Formula companies, like most thriving companies, strive to make a profit and constantly plot how to increase their earning. Some companies do this in conscionable ways while others are not so scrupulous–allowing visions of profit to cloud their judgement, they tend to concentrate on profit regardless of quality or health implications. Any assumption that these companies have the best interest of baby in mind is ludicrous. They continue to use the cheapest ingredients (corn syrup, vegetable oil, sucrose, etc) to allow for greater income–the bottom line, their loyalty is to their stock holders and wallets, which leads to many of their marketing strategies.

The earlier a company can obtain a loyal customer the better.  Many ads and products vie for the prenatal shopper. Brand loyalty can begin with a selection of prenatal vitamins or supplements.  Many pregnant women are succumbing to the offers of registering for baby formula for baby showers and collecting coupons before they even deliver a baby.

Formula companies previously used more passive marketing techniques such as offering free feeding advice on warm lines, suggesting formula for moms on the go, or offering quality gifts to new moms; but the days of subtleties are over.  The breastfeeding market has become too large to ignore, so “if you can’t beat them, market to them.”

Formula advertisers are the kings of spin.  Moms have switched to formula after the huge marketing campaign announcing that breastfed babies need a Vitamin D supplement since breast milk does not contain the sunshine vitamin.  Of course, none of the ads reveal that breast milk was not meant to contain Vitamin D, which ideally comes from the sun. Since formula contains it, mothers began to question whether or not their milk was complete–the marketing strategy paid off, consumers were either purchasing formula containing Vitamin D or the Vitamin D supplements (manufactures by Enfamil) that state clearly on the box, “Essential for allBreastfed Infants.” Of course the box top boasts, the “brand recommended by Pediatricians.”

Perhaps the most disturbing trend in formula marketing occurred this month with the release of a new product directly targeting and undermining breastfeeding moms.  The May 11, 2013, release of a Similac for Supplementation confirms the company is desperately trying to increase its customer base.  This blatant attempt to sabotage the breastfeeding relationship is outrageous.  This new product states, “for breastfeeding moms who choose to introduce formula” compared to the other formulas which are only for “formula moms who choose to introduce formula?” This is a pathetic bid for the breastfeeding audience.  Unfortunately, it could just work, especially since this message is being perpetuated by a new study released two days later in Pediatrics.  The article’s release date (occurring the same week this formula hit the shelves) is highly suspect.  It may seem like a conspiracy theory, but as well-equipped as the strategists are, the timing is not a coincidence and neither is the correlation between Abbott and the co-author of the study, who was previously employed by the maker of Similac.

The timing could not have been better orchestrated. It would be interesting to see if an advertisement for Similac ran in some of the major papers who posted the flawed supplementation study.

Formula companies seem to have an uncanny way of acquiring prestigious spokespeople for free. First, the doctors in the hospitals, now researchers for Pediatrics. No wonder the companies boast billions in profit annually, they have inside help.

The flawed, and poorly-constructed study published by Pediatrics sent the media on a sharing frenzy. The article made its way into nearly every large newspaper with headlines proclaiming that formula helps to breastfeed (an oxymoron exemplified).  Similac, Enfamil, and other artificial human milk companies could not have been handed a better gift. Few editors critiqued or even read the study prior to plastering the headlines across front pages.  The study, released online May 13, 2013, and published in Pediatrics, consisted of forty subjects– an anemic sample size. The conclusion, after confirming that  15 of 19 mothers were still breastfeeding at 3 months, compared to 8 of 19 in the control group–a difference of 7 babies–was that babies given formula continue to breastfeed at higher rates. Not only was the study not supported by a clear hypothesis, the subjects were not homogeneous.

The clear conflict of interest was also document by a disclosure statement by the co-author, who ”served as a paid consultant for Abbot Nutrition, Mead-Johnson, Nestle SA and Pifzer Consumer Products.” Obviously, he must have a bias towards the necessity of formula to serve as a consultant for these companies. In fact, a more responsible study could have centered around supplementation with donor milk, if marketing formula was not one of the goals of this study.Pediatrics and its peer review council will surely continue to come under fire for publishing such an insult to true research. They acted in an irresponsible and unethical manner by endorsing this premature study. Although much of the damage has irreversibly been done, there are several rebuttals and informative articles being shared that are well thought out and deserve recognition   It is unfortunate indeed that newspaper editors will not be publishing any of them.  Dr. Alison Stuebe a member of Breasfeeding Medicine provides a response to the published study. Dr. Jack Newman added valuable insight to the study by posting his own commentary. 

As a service to breastfeeding mothers, and a way to expose the flawed research Birthing, Bonding and Breastfeeding conducted a survey asking mothers to respond if they were able to exclusively breastfed without formula supplementation. Within 24 hours over 340 moms confirmed their breastfeeding relationship was protected by choosing not to supplement.  Maybe from this result we could conclude that 99% women who use Facebook exclusively breastfeed. As ridiculous as this statistic is, it shows the parallel to how numbers can be manipulated and the erroneous conclusions which were drawn from the Pediatrics study.

Formula companies are missing out on a large portion of the infant-feeding market. Breastfeeding moms stay vigilant.  If you desire to breastfeed exclusively, the evidence is overwhelming in support of avoiding supplementation.  Babies are born to breastfeed and the protecting the relationship by keeping Mom and Baby together is the best practice for success.  Women who need additional support or medical advice should consult with their breastfeeding-friendly physician, Lactation Consultant and Peer Support Groups.

