose intolerance. He could not tolerate milk - any milk including soy, including mine. I loved beast feeding him. But we had almost five months of medical chaos during which he ended up in the hospital severely dehydrated. Finally the doctor found the formula "Lamb-base" made from lamb hearts and probably other lamb parts. It was hard to find. This was way before the internet and only one chain of drug stores carried it. We would drive from store to store collecting cans. It was our "miracle" and our son thrived. But they stopped making it. Our doctor found another type "Meat-base" and that worked too. Eventually son was weaned and grew up to be a rather large size man. And the society recognized lactose intolerance. With age his tolerance increased. Happy ending.

Now the real story. Years later a news story caught my eye.
A young man with some strange digestive disease very rare lived on "Meat-base" formula. It was among the few things he could eat. The company, whatever it was, decided to stop making "Meat-base". It would leave this young man with nothing to eat. The employees of the company made the formula just for him, on their own time not the company's, until he died several years later.

I wonder what is available for infants like my son these days. I suppose the discontinuation of the formula was an economic decision and only practical. And I think the generosity of the employees still a good story.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is a very interesting story. And a great ending. There is a story in the book about a baby who was raised on beer. And he grew up healthy and lived into his 80s. Humans are amazing creatures.

[nosce.livejournal.com]

Children, especially, are the most resilient of creatures.