"And the need would be much less if everyone enforced the existing
guidelines and denounced the shock advertisements and appeals based on
starving babies and formula."

This is so, so true, Mary! I get very angry at the extent to which, in
America at least, *anything* becomes an instant holy untouchable the minute
the spectre of a starving baby is raised. Or "the children" in general, used
as justification for some jack-ass machination that in fact has very little
to do with real children anywhere. Yes, starving babies are a terrible,
awful thing to contemplate - especially white starving babies, apparently. I
am utterly convinced that there would be no need to have starving children
anywhere in the world if only we would get our collective act together. If
we (collective we) ever actually *cared* about the welfare of all children
everywhere, not just ones in politically useful positions, there wouldn't
need to be any. The world produces enough food to feed its people - like
women's bodies, it's a pretty darned competent organism - but it's so poorly
distributed that we have babies dying of hunger, malnutrition, food- &
water-borne disease in places all over the globe, while other places can't
give it all away there's so much! As a nation, our actions show that we care
precious little for our less-fortunate children, until we can use their
suffering as a symbol of something we want to make a point about, and then
it's hoist up those images of starving babies - that'll shut off everybody's
thinking minds and open up their pockets or their voting-finger!

(Uh-oh, Heather, is my radical student underwear (pink, of course!)showing
again?)

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY

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