Sunday, December 12, 2010

The destruction of a natural resource, breastfeeding


"Human lactoferrin was prepared from human milk using a heparin-sepharose CL6B column. "

Patent #5725864 assigned/owned by Snow Brand Milk Products Co. Ltd of Japan (infant formula maker) which collaborates or was bought out by Nestle of Japan. It's called "Composition for suppressing infection and growth of human immunodeficiency virus." Filed in 1994. How does an infant formula company obtain samples of human milk? I have been told that corporations get human milk through advertising in newspapers, etc (maybe the internet).
In a market economy, competitors closely guard their products. The creation of these products are often a guarded secret and to steal company secrets has legal ramifications.

Breastfeeding/human milk is the competition to infant formula. Yet, the infant formula industry has easy access to human milk. So here is an infant formula company, studying a component of human milk for use in suppressing hiv. "In the course of further study on the anti-virus activity of lactoferrin the present inventors have found that iron-binding proteins such as lactoferrin also exhibit a strong effect of preventing infection of HIV." How curious that an infant formula maker believes that a human milk component can prevent hiv infection? Of course the file date is 1994, so readers probably believe its just one of those corporate whimsical patents that is just invention not evidence-based. Frankly, I don't know whether this is whimsy, wishful thinking, or evidence. But I really start to wonder, particularly when a more recent patent (2007) called "Peptides based on the sequence of human lactoferrin and their use," assigned to PharmaSurgics AB of Sweden (Patent # 7803757) with inventors Lars A. Hanson et al. state, "The peptides or medicinal products and methods according to the invention are particularly well suited for the treatment and/or prevention of urinary tract infection and colitis, but several other inflammatory and infectious diseases are also treatable according to the present invention, such as inflammatory bowel diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, conditions caused by the virus HIV-1, conditions caused by the virus CMV, and conditions caused by the fungi Candida albicans, Candida krusei, and Cryptococcus neoformans." Lars A. Hanson is a human milk researcher who in 2004 received the Nutricia Foundation award (Nutricia is an infant formula company in Europe). He is also on the scientific advisory board of Prolacta Bioscience (the for-profit milk bank). This patent states that it relates to food stuff, infant formula food. Of course we also have the US Government patent on human lactoferrin for use in treatment of hiv/aids (wrote about in my previous post to this blog). What is known? How will hiv positive mothers feel when denied breastfeeding but end up using components of human milk to treat their babies or themselves? I know I'd be pretty angry. Particularly if I understood the studies that were done that supposedly determined the hiv was transmitted through breastfeeding are flawed. The studies that determined this were based on women who mixed breastfeeding with formula feeding. How can one determine a cause when mothers are feeding at the breast and giving infant formula, too? The mammary gland is a marvelous antibody factory. How does one determine through our genetically engineered hiv antibody test kits whether we are seeing actual disease or the body's natural immune defense (meaning the person is not sick but has a healthy immune system that has created antibodies). Add to the confusion is that infants carry maternal antibodies for 18 months or longer. So is the infant infected or protected??
In my mind, hiv is an infectious medical-industrial disease. Hiv/aids research has been a corporate race to create antibody test kits (whose accuracy is questionable due to the genetic engineering of hiv so you are not being tested against the actual disease but rather a gmo), drugs, and an opportunity for the infant formula industry to create a demand for infant formula. It has also is a driving force in the donor milk industry, nearly crippling donor milk banks initially in the 80's. But now used by the US for-profit milk bank industry as a rallying cry to save the "hiv-positive" babies in Africa. Infectious political diseases (like the recent H1N1 flu hysteria) have common themes. Number one is the medical-industrial complex belief that the public is too dumb to understand the research, therefore we have to take the "experts" at their word. No questions should be asked about the connections between research and corporation profit-making. No questions should be asked about government patents, investments in this infectious political disease. First comes the media headlines creating fear and panic. Death and disease is upon us, unless all populations get tested, get vaccinated, take the drugs, and by god don't breastfeed. And if the US population refuses to comply to the fear-mongering, then they just use the legal system and make it compulsory to be tested, get vaccinated, take the drugs, and use infant formula.
Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

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