KD wrote:


>  But don't go around
>fear-mongering and assuming that all genetically modified foods are
>dangerous and horrible, or that all the researchers who work on these
>issues are greedy bastards out to kill children while they laugh their way
>to the bank.  Many, if not most, of these researchers are interested in
>reducing world hunger and improving the health of children.


Huh? I doubt there's even one researcher who's a greedy bastard out
to kill children. Dispensing with rhetorical hyperbole, though, I
think *researchers*  into formula milk probably have a range of
motives, like anyone doing any sort of job, and some of them will
indeed be concerned with  reducing world hunger and improving the
health of children.

I don't have an issue with research. It's the coroporate interests in
the whole thing that bother me. The history of formula milk
production and marketing is not a good one - we'd be crazy to think
the health of mothers and babies would be put first (that is, before
profits) with any 'new' invention.

>As much as I
>support breastfeeding, I also realize that lots of children are going to be
>bottle-fed, no matter what we do, and I want them to have the best possible
>chance in life.

Me too. I am not especially worried about the principle of
synthesising human milk, any more than I would be about the principle
of synthesising blood,  or cerebral fluid, or lymph, if any of that
were possible. Babies who aren't breastfed need the very best
substitute.

The research (and the money) is not going towards a
milk-bank-on-every-corner of course, but on hugely expensive work to
replicate what every mother makes  - and I think that is wasteful in
terms of money and effort . But even with a
milk-bank-on-every-corner, there could, conceivably, be a genuine
need for synthetic human milk and if babies need it, then they should
have it.

However, in our current political and economic circumstances, the
risk of the research into synthesising it using GM technology is
three-fold:

1. We do not know if this technology will have undoable serious
health effects on this generation and future ones

2. We cannot trust corporate interests to investigate the potential
of these effects - indeed, the history of their behaviour shows they
will go to great lengths to deny them

3. The marketing of any synthesised human milk is likely to be
mendacious and undermining to women and to breastfeeding

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html