Writer’s Note: I hope we can promote the message that moms do indeed have the milk they need when their babies are born. Products and flawed studies continue to undermine instinct and nature. We need to dispose of the idea that milk will “come in” or that mother’s around day 3…engorgement does not have to happen, and if any more milk were available on day one, theoretically the baby could overfeed since all he wants to do is suck! We don’t need to “wait” for anything. Just keep the dyad together and all the “issues” can resolve themselves.

In response to this blatant violation of states’ rights to legislate, and consumers’ right to know, the OCA and a nationwide alliance have launched a petition to put every member of Congress on notice: If you support any Farm Bill amendment that would nullify states’ rights to label genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we’ll vote – or throw – you out of office.

On Wednesday, May 15, an amendment to the House version of the Farm Bill, inserted under the guise of protecting interstate commerce, passed out of the House Agricultural Committee. If the King Amendment makes it into the final Farm Bill, it would take away states’ rights to pass laws governing the production or manufacture of any agricultural product, including food and animals raised for food, that is involved in interstate commerce. The amendment was proposed by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), largely in response to a California law stating that by 2015, California will allow only eggs to be sold from hens housed in cages specified by California.  But policy analysts emphasize that the amendment, broadly and ambiguously written, could be used to prohibit or preempt any state GMO labeling or food safety law.

Will the King Amendment survive the Senate? No one can be sure, say analysts. However few doubt that Monsanto will give up. We can expect that more amendments and riders will be introduced into the Farm Bill–even if the King Amendment fails—over the next month in an attempt to stop the wave of state GMO labeling laws and initiatives moving forward in states like Washington, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and others.

Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) have admitted privately that they’ve “lost the battle” to stop GE food labeling at the state level, now that states are aggressively moving forward on labeling laws. On May 14, Maine’s House Ag Committee passed a GMO labeling law. On May 10, the Vermont House passed a labeling bill, 99-42, despite massive lobbying by Monsanto and threats to sue the state. And though Monsanto won a razor-thin victory (51 percent to 49 percent) in a costly, hard fought California GMO labeling ballot initiative last November, biotech and Big Food now realize that Washington State voters will likely pass I-522, an upcoming ballot initiative to label GE foods, on November 5.

If Monsanto can’t stop states from passing laws, then the next step is a national preemptive measure.  And all signs point to just such a power grab.  Earlier this year, Monsanto slipped its extremely unpopular “Monsanto Protection Act,” an act that gives biotech immunity from federal prosecution for planting illegally approved GE crops, into the 2013 Federal Appropriations Bill.  During the June 2012 Farm Bill debate, 73 U.S. Senators voted against the right of states to pass mandatory GE food labeling laws. Emboldened by these votes, and now the House Ag Committee’s vote on the King Amendment, Monsanto has every reason to believe Congress would support a potential nullification of states’ rights to label.

The million-strong OCA and its allies in the organic and natural health movement are warning incumbent Senators and House members, Democrats and Republicans alike, that thousands of health and environmental-minded constituents in their Congressional districts or states will work to recall them or drive them out of office if they fail to heed the will of the people and to respect the time-honored traditions of shared state sovereignty over food labels, food safety laws, and consumers’ right to know.

Trouble in Monsanto Nation.
Over the past 20 years Monsanto and the biotech industry, aided and abetted by indentured politicians and corporate agribusiness, have begun seizing control over the global food and farming system, including the legislative, patent, trade, judicial and regulatory bodies that are supposed to safeguard the public interest.

In the U.S., despite mounting evidence of the damage GE crops inflict on human health and the environment, approximately 170 million acres of GE crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa, papaya, and squash, are currently under cultivation. These crops, untested and unlabeled, comprise 41 percent of all cultivated cropland, or 17 percent of all cropland and pastureland combined. According to the GMA, at least 70 percent of non-organic grocery store processed foods contain GMOs. And GE grains and mill byproducts now supply the overwhelming majority of animal feed on the factory farms that supply 90 percent to 95 percent of the meat, eggs and dairy products that Americans consume.

Yet despite their marketplace dominance, record profits and enormous political clout in Washington D.C., Monsanto and the biotech industry are in deep trouble. Evidence is mounting that Monsanto’s top-selling herbicide, Roundup, is a deadly poison, destroying important human gut bacteria and likely contributing to the rapid increase of food allergies and serious human diseases including cancer, autism, neurological disorders , Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), dementia, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Those most susceptible to poisoning by Monsanto’s Roundup are children and the elderly.

Scientists aren’t the only ones raising new questions about Roundup. Farmers are complaining that they’re being forced to spray more and more chemicals on crops increasingly under siege from a growing army of herbicide-resistant weeds.  The situation is so bad that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just raised the limits of Roundup residue allowed on grains and vegetables to even more dangerous levels. But just in case the EPA someday stops raising the limits, Monsanto, Dow and the biotech industry are working on a new “solution” to the onslaught of herbicide-resistant Superweeds: They’ve applied  for approval of a new and highly controversial generation of super toxic herbicide-resistant GE crops, including “Agent Orange”  (2,4-D and dicamba-resistant) corn, soybeans and cotton.

