Our pediatrician told us we should give The Boy Vitamin D drops as a supplement to the breast milk he’s consuming at a near leech-like rate around the clock. So like a dutiful parent I went to the pharmacy in between diaper changes to buy the drops. But when I picked up the box I suddenly felt suspicious. I’m not sure if it was the shiny gold logo, the font of lettering on the box, or just the unexpected experience of buying something to put into The Boy’s system when we had relished the idea of breastfeeding him exclusively for as long as possible (or at least until he started looking greedily at our meatloaf). Staring at the box under the fluorescent light of the pharmacy aisle, it struck me that our doctor hadn’t even said why we needed this supplement. I turned the box over and read the ingredients which included artificial colors, artificial flavors, Polysorbate 80, etc. I put the box back on the shelf and walked out of the store.
I’m nothing if not reasonable and, like most people, I love to Google when I’m nervous or confused, so I did some basic research and found that the medical community has concluded that breast milk does not contain a sufficient amount of Vitamin D and a supplement could reduce the chance of rickets, a disease that rhymes distractingly with crickets which conjures the image of lice which conjures bedbugs which is everyone’s worst fear in New York City right now. Anyway, we then proceeded to get a second opinion from a trusted pediatrician who said she gives her patients the same advice – Vitamin D supplement for breastfed babies. OK so we bought the stuff.
We gave The Boy the drops for two days but I couldn’t shake the image of the corporate boardroom in which some genius realized that breastfed babies were an untapped market. Let’s face facts — breastfed babies are getting a free ride —literally getting a free lunch. And a free breakfast and dinner. And a free midnight snack and a free 3 am feeding and 6 am feeding. So it’s hard for me not to think those advertising or R&D folks wouldn’t notice the millions of breast fed babies out there who are simply not paying for any of their food. Sure – they wear clothes and lounge in fashionable baby hammocks and listen to Mozart but one of the lines on their baby budget is empty: food. But how does an ambitious company break into the market of breast milk? After all, the breasts are already owned by the mother so the source of production is protected (unless they want to buy lactating women, pump their breasts, and sell it to mothers who aren’t able to produce milk- more on that in another post). It stands to reason then that a company would need to find an angle if they wanted to enter the breast milk arena. Perhaps if they could show that breast milk was lacking something – then they could produce and sell that thing which it’s lacking.
Then I read something that confirmed my instincts and inspired me to write this post. Dr Michel Cohen claims that the recommendation of Vitamin D for breast fed babies was sparked by a very limited and flawed study that ultimately serves the interests of the formula industry. He also mentioned what other sources report: in many cases a few hours of sunlight will provide infants with sufficient Vitamin D as well. That's right - sunlight - another free resource available to people as long as they do not live in the American Northwest. Upon further research I realized that doctors were recommending the D supplement to millions of parents with no mention of whether the child may be at risk for Vit D deficiency.
Perhaps this is a case of the medical industrial complex cherry picking information in order to get what they want. Like a mediocre high school student searching only for evidence that supports his hypothesis. Or like a president looking for evidence that justifies going to war. People and organizations sometimes work backwards from a desired result in order to 'prove' that result. So maybe the baby formula giants looked for one study that would support their new product. Or perhaps the baby formula industry went to a conference with the medical industry, they had a few drinks, had sex in a hotel room, and gave birth to a study that cites a deficiency of Vitamin D in breast milk.
Do I know if any of this is true? I mean, really true? Truey true true to the truest degree? No. No, I don’t. But sometimes you can trust your common sense when it comes to capitalism. Or at the very least it seems useful to remember that there are many many people who sit in rooms every day, all week, for their entire careers, dedicated to coming up with things for us to buy and then coming up with ways to sell the things to us. And if we don’t need them they look for ways to convince us that we need them. This is capitalism. They make stuff and try to get us to buy it. Now, an obnoxious commercial that is at a volume higher than the regular programming is one thing. But the salesmanship can get a lot more insidious than that. For example, have you heard the one about the bottle water industry? Punch line: manufactured demand - they aggressively attacked the reputation of our tap water to convince us to buy bottled water. Thing is, there was nothing wrong with our tap water. As a matter of fact, the fluoride in our tap water is often described as one of our best public health policies. There was a time when people laughed at bottled water. Now it’s a billion dollar industry and our planet is choking on all those bottles.
Anyway, no matter how we got here, and without nearly enough evidence, I’m convinced that there was a focused effort to find fault with breast milk in order to create a market for the supplement. There I've said it. I think there was a concentrated corporate lobbying effort to convince ALL breast feeding women that they needed the supplement. This is an important distinction - recommending the supplement to women with infants who won't be exposed to sunlight or have other risk factors is one thing. But to recommend it to ALL women reeks of a systemic problem (aka horse puckies).
For anyone who thinks this sounds like conspiracy theory - you're right. Fact is, some conspiracies exist. And many of them are in the name of profit and executed through the collaboration of vested interests. But it doesn't matter much whether the deed is done by a handful of people in a smoke-filled back room or by a network of completely legal, profit driven organizations run by our friends and family members who are just doing their jobs. The results are the same. The larger problem is that our systems are often self-sustaining to the detriment of the Individual's well being. We should not be surprised by this. Capitalism's bottom line demands a focus on profit over people. I've got nothing against making money (although my bank account would prove otherwise) I just want our system - our laws and policies - to prioritize humanity - the individual. I want our systems to nurture, embrace, and - to use an economic term - INVEST in actual human beings - the individual flesh and blood creatures. The nation is made up of people not of corporations, commercials, or consumer goods.
For what it's worth, I believe there are few better ways to invest in our citizens than by investing in our health - physical and mental. Create strong equitable schools, produce healthy affordable food, provide safe effective health care - the whole platform. Invest in the people and the country will be strong. For decades corporations and government have been gaining power and influence over our public spaces and private lives. And few people would describe us as strong right now. So let's try something different. And while we're at it, let's stop hating on the mother's milk.
So whether it's the D drops or the recent (old) news about the syphilis experiments on Guatemalans or the sub-prime fiasco or the lobbyist culture in Washington or the hypnotic culture of screaming media that has evolved (de-volved) on Cable News, I try to keep in mind that there are forces of influence behind all the doors - some good, some bad, some neutral. When the time comes, I'll tell The Boy the best we can do for ourselves is to stay educated, engaged, and connected with other individual citizens - a Lobby for Humanity.
That tends to be more fun too.
And of course get a few hours in the sunlight for our Vitamin D.
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