On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Annelies Bon wrote:
> > But getting into a fight on the
> > basis of whether the components are from genetically modified sources or
> > not is going to make the formula companies smile, because you'll be bogged
> > down in trivial matters that they can market away as simply being a turf
> > war and they'll paint you as the bad guy who doesn't want all those babies
> > who "need" their product to have the best they can.
>
> I'm not sure if this is true. Here Numico rushes to say that their baby-products
> are not bio-engineered. Of it is, people do not want to give it their babies.
All it will take is a well done marketing campaign. For instance, let's
say research comes out that says that human insulin is an important
component of human milk (helps prevent diabetes or something, this is
hypothetical right now). The only sources are human cadavers, which could
not possibly support the market, and which have the problem of possible
viral contamination, and insulin produced by recombinant bacteria, the
same ones that have been supplying diabetics for years. Diabetes is a
familiar disease, many people know a diabetic, know they inject insulin,
but may have not known the insulin was from recombinant sources (usually,
some do still use insulin from animal sources). The familiarity will
create acceptance. Millions of diabetics using it every day will create
an air of, "Well, it can't be so bad then." If there is one thing that we
know about formula companies, it is that they are masters of marketing.
If there becomes an issue of formula not having something important, and
that something is realistically only available from recombinant organisms,
they will find a way to add it, and make people feel good about it.
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