As a recent widely-circulated article points out,

• “The use of 2,4-D is not new; it’s actually one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. What is new is that farmers will now ‘carpet bomb’ staple food crops like soy and corn with this chemical at a previously unprecedented scale—just the way glyphosate has been indiscriminately applied as a result of Roundup Ready crops. In fact, if 2,4-D resistant crops receive approval and eventually come to replace Monsanto’s failing Roundup-resistant crops as Dow intends, it is likely that billions of pounds will be needed, on top of the already insane levels of Roundup being used (1.6 billion lbs were used in 2007 in the US alone).”

In addition to these Agent Orange crops, an expanded menu of genetically engineered organisms are awaiting approval. Next on the menu?  GE apples, trees, and salmon.

State Labeling Laws: The ‘skull and crossbones’ that terrify Monsanto
Monsanto’s greatest fear isn’t a federal government charged with protecting the health and safety of its citizens.  Congress and the White House seem only too happy to oblige the biotech industry’s unquenchable thirst for growth, power and dominance. No, it’s the massive, unstoppable (so far) grassroots movement of Millions Against Monsanto that strikes fear in the heart of the Biotech Bully. U.S. citizens are waking up. They’re demanding labels on genetically engineered foods, similar to those already required in the European Union. They’re calling for serious independent safety-testing of GE crops and animals, both those already approved (especially Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant crops) and those awaiting approval.

The anti-GMO movement has finally figured out, after 20 years of fruitlessly lobbying Congress, the FDA and the White House, that the federal government is not going to require labels on GE foods. Instead the movement has shifted the battleground on GMO labeling from Monsanto and Big Food’s turf in Washington D.C. to the more favorable terrain of state ballot initiatives and state legislative action—publicizing the fact that a state GMO labeling law will have the same marketplace impact as a national labeling law.

State laws spell doom for Monsanto. Companies like Kellogg’s, General Mills, Coca-Cola, Pepsi/Frito-Lay, Dean Foods, Unilever, Con-Agra, Safeway, Wal-Mart and Smuckers are not going to label in just one or two states.  Monsanto knows that U.S. food companies will go GMO-free in the entire U.S., rather than admit to consumers that their products contain GMOs.

As Monsanto itself has pointed out, labels on genetically engineered foods are like putting a “skull and crossbones” on food packages. This is why Monsanto and their allies poured $46 million into defeating a California ballot initiative last year that would have required labels on GMO foods. This is why Monsanto has lobbied strenuously in 30 states this year to prevent, or at least delay, state mandatory labeling laws from being passed. This is why Monsanto has threatened to file federal lawsuits against Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and Washington if they dare grant citizens the right to know whether or not their food has been genetically engineered or not.

And this is why Monsanto’s minions are trying to insert amendments or riders into the Farm Bill that will make it nearly impossible, even illegal, for states to pass GMO labeling laws. And there’s nothing to stop them when Congress is filled with pro-biotech cheerleaders who could care less that 90 percent of U.S. consumers want mandatory labels and proper safety testing of genetically engineered crops and foods.

Countering Monsanto’s Final Offensive: Throw the Bums Out!
Only a massive grassroots resistance will deter the U.S. Senate and House from stomping on our rights. Only an unprecedented campaign of public education, petition-gathering and grassroots pressure will be able to convince the ever-more corrupt and indentured politicians in Washington D.C. to back off.

Eighteen state constitutions have century-old provisions for state registered voters to collect petitions and recall state and local officials, forcing them to either resign or stand for reelection. But what very few Americans, and even members of Congress, realize is that 11 states have constitutional provisions to recall U.S. Senators and House of Representative members, as well as state elected officials.

It’s time we exercise the full power of direct democracy, not just state and municipal ballot initiatives. We must continue to support efforts like the current state ballot initiative to label GMOs in Washington state, and county ballot initiatives to ban GMOs, factory farms and other corporate crimes, in the 24 states and hundreds of counties and municipalities where these are allowed.  But we also need to use the power we have to recall and throw out of office our out-of-control Congressional Senators and Representatives as well.

If our elected officials in Congress continue to represent Monsanto and big corporations, rather than their constituents, then let’s throw the bums out! If the Washington political Establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, continue to trample on our inalienable constitutional rights and contemptuously disregard the 225-year principle of a shared balance of power between the federal government, the states and local government, then we have no choice but to recall them or throw them out of office.

Please join the nation’s organic consumers and natural health advocates in this strategic battle, the Food Fight of Our Lives. Please join this campaign to save, not only our right to choose what’s in our food, but our basic right to democratic representation and self-determination as well.  Sign the petition.  Tell your Congressmen and women, especially the 73 incumbents who voted last year to eliminate states rights’ to legislate on GMO labels, and those in the House this week who voted to support the King Amendment that “enough is enough,” “ basta ya.” Power to the People!

Is ADHD a biological-neurological disorder? Surprisingly, the answer to this question depends on whether you live in France or in the United States. In the United States, child psychiatrists consider ADHD to be a biological disorder with biological causes. The preferred treatment is also biological–psycho stimulant medications such as Ritalin and Adderall.

French child psychiatrists, on the other hand, view ADHD as a medical condition that has psycho-social and situational causes. Instead of treating children’s focusing and behavioral problems with drugs, French doctors prefer to look for the underlying issue that is causing the child distress—not in the child’s brain but in the child’s social context. They then choose to treat the underlying social context problem with psychotherapy or family counseling. This is a very different way of seeing things from the American tendency to attribute all symptoms to a biological dysfunction such as a chemical imbalance in the child’s brain.

French child psychiatrists don’t use the same system of classification of childhood emotional problems as American psychiatrists. They do not use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM.According to Sociologist Manuel Vallee, the French Federation of Psychiatry developed an alternative classification system as a resistance to the influence of the DSM-3. This alternative was the CFTMEA (Classification Française des Troubles Mentaux de L’Enfant et de L’Adolescent), first released in 1983, and updated in 1988 and 2000. The focus of CFTMEA is on identifying and addressing the underlying psychosocial causes of children’s symptoms, not on finding the best pharmacological bandaids with which to mask symptoms.

To the extent that French clinicians are successful at finding and repairing what has gone awry in the child’s social context, fewer children qualify for the ADHD diagnosis. Moreover, the definition of ADHD is not as broad as in the American system, which, in my view, tends to “pathologize” much of what is normal childhood behavior. The DSM specifically does not consider underlying causes. It thus leads clinicians to give the ADHD diagnosis to a much larger number of symptomatic children, while also encouraging them to treat those children with pharmaceuticals.

The French holistic, psycho-social approach also allows for considering nutritional causes for ADHD-type symptoms—specifically the fact that the behavior of some children is worsened after eating foods with artificial colors, certain preservatives, and/or allergens. Clinicians who work with troubled children in this country—not to mention parents of many ADHD kids—are well aware that dietary interventions can sometimes help a child’s problem. In the United States, the strict focus on pharmaceutical treatment of ADHD, however, encourages clinicians to ignore the influence of dietary factors on children’s behavior.

And then, of course, there are the vastly different philosophies of child-rearing in the United States and France. These divergent philosophies could account for why French children are generally better-behaved than their American counterparts. Pamela Druckerman highlights the divergent parenting styles in her recent book, Bringing up Bébé. I believe her insights are relevant to a discussion of why French children are not diagnosed with ADHD in anything like the numbers we are seeing in the United States.

From the time their children are born, French parents provide them with a firm cadre—the word means “frame” or “structure.” Children are not allowed, for example, to snack whenever they want. Mealtimes are at four specific times of the day. French children learn to wait patiently for meals, rather than eating snack foods whenever they feel like it. French babies, too, are expected to conform to limits set by parents and not by their crying selves. French parents let their babies “cry it out” if they are not sleeping through the night at the age of four months.

French parents, Druckerman observes, love their children just as much as American parents. They give them piano lessons, take them to sports practice, and encourage them to make the most of their talents. But French parents have a different philosophy of disciplinine. Consistently enforced limits, in the French view, make children feel safe and secure. Clear limits, they believe, actually make a child feel happier and safer—something that is congruent with my own experience as both a therapist and a parent. Finally, French parents believe that hearing the word “no” rescues children from the “tyranny of their own desires.” And spanking, when used judiciously, is not considered child abuse in France.

While I am not a personal advocate of crying it out or spanking, these are the practices French parents traditionally use. As a therapist who works with children, it makes perfect sense to me that French children don’t need medications to control their behavior because they learn self-control early in their lives. The children grow up in families in which the rules are well-understood, and a clear family hierarchy is firmly in place. In French families, as Druckerman describes them, parents are firmly in charge of their kids—instead of the American family style, in which the situation is all too often vice versa.

Copyright © Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D.

Photo: Shutterstock

These are desperate times for those denying vaccine risks. We know it because we are witnessing so many acts of desperation being committed by doctors determined to shut down the public conversation about vaccination and health. Vaccine risk deniers are working overtime to restrict public access to information, cover up vaccine injuries and deaths and violate the human right to informed consent to medical risk-taking.

No Flu Shots? No Employment.

2013 was only a few days old when public health agencies and medical trade groups called for veteran nurses and other health care workers to be fired for refusing to obey orders to get annual flu shots – no exceptions and no questions asked. ¹ It did not matter that the risky and notoriously ineffective influenza vaccine turned out to be almost useless in preventing infection with the most prevalent influenza strains circulating in the U.S. this year. ²

Proposed State Legislation to Force Vaccine Use

This was followed by the introduction of legislation backed by public health officials and Pharma-funded medical trade groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics in states like Texas, Oregon, Arizona and Vermont. ³Their goal is to remove or restrict non-medical vaccine exemptions in state laws so doctors have more power to force vaccine use by children and adults – no questions asked and no exceptions.

Institute of Medicine Report: Where Is the Good Vaccine Science?

In mid-January came the eye-opening Institute of Medicine committee report acknowledging that only 37 scientific studies have examined the safety of the current U.S. vaccine schedule for newborns and children under age six,⁴ which now totals a stunning 49 doses of 14 vaccines ⁵ compared to 23 doses of 7 vaccines recommended in 1983. ⁶ The lack of enough good scientific studies meant the committee could not determine whether the numbers of doses and timing of government recommended vaccinations is – or is not – associated with development of chronic health problems like seizures, autoimmunity, allergies, learning disabilities and autism in the first six years of life. ⁷

New U.S. Autism Prevalence Statistic: 1 Child in 50

In March, a report was issued by the National Center for Health Statistics estimating that among children attending school in America, today 1 child in 50 has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ⁸ In 2004, that number was 1 child in 150. In 1992, it was 1 child in 500 and in 1986 it was 1 child in 2000. ⁹

By April, which is Autism Awareness Month in the U.S., there was a full court press by doctors inside and outside of government to dismiss any association whatsoever between steep increases in the numbers of vaccinations given to children during the past 30 years and corresponding steep increases in the numbers of children developing autism. Those doctors know, but a lot of young parents today don’t know, that the public conversation about vaccine-induced brain inflammation and chronic brain and immune system dysfunction, including autism, began 16 years before a study was published in The Lancet in 1998 examining the potential association between MMR vaccine and autism. ^10 11

CDC Study Fails to Confirm Offit’s Claim 10,000 Vaccines Safe for Babies

On Good Friday, April 1, during Easter and Passover observances, a study conducted and funded by the Centers for Disease Control was released by the Journal of Pediatrics declaring that “increasing exposure to antibody stimulating proteins and polysaccharides in vaccines is not associated with risk of autism” and, therefore, vaccines don’t cause autism. ¹² It was a pathetic attempt to validate a Machiavellian hypothesis forwarded in 2002 by pediatric vaccine developer Paul Offit claiming that an infant could safely respond to 10,000 vaccines given at any one time. ¹³

However, an eighth grade science class student with an elementary understanding of health research methods,¹⁴ the bioactivity of various vaccine ingredients ^{15 16 17 18} and the difference between naturally acquired and vaccine acquired immunity, ¹⁹ could figure out that the absence of an unvaccinated control group meant the study was fatally flawed. It proved absolutely nothing about the potential relationship between administration of multiple vaccinations in early childhood and the development of autism among genetically diverse children with and without increased biological susceptibility to adverse responses to vaccination. ²⁰

Pediatricians Label Social Networking Parents “Nonconformers”

On April 15, Pediatric News published an online survey stating the obvious: a person’s knowledge, values and beliefs, as well as the opinions of friends and families in social networks, strongly influences decisions about vaccination. ²¹ Parents, who expressed doubts about vaccine safety and used alternative vaccine schedules for their children, were pejoratively labeled as “nonconformers.

Pediatricians commenting on the survey suggested that nonconforming parents did not base their vaccine decisions on “rational logic” and “scientific evidence” because they were influenced by non-conforming friends and misleading information on nonconforming websites. ²² Apparently, there was no consideration given to the fact that nonconforming parents found the poor science and empty rhetoric buttressing one-size-fits-all vaccine policies entirely unconvincing. ²³

Journalist & Magazine Attacked for Article Questioning Gardasil Safety

April was also the month that a veteran journalist and radio show host was personally attacked by pediatricians and public health officials in Buffalo, New York for daring to write an article questioning the safety of Gardasil vaccine and urging parents to make informed vaccine choices. ²⁴ Outraged doctors threatened to financially ruin the magazine that published the article by destroying the magazine’s paid advertising base unless the article was retracted. ²⁵

Offit Plays Class & Race Card to Demonize Smart Nonconforming Parents

By the end of April, a CNN reporter quoted doctors blaming outbreaks of whooping cough, measles and mumps on unvaccinated people in developed nations, who spread their vaccine safety doubts on the Internet and jeopardize the health of people around the world. ²⁶ Crassly playing both the class AND race card, the magical thinking, attention seeking Dr. Offit offered the opinion that “It is the upper middle class, well-educated Caucasian parents who are shunning vaccines. They have generally gone to graduate school, are in positions of management and are used to being in control,” he said flatly.

Doctors playing the blame game apparently disagree about whether nonconforming parents asking questions about vaccines are simply stupid and irrational or are just over-educated, rich white folks refusing to acknowledge the intellectual superiority and infallibility of those with M.D., PhD or MPH written after their names regardless of the color of their skin or how much money they make.

Doctors like Offit, ²⁷ Halsey, ^28 29 30 Plotkin, ^31 32 Omer ^{33 34 35 36} and others denying vaccine risks are blaming everyone but themselves for the miserable statistic that 1 child in 50 in America develops a type of brain and immune dysfunction labeled autism when it used to be 1 child in 2000 before they dumped three times as many vaccinations on babies.

Regression Into Poor Health After Vaccination: A Universal Experience

What doctors drowning in denialism ³⁷ refuse to accept is that, today, everybody knows somebody who was healthy, got vaccinated and was never healthy again. ³⁸That pattern of regression into poor health, ³⁹ that universal experience of suffering after use of a pharmaceutical product that has a long, well documented history of risks ^40 41 42 and failures, ⁴³⁴⁴ is why the public conversation about health and vaccination in the 21^st century must and will continue. It will continue until doctors, who are pushing more and more vaccines on children and adults already more highly vaccinated and sicker than ever, come up with a much better explanation than it’s “bad genes,” “better diagnosing” or all “a coincidence.”

Vaccine Makers and Doctors Shielded from Liability Have Ethical Duty

In the U.S., vaccine manufacturers are shielded from product liability in civil court and doctors promoting and administering vaccines are also shielded from vaccine injury lawsuits. ^45 46 Doctors without legal accountability have an even greater ethical duty to encourage patients and parents of minor children to become educated about all risks and honor the vaccination decisions patients or parents make, even if the doctor does not personally agree with the decision made. ^47 48

Freedom of thought, speech and conscience are deeply valued and constitutionally protected rights in America.⁴⁹ The public trust in the integrity of public health policies is destroyed when defensive doctors unwilling to share decision-making power fail to respect the human right to informed consent to medical risk taking and behave like schoolyard bullies instead of compassionate healers committed to, first, doing no harm.

