Jennifer, I do believe we, breastfeeding advocates, would have a book a mile
thick of the things that the medical profession says about breastfeeding that
is totally erroneous.  At times I have had to laugh because its laugh or go
crazy.  There is an insanity in our culture about feeding infants.  And the
insanity does not lie with breastfeeding but within a culture that values
that which is man-made and can be bought or sold.

While we do need to publicize the risks of infant formula and continue to
promote breastfeeding through the press.  In a biblical sense we are David up
against Goliath.  The formula/pharmaceutical industry wins hands down with
the media.  They have the money to manipulate the media and do a bang up job
of it.  It isn't just the media either.  Its the research done about
breastfeeding that benefits this industry and not breastfeeding mothers.
And, it's our own journal--the JHL--that sees no problem in putting studies
about human milk that are directly funded by formula companies.  These
studies may mildly benefit breastfeeding but on the whole they are meant to
benefit the infant formula market.  I believe that placing those studies in a
breastfeeding journal violates the "spirit" of  breastfeeding advocacy
because ultimately who benefits from information on the components of human
milk?

We need to make the government accountable for its policies on infant
feeding.  The government has an investment in lactoferrin research.  Why
isn't this public knowledge?  Why are some researchers getting thousands
(hundreds of thousands) of dollars for research on human milk from the NIH
and from the US Army? And yet the government web sites for the public on
breastfeeding are horrible beyond believe (FDA, USDA).  These sites talk
about the down side of breastfeeding..."having to undress to breastfeed."
Great promotion.  In the meantime they are investing in lactoferrin to be
spiked into infant formula, to be used as a natural antibiotic, and to be
used in vaccines.  Yet most women will never know that lactoferrin is present
in the milk they produce for their own infants.  Bovine milk per ounce has
trace amounts of lactoferrin whereas human milk has 20 to 100 times that
amount per ounce( these numbers vary from text to text).

I think we need empower women to understand the mechanisms that sabotage
breastfeeding.  Women take the blame for breastfeeding not working.  But who
really should bare the blame? I believe the blame lies in a government and
industries that are hell-bent on destroying a natural resource in order to
make a profit.
Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

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