Capitalising babies

...............Dr Naomi Baumslag writes that infant food companies influence government health policies and have made the medical profession their handmaiden. They use "science" to scare mothers, exploit women's working rights and men's desires to adapt to family realities.
The influence of the formula industry extends to doctors, nurses, and pediatric departments who are given money by formula companies for equipment, conferences, travel and publications, with the goal of enlisting their endorsement and promotion of the products. Governments are also on the payroll as they receive financial incentives for importing infant foods. In Zimbabwe, income is generated for governments through the 17.5 per cent sales tax on imported formula and a 10 per cent import duty. Thus, the government shares in the profits when mothers abandon breastfeeding.
In Tricks of the Infant food Industry, Dr Naomi Baumslag writes that:
Although scientific studies continue to attest to the superiority of breastmilk, bottle-feeding formula is becoming the norm. Aggressive formula marketing has deceived mothers into believing that formula is equivalent to breastmilk. Good lactating breasts have been removed from the mouths of infants and promoted only as sexual organs. The positive effect of breastfeeding on mothers' health has also been ignored. Throughout the world, scarce resources are used to buy formula when the money could be put to better uses.
And, in China, as a result of capitalist greed and corruption, babies who were formerly fed their mother’s milk, or fed by another lactating woman have been killed or made very unwell due to the addition of a chemical additive to baby formula; formula with its own set of problems when you consider what it contains.
In the United States, a $3 can of formula costs 22 cents to produce and contains waste and by-products from other industries such as whey from cow’s milk, lactose, sugar, rice, starch, cornstarch, soybeans, coconut and peanut oils. The corn and soy are likely to be genetically engineered and the formula itself can contain harmful bacteria and toxic substances, such as fluoride, aluminium, and carcinogenic chemicals.
Similarly when you look at the commercial child care industry that has grown into such a racket, that one childcare business, ABC Learning, has gone from holding a few dozen centres at the time of listing in 2001, to owning more than 1,200 at its peak, is now in receivership.............