I often have Dr. Mercola quoted at me for things he advocates. Sometimes he is right on, sometimes not. The problem is, he is marketing himself and products to pay for his website. Here is a perfect example of what happens when folks start out right but need money to keep on going. They sell out. Why doesn't he collect money to set up human milk banks all over the country?
-----Original Message-----
From: Lactation Information and Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kwasnica Emma
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 11:00 PM
Subject: Natural health guru, Dr. Mercola, and his plans to launch powdered infant formula onto the market in one year's time
Hello, friends.
I am Emma, an avid reader an assimilator of all things LACTNET, but have only ever posted once or twice. I am first and foremost a mother to 3 splendid girls (7yo, 3yo & 12 months), all born at home, and nursed on cue for years on end. :-))
These days, in any/every moment of my "free time" in a day (ha ! I also do Elimination Communication, so the baby keeps me on my toes !), you will find me posting a myriad of information out to my newsfeed on Facebook. I am a birth and breastfeeding advocate, a future midwife, and I am most of all passionate about 'informed choice' for all child-bearing & -rearing women.
I am writing to you today, friends, because I need your help. It appears no one on Lactnet has posted yet about Dr. Mercola's recently-announced plans to launch his own brand of powdered (bovine-based) infant formula in a year's time. I feel that NOW is the time to act on this, and so I am asking the LACTNET community to mobilize on this (at least those of you in North America, who understand the influence and power that this health "giant"
wields), and to join me and my network in taking a stand against Dr. Mercola on this issue, and hopefully stopping him in his tracks. Evidently, I feel strongly about the fact that the world does not need yet another powdered infant formula.
Below, you will find the piece I have written about it (posted as a "note"
to my Facebook page last week :
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_idD3230454914 with a lovely series of breastfeeding photos of my youngest attached), including the backstory. I welcome your comments and ideas about where we ought to go from here, as I am running out of steam... and hope.
Sincerely,
-Emma Kwasnica, in Montréal
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The backstory :
http://www.suite101.com/content/dr-mercola-angers-fans-by-promoting-infant-formula-a298198
And yes, I am the person who is wholly responsible for igniting the backlash against Dr. Mercola on the morning of Oct. 18th with the following letter, which I also posted as my status update, and to the Wall of his fan page here on Facebook :
I have been a very vocal supporter of yours for YEARS. However, as a prominent lactivist & child health advocate with a large network here on Facebook, and having read this morning about your upcoming powdered infant formula to hit the market in a year's time, you should know that I will now be pulling my support for you entirely.
That, coupled with your wishy-washy stance on infant genital cutting, makes it clear to all (or it should), that infant health is clearly NOT your concern; getting the lion's share of the formula market, however, is.
If you truly cared about infant health, you'd inject some of your burgeoning fortune into *breastfeeding support* in your country, instead of adding to the detriment that ALL breastmilk substitutes have on infants who consume them.
Disappointed beyond words in Montréal,
-Emma Kwasnica
Incidentally, I never received a response from him, and I was banned from his fan page and had my letter and all my comments deleted from his page, without a word, on the evening of Oct. 18th... For a screen shot of one of the comment threads from his fan page where my comments can be seen, i.e.
before he deleted each and every last one of them, go here :
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?idcRt0zkkt9fc_QTtSepgzk9jUutFK9681YCo7g97IhU
Just FYI, it is a bovine-based powdered infant formula that Mercola intends to produce and have ready on the market within the next year. This much I do know. It will be organic, yes, but I HIGHLY doubt it will be whey from RAW cow's milk that he will be using (he goes on and on, *raves* about RAW, ORGANIC cow's milk, but don't believe for one second he will source it out for the infants who will be consuming his formula --too expensive for him to make a good enough profit margin :/). And never mind the delicious oxymoron contained in all this regarding the fact that he will be producing and selling a DEAD, powdered substance to mix with water to feed to babies as their every meal. What happened to all the benefits of RAW, living food, doc? Do those not apply to the most vulnerable members of our society? I guess not.
