FROM THE SUBSTACK OF “A MIDWESTERN DOCTOR” TITLED: THE FORGOTTEN SIDE OF MEDICINE
Later, I got in touch with one of the (now retired) doctors Mendelsohn mentored, who shared a few other important things with me:
Mendelsohn told me that during his appointment as Medical Director of Project Head Start’s Medical Consultation Service in 1968, he was horrified by the discussions held privately in the White House with his medical colleagues. They were openly discussing how they could control the population of the poor by promoting infant formula, vaccinations, sadistic hospital birthing practices, deficient government schools, and neighborhood abortion clinics. This was just too much of an assault on his strong Jewish faith and his Hippocratic oath [and why he left the club to become a medical dissident].
The Similac and Enfamil drug reps used to leave infant boy and girl growth charts at my office front desk. The charts were in stacks joined with adhesive at the top, so that you could tear off a copy and place it in the child’s chart or give it to a parent. My recollection is that before the Nestle scandal, the company’s name and logo appeared on the growth chart, but I cannot be certain of this. All the growth charts currently available are distributed by the CDC and the WHO and bear only their logos. I have no doubt that the designers of the growth charts were captured by the formula manufacturers.
Along these same lines, the public educational systems were designed so that all children were expected to develop skills like potty training, speech acquisition, ability to read, etc. in a similarly regimented growth chart fashion.* Outliers are considered “abnormal” and their parents are subjected to fear, guilt, and intimidation, and the need for the involvement of more “caring professionals”.
Also while I was practicing, when an obstetric patient was discharged from the hospital, the drug companies gave each patient a “gift bag” which included coupons for discounts and a few bottles of their formula product [and what Nestlé had gotten in trouble for doing overseas]. My hospital had one or the other of Enfamil or Similac bottles which they administered to infants if the mother allowed their baby to go to the nursery, so that the mother could “rest”, or to prevent “neonatal hypoglycemia” or “neonatal jaundice” which were other scams applied to healthy newborns designed to undermine confidence in complete breastfeeding. I am certain that the formula was provided free to the hospital, because the manufacturers knew that hospital use endorsement would generate product loyalty. When a great lactation consultant joined the nursing staff, she strongly opposed these practices, and strongly encouraged rooming-in. She would visit each mother daily to supervise and help with nursing. The established nurses did not like the lactation consultant, because they preferred to stuff the newborns with formula and wrap them tightly in warm blankets so that they would sleep and remain quiet in the nursery.
Lastly, breastmilk is digested more quickly than formula. Breast suckling is hard physical work for the baby so the baby will stop feeding when satisfied. Therefore breastfed infants wake to feed more frequently. Formula fed babies more likely to over feed because the formula flows more easily. This goes along with the weight charts issue. A seasoned pediatrician can just look at a naked baby and immediately know if it is undernourished.
Fortunately, there is now growing awareness of the predatory tactics of the formula industry (which now has an annual growth rate of 10.15% and is a 90.91 billion annual market that costs the typical parent $1,500 to $2,500 a year). For example, to quote a recent investigation by the Lancet:
For decades, the commercial milk formula (CMF) industry has used [underhanded] marketing strategies, designed to prey on parents’ fears and concerns at a vulnerable time, to turn the feeding of young children into a multibillion-dollar business. The immense economic power accrued by CMF manufacturers is deployed politically to ensure the industry is under-regulated and services supporting breastfeeding are under-resourced.
[This] three-paper Series outlines how typical infant behaviours such as crying, fussiness, and poor night-time sleep are portrayed by the CMF industry as pathological and framed as reasons to introduce formula, when in fact these behaviours are common and developmentally appropriate. However, manufacturers claim their products can alleviate discomfort or improve night-time sleep, and also infer that formula can enhance brain development and improve intelligence—all of which are unsubstantiated. Infant feeding is further commodified by cross-promotion of infant, follow-on, toddler, and growing-up milks using the same branding and numbered progression, which aims to build brand loyalty and is a blatant attempt to circumvent legislation that prohibits advertising of infant formula.
Breastfeeding has proven health benefits…however, less than 50% of babies worldwide are breastfed according to WHO recommendations, resulting in economic losses of nearly US$350 billion each year. Meanwhile, the CMF industry generates revenues of about $55 billion annually, with about $3 billion spent on marketing activities every year.
The industry’s dubious marketing practices are compounded by lobbying, often covertly via trade associations and front groups, against strengthening breastfeeding protection laws and challenging food standard regulations. In 1981, the World Health Assembly adopted the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, a set of standards to prevent inappropriate marketing of formula. It includes prohibition of advertising of CMF to the public or promotion within health-care systems; banning provision of free samples to mothers, health-care workers, and health facilities; no promotion of formula within health services; and no sponsorship of health professionals or scientific meetings by the CMF industry. However, despite repeated calls for governments to incorporate the Code’s recommendations into legislation, only 32 countries have legal measures that substantially align with the Code. A further 41 countries have legislation that moderately aligns with the Code and 50 have no legal measures at all. As a result, the Code is regularly flouted without penalty.
The prioritization of trade interests over health was brought to the forefront in 2018, when US officials threatened to enforce trade sanctions and withdraw military aid to Ecuador unless it dropped a proposed resolution at the World Health Assembly to protect and promote breastfeeding. Some CMF lobby groups have cautioned against improved parental leave. Duration of paid maternity leave is correlated with breastfeeding prevalence and duration, and absence of, or inadequate, paid leave forces many mothers to return to work soon after childbirth. Lack of safe spaces for breastfeeding or expressing milk in workplaces, or facilities to store breastmilk, mean that breastfeeding is not a viable option for many women.
All information that families receive on infant feeding must be accurate and independent of industry influence to ensure informed decision making. Marketing by the CMF industry is an interconnected, multifaceted, powerful system that knowingly exploits parents’ aspirations.
Note: the complete lack of evidence for many of the medical claims on infant formulas is discussed further here.
Next:
Seed Oils in Formula
Milk in Formulas
FROM THE SUBSTACK OF “A MIDWESTERN DOCTOR” TITLED: THE FORGOTTEN SIDE OF MEDICINE
When my first was born, the hospital wanted me to return in 3 days to have her “high bilirubin” checked. I told my mother who said, “No. Just put her in a sunny window in just a diaper and let her nap.” She wasn’t discolored or anything!
After a week, we went to our old Irish doctor I respected and he said I’d done what mothers had been doing for generations. All newborns have high bilirubin, it turns out!