SEE EXTENSIVE RESOURCE CITATION LIST AND ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE.

Photo: Shutterstock

But my favorite obedience experiment is Ron Jones answering his Cubberly Palo Alto High School students’ questions about how good German people could stand by and do nothing to stop Hitler’s atrocities. To find out, Jones invited the students to join his exclusive, special national organization, The Third Wave, promoting “Strength Through Discipline.” In doing so, Jones tricked his students into a first-hand discovery of the best answer possible to the question of “how could they?” Those students received an unforgettable answer: those Good Germans of course … are us! And of course, as Jones himself probably would have predicted, the cave-to-pressure Palo Alto School Board fired him for his efforts.

I like to think my extensive knowledge of these kinds of shenanigans, not to mention my subscription to Fraud Magazine, makes me immune to such manipulation. But my growing knowledge of how our brains work however, convinces me that I am not immune in the least. Individually, few of us are.

Encouraging Disobedience

When my own daughter was growing up, I would periodically encourage her to be less obedient. I would offer to increase her allowance to deliberately get words wrong on a spelling test. I would occasionally get her to play hooky from school to go to a movie matinée, and I would often ask her questions intended to make her question both my and her mother’s authority. I was apparently pretty successful in helping her grow a brain with a very “flexible” attitude towards authority: she’s 27 and a union organizer of disadvantaged minorities, and she doesn’t take much guff from people, including shop stewards, me or her mother. She’s more than willing to call a spade a spade and speak out against the injustices in the world. I’m proud of her that way.

Obedience as Brain Inhibitor

I’m pretty convinced that not questioning authority works against optimal neurological development. Obedient people often end up as victims of Robert Sapolsky’s fourneurodegeneration factors.Obedience is different than being respectful, of course. When we’re adamantly required to be obedient, we lose a lot of  personal control. Think Paul Newman as Cool Hand Luke. Outside agents controlled his behavior. It is just the opposite of an internal locus of control, which seems to work better for brain development and for questioning or resisting authority in all its various guises.

Oppressive or obedient cultures or circumstances often produce conditions that backfire on both the oppressors and the oppressed, resulting in little predictability. Luke is frequently at the effect of an unpredictable warden, one who has him dig holes for the hell of it, only to fill them in once they’re dug, while the menacing man in the mirrored glasses constantly hovers about as an additional neural inhibitor. How often do we as parents operate as wardens and prison guards for our own kids? How well does that work for us?

How does Luke deal with little personal control and the allostatic emotional load of unpredictability? Not very well. He overeats – 50 hardboiled eggs in an hour – gets into fights, and gets thrown in the “Hot Box.” Poor stress management techniques if you want to survive in the real world, never mind a prison in the muggy middle of an oppressive Florida summer. And while Luke had lots of allies egging him on (so to speak), they wouldn’t exactly qualify as effective social support. Luke recognizes they are essentially “feeding off” him, and their “failure to communicate” ultimately plays a powerful supporting role in Luke’s demise.

Modeling Disobedience Civilly

So how do we combat Sapolsky’s four neurodegenerators and still raise kids who can get along in the world? One way is to mirror and model less obedience and more questioning of authority in our own roles as parents. I’m constantly urging parents not to take my or any expert’s word for anything, but rather, take the things I say with a grain of salt. Find allies to help continually ask and answer the Two Perilous Questions, and assess what’s real and true and works in your own life. Doing that as a parent will very likely not go unnoticed by our kids. And they’ll have an authoritative model to draw on when life, as it inevitably will,  tries to get them to conform and obey.

More than 1 million babies die the day they are born yearly, according to the first global analysis of newborn day-of-death data.

In addition to new findings on newborn survival, the report also features Save the Children’s Mothers’ Index, released annually in the run-up to Mother’s Day. This year it ranks Finland as the best place in the world to be a mother, and Democratic Republic of the Congo as the toughest.

The United States ranks as the 30th best place to be a mother, just above Japan and South Korea—but below all of Western Europe, Australia, Slovenia, Singapore, New Zealand, Estonia, Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland. The Mothers’ Index rankings are determined by five indicators on education, income, women’s political representation and the chances a mother and her baby will survive.

Surviving the First Day

The 2013 State of the World’s Mothers report focuses in on newborn health and the theme “Surviving the First Day.” A new Birth Day Risk Index ranks 186 countries by the chances a baby will die on the first day of life.

The United States is a riskier place to be born than 68 other countries, according to the new analysis conducted by Save the Children and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

In the industrialized world, the United States has 60 percent of all first-day deaths, but only 38 percent of live births. Approximately 11,300 U.S. babies died on the first day of life in 2011, the report says. Some U.S. counties have first-day death rates common in the developing world, where 98 percent of all first-day deaths occur.

“It’s hard to imagine the depth of one mother’s pain in losing her baby the very day she gives birth, let alone a million times over,” said Carolyn Miles , President & CEO of Save the Children. “Yet, this report is full of hope. It shows there is a growing movement to save newborn lives and growing evidence that we can do it—saving up to 75 percent of them with no intensive care whatsoever.”