Mercola deleted a whole whack of other comments of mine, too, on other threads, but one of the things I was trying to convey on his fan page throughout the entire day on October 18th (before I was banned, and before I had all of my informative comments deleted in one fell swoop), is that Mercola's "special, world-class formula" will absolutely NOT only be used in cases where breastmilk or breastfeeding is not possible. This is exasperating to me, to keep hearing people say this (i.e., "But Emma ! What about the real cases where women can't make enough milk/baby doesn't have access to his mother's breast, etc.?"). So, to that, I say, Yes? What about the nearly 3 billion lactating HUMAN women on the planet? It is an absolute myth that breastmilk is incredibly hard to find. Don't buy into it. And all of us need to start shattering the rhetoric that you hear about other women's breastmilk being "gross" or "unsafe". It's what patriarchy WANTS us to believe. So speak up, CHALLENGE that talk whenever you hear it. It's so important.
I have to wonder.... How can we possibly be saying there isn't enough breastmilk to go around, and then turn around and feed our baby a highly-processed, sub-par BOVINE-based substitute? GO AND SEEK OUT THE HUMAN MILK. IT IS ALL OVER THE PLACE. Stashes of it all over the world, sitting in women's freezers. Ask me how I know! You just need to start asking. Start by asking me. Start by checking at milkshare.com And for gawd's sakes, if you can afford Mercola's ALIEN SPECIES milk formula, why not go and PAY FOR THE REAL DEAL at your nearest human milk bank?!
And please, don't kid yourselves if you think Mercola's formula will only be sold to or used by the babies that "truly need it". A direct result of this marketing ploy simply means more and more women will be lured away from breastfeeding by the (false) idea that his formula is someohow ok, or that his is safe. His rhetoric about this up and coming "healthy" formula is incredibly damaging and misleading. Now he's touting his formula as healthy!
ACK!! There is no such thing as "healthy formula", and women need to know this. We are not stupid enough to accept this as truth.
For the record, I am not worried about women using this who have the cash and who DO NOT WANT TO BREASTFEED, and all the better if they are making an informed choice to do so, but even if they are not. If they are truly CHOSING to use formula instead of feeding their baby at their breast, then so be it. No skin off my back.
What I *am* concerned about is women who would like to breastfeed, but who are undermined, or not given the support or info they need to succeed, and then they hear that Mercola's formula exists and they then think, oh, ok - I'll get that for my baby, because it's BETTER than all the rest, and now, since this really healthy formula exists, it's ok if I don't breastfeed, because this formula is SO GREAT, it is probably only marginally worse for my baby to be getting *this* stuff, rather than being breastfed. Right?
WRONG.
I call BULLSHIT on Mercola, and I call it right there. If he gave a rat's ass about health, he'd help today's women overcome their abounding lack of self-confidence, in general, their lack of confidence in their bodies to provide the biologically-expected, most NORMAL food for their babies.
Because who is kidding who? How many women are truly making an informed choice to feed formula? They are feeding it, because they didn't trust their bodies (nor their babies...) at the out-set, and were undermined by healthcare providers and family members, and ended up faced with low supply (imagined or not), and they END UP feeding formula, and then convincing themselves that it is ok. Because it has to be. It is *these* lost breastfeeding relationships that I am lamenting right now, well in advance of this whole cock-up.
Health advocate Dr. Mercola is in a prime position to speak up and not just pay lip service to breastfeeding and breastfeeding support. This is absolutely about profits for HIM and has NOTHING to do with caring about babies or their health. Don't be fooled.
Furthermore, please be aware that as a health practitioner, Mercola's behavior is in direct breach of ethics and morals. Dr. Mercola will no longer be able to have any contact WHATSOEVER with pregnant or lactating women, as it contravenes the WHO Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (any formula maker is forbidden to have direct contact with pregnant and breastfeeding women). This Code is put in place to protect the health and well-being of mothers and babies.
Lastly, may I just say, once and for all, that we need to STOP fearing other women's breastmilk and start recognizing it for what it truly is : the elixir of life. If you cannot breastfeed your baby at/from your own breast, you should source out human milk from a donor. Nearly 3 billion lactating women on the planet, and we are buying bovine-based, sub-par, powdered formula and feeding our babies with THAT? What the hell is wrong with us women?!?!
And so, I ask you : If Mercola wasn't afraid that these inconvenient little FACTS would take away sales of his upcoming powdered infant formula, that women reading on his page might have their consciousness raised by what I was saying, and be woken up to his lies, to the lies that we as an entire patriarchal society have bought into about the inherent filthiness of women's breastmilk, then why the hell did he censor me ?
Seriously, womyn, we need to RISE UP. Take back our power and do what we know is best by our children... and by ourselves.
The 'Boycott Mercola' Facebook page can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/mercolaboycott
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