A number of lactnet posts in the last few weeks had me trying to remember a
particular patent.  I finally found it this morning.  When I worked in the WIC
Program, there were some troubling cases in which I could not understand the
reason behind the problem.  These were the cases where moms who were
breastfeeding and using infant formula would state that the babies were perfectly fine
when they were given infant formula.  But after breastfeeding they seemed to be
quite miserable, crying, seeming to be in pain.  I couldn't figure it out and
all the moms with this situation quit breastfeeding.  I actually did home
visits with several of these moms and they were quite right in their
observations.  I could confirm that after breastfeeding these babies seemed quite
miserable.  In some cases the mother smoked and for those babies I assumed that it was
the nicotine in the mother's milk that was causing the problem.  But when I
ran across this patent last year, I wondered whether the problems these babies
were experiencing were directly related to infant formula usage.  This patent
is assigned to Nestle ( #6420156) in which they are inventing a remedy for a
problem that exists with previous formulas.  They state,

"Such breakdown products may manifest themselves both in liquid products and
in powders by the appearance of stability or organoleptic defects, for example
spots, poor taste, or by their toxicity leading to side effects, for example
of an inflammatory type in breastfeeding infants."


What strikes me about this statement in this Nestle infant formula patent is
that they don't say toxicity effects in "infants."  They specifically say
toxicity effects in "breastfeeding infants."  Would this explain why mixed feeding
for hiv positive mothers is far more hazardous than exclusive breastfeeding?
Does this explain the situation I was seeing, when I worked in the WIC
Program?  Does this explain some of the situations other LCs are seeing with their
clients?  This patent was suppose to fix the problem of degradation of added
lecithin.  Did it work?

This formula company within its patent is taking responsibility for causing a
"toxic effect of the inflammatory type to breastfeeding infants."  Not only
does their marketing and control of the media cause breastfeeding failure but
the product itself causes the breastfed infant to sustain toxic effects. Those
toxic effects result in infants being weaned from the breast and being put on
an inferior substitute.
Valerie W. McClain, breastfeeding advocate

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