As Child Mortality Drops, Newborns Left Behind

Since 1990, overall child mortality has dropped dramatically around the world, from 12 million annual deaths to less than 7 million. But the report shows that lack of global attention on newborns has translated into a much slower decline in newborn mortality. In sub-Saharan Africa, as many newborns die now as two decades ago.

Globally, a rising share of child deaths—43 percent—now occur in the newborn period, or first month of life. The new report finds that more than a third of newborn deaths, or 15 percent of all child deaths, occur on the same day—the first.

The three leading causes of newborn death are prematurity, birth complications and severe infections. Among wealthier countries, higher U.S. rates of prematurity contribute to higher newborn mortality. Whether in the United States or the developing world, the poorest mothers are more likely to lose a newborn baby, the report finds.

The largest numbers of first-day deaths occur in India (more than 300,000 a year) and Nigeria (almost 90,000). The report identifies Somalia as the country with the highest first-day death rate (18 per 1,000 live births), while Luxemburg, Singapore and Sweden have among the lowest (less than 0.5 per 1,000).

New Hope for Newborns

A new Save the Children analysis shows that four underutilized products costing between 13 cents and $6 each could save 1 million newborns a year—many on the first day of life. They are: resuscitation devices to help babies breathe; the antiseptic chlorhexidine to prevent umbilical cord infections; injectable antibiotics to treat infections; and antenatal steroid injections to help preterm babies’ lungs develop.

Other factors the report says will save more newborns are: early and exclusive breastfeeding, “kangaroo mother care” to keep preterm babies warm against their mothers’ skin, and skilled attendance at birth (40 million women a year now go without). Addressing the global health worker crisis is key, as is investing in girls and women. Their improved nutrition and empowerment to attend school, delay marriage and plan and space births all lead to healthier mothers and babies.

Celebrities Speak up for Moms Everywhere

Save the Children also debuted a video of celebrity and everyday moms celebrating the magical first moments with their babies and wishing the same for all moms.

I’m grateful for the midwives who delivered my three children,” Save the Children Artist Ambassador Jennifer Connelly says in the video. “I hope that pregnant women everywhere are given the opportunity to give birth safely.”

Save the Children Artist Ambassador Jennifer Garner says, “Even with all of the care I had, even with monitoring the babies all the way through, I still had fears. So it’s hard not to think about women who don’t have all of that care, and how scared they must be.”

The State of the World’s Mothers report highlights several very poor countries making great strides to save newborns—including Nepal, Bangladesh, Malawi and Ethiopia—and calls on all nations to act for mothers and babies.

See the full rankings, learn more and take action at www.savethechildren.org/mothers .

Save the Children is the leading, independent organization that creates lasting change for children in need in the United States and around the world. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Photo: Shutterstock

When I was preparing to give birth, I saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime event and something I wanted, more than anything, to do “right.” By doing it “right,” I meant that I wanted the safest and most positive outcome possible; to me, it was perfectly obvious that safety and a good experience were inextricably linked. And, as the person playing the most active role in the event, I felt it was my responsibility to shape those things.

It was a little alarming to me that so many of my friends and acquaintances who had given birth did not particularly want to talk about it, and didn’t necessarily think it was a good idea that I learned as much as I could about it before doing it.

Before and after giving birth, I got the sense from some people that in seeking a “positive” experience, I was being high-maintenance and was somehow less concerned with my baby’s well-being than someone who didn’t ask questions or want to actively participate. I rolled my eyes at the speculation and barreled right through it, but, on reflection, it struck me as odd. How could it be “selfish” to do what I could to facilitate a less traumatic birth? Didn’t less traumatic mean “safer”? My body—a body I’d come to know and like for the last 30-some years—was being subjected to a major, life-altering process. Why did it suddenly have such reduced value? Why was I suddenly not supposed to have any say over what happened to it?

And . . . why did people assume that my baby’s safety must be lower on my priority list, because I wanted his birth to be a positive experience?

That’s a doozy of an assumption.

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“The father wound is so deep and so all-pervasive in so many parts of the world that its healing could well be the most radical social reform conceivable.” Father Richard Rohr, wrote that. Not only here in the West, but across the globe, disengaged fathers are leaving a mark that will forever reshape the future of our planet. You show me a person that is angry, violent, depressed, selfish, sexually immoral, hyper-driven, or one of several other personality types, and I’ll show you a father wound. Nothing is more important to a young man, or a young woman, than a father’s love, respect and acceptance. And nothing is more damaging than when the question ‘Am I good enough?’ is asked of the father by the child, and the answer is silence.

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Natto first appeared in northeastern Japan about a thousand years ago.  Traditionally, it smelled like straw because it was made by inoculating whole cooked soybeans with Bacillus subtilis or Bacillus nattoand incubated in straw.   The straw also absorbed the none-too-fragrant ammonia-like odor.   Because of frequent contamination by unwanted microorganisms, natto makers abandoned the straw method in favor of inoculating the cooked beans with B. natto, then mixing and packing the product in wooden boxes or polyethylene bags.

Natto is one of the few fermented soy products in which bacteria predominate over the fungi.  It’s made the news as a good source of vitamin K2, which exists in only a few foods other than animal fats like butter, but is vital to blood clotting and healthy bone formation and preservation.   Nattokinase is an enzyme sold as a supplement and recommended by many alternative MDs for cardiovascular and circulatory problems.

