Cathy Bargar argues that we need the formula industry, in order to
ensure babies who aren't breastfed get the best possible formula.

There will always babies who don't get their own mother's milk, and
they will need alternative nutrition of some sort.

But why on earth would we trust the formula industry to answer this need?

They are working to an agenda which  maximises profits for their
shareholders.  They have a vested interest in presenting something as
a benefit, which might even turn out to be dangerous - like
shovelling the lastest miracle ingredient into formula. Well, yes,
ingredient X might appear to 'make' formula fed babies more
'intelligent' than a formula without ingredient X. But what if
ingredient X combines with ingredient Y to provoke a different and
adverse health or social reaction? How would we ever know? And if we
did know, would we be able to rely on the formula industry to tell
us? What if too much ingredient X causes, oh, I dunno, a greater risk
of precocious puberty - that's a good example, as it's subtle, not
life-threatening, and it would take at least a  generation for anyone
to even suspect it and it could be impossible to be sure one way or
the other.

>  I would make sure that those babies not being breastfed got
>the DHA-enhanced formula, and I'd start with the
>lowest-socioeconomic-status babies around, and I'd make it *less* expensive
>than the "regular" stuff so that more babies would be able to have it.


But how, without resorting to the sort of interventionist economics
most of the  West has consistently rejected, could you price-fix in
this way?

I don't think the State is likely to do any better than the free
market, either. We had National Dried Milk in the UK for a
generation, a State-owned product, which was the usual crummy stuff.
I don't know much about the Communist formula milks in the Soviet
Union and other places, but I haven't heard anything about them being
anything special!

No, we do well to be very untrusting of the formula companies, as
Jennifer Tow's post showing the trashy info peddled on that website
demonstrates.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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