As a food, natto may be served with mustard and soy sauce, or used in soups and spreads in Japanese cuisine.   A little goes a long way.   Children love it — not for its strong, rotten flavor — but because its glistening threads can be stretched, making it one of the all-time great play foods.   As for them actually eating it, not likely, at least not over here!

Indeed, natto isn’t even popular in all parts of Japan.  In areas where it is popular, many restaurants that serve it require patrons to sit in a private area so as not to offend other patrons with the distinctive smell.

Why so?  I’ll let the irrepressible Anthony Bourdain explain it:

“What I was not ready for, and never will be, wasnatto  .  .  .  an unbelievably foul, rank, slimy, glutenous and stringy goop of fermented soybeans.  . . .  If the taste wasn’t bad enough, there’s the texture.  There’s just no way to eat the stuff.  I dug in my chopsticks and dragged a small bit to my mouth.  Viscous long strands of mucuslike material followed, leaving numerous ugly and unmanageable strands running from my lips to the bowl.  I tried severing the strands with my chopsticks, but to no avail.  I tried rolling them around my sticks like recalcitrant angel-hair pasta.  I tried slurping them in.  But there was no way.  I sat there, these horrible-looking strings extending from mouth to table like a spider’s web, doing my best to choke them down while still smiling . . . All I wanted to do now was hurl myself through the paper walls and straight off the edge of the mountain.   Hopefully, a big tub of boiling bleach or lye would be waiting at the bottom for me to gargle with.”   

That about sums it up.   Unlike Vegemite though, natto‘s actually very good for you!

But truth be told, I rarely get all, if any, of these Mother’s Day treats. I know this shouldn’t surprise me, and it shouldn’t irritate me… but it kinda does, or it has in the past. It’s a horrible confession for someone like me to make, but I’m rarely as cranky as I can be on Mother’s Day.

I know I’m not the only one feeling blue on on the second Sunday in May. In fact, I’m bracing myself for a series of phone calls from disgruntled friends again this year. “All I wanted was to picnic on the beach with the kids,” one friend lamented last year. Her often-charming but rarely-helpful-with-the-kids husband couldn’t get it together—the waves were looking good, and he thought he’d sneak a quick surf into the schedule, right when he should have been securing picnic supplies. Her kids, two of whom were old enough to take the day into their own hands, didn’t rally either. She felt abandoned, and taken for granted.

I know how she felt. One year my kids didn’t do anything for me but make very, um, hasty, cards on scrap paper, an effort so effortless it brought tears to my eyes.

Not the happy kind of tears.

The problem isn’t the kids, though. It is my focus on myself and what I’m entitled to. Even though I really do believe that we moms deserve a day to be treated like goddesses—at least one day!—I don’t think it sets us up for the happiest of Mother’s Days when we expect this to happen.

Although we think that indulging ourselves is going to make us happy, it generally doesn’t:Studies show that we’re happier after spending money on others than after spending on ourselves—yet when people are asked, they expect the opposite will be true.

I see this play out on Mother’s Day (for myself, and some of my friends). After we spend so much time caring for those around us—our kids, our partners, our parents—we think that a quick ticket to a happy Mother’s Day will come from being pampered. But we’re inevitably disappointed when we find that focusing on ourselves is not always, or even usually, a sure route to happiness.

The solution to this sticky-wicket is deceptively simple: We can set ourselves up to be happy on Mother’s Day—to feel gratitude and awe and deep love instead of frustration and disappointment—by simply helping other people. People who help others tend to be less stressed, more joyful, and healthier; less stress, more joy, and greater health all sound good to me this Mother’s Day.

So this year, even though I often long for a break from caring for others, I will make Mother’s Day all about other people. (I know that this strategy isn’t for everyone; those of you suffering from caregiver or compassion fatigue won’t want to try this from home.)

We’ll celebrate the grandmothers in our family, of course, with a big brunch or a fun family dinner (or both, for both sides of the family). But for months, I’ve been wanting to try what this guy does for his birthday: spend a day or two doing dozens of little good deeds—and bring my kids along for the ride.

We’re finally going to do it—for Mother’s Day instead of my birthday—as a way to honor my own mother, Sylvia. She just turned 70 and is as beautiful and vibrant as ever. We’d like to help one person for each year that she has been a mother (41 years). Since her mother, my Oma, passed away this year (at the amazing age of 104!) we’d also like to honor her by helping at least one person for each year Oma was a mother (71 years). Silly math, but we’re aiming to do kind acts for 112 or more people.

We started our “kindness scavenger hunt” this weekend, but to be honest, we didn’t get as far with it as I’d hoped. Personally, I could have powered through the whole list, but my kids fatigued after checking just a few things off the list. We agreed we’d do some more on Mother’s Day, and each week thereafter, until we think we’ve helped more than a hundred people.

Here’s our “Kindness Scavenger Hunt” list:

1. Pick the lemons from our elderly neighbor’s tree, make lemonade, and deliver it to her.
2. Bring food to the food bank.
3. Do a loving-kindness meditation for all those that we love and are concerned about—and also for those that bother us.
4. Leave flowers for a widow who is grieving the man she was married to for 59 years.
5. Give vegetables from our garden to neighbors.
6. Pick up trash in our local park.
7. Stop for everyone looking to cross the street or merge.
8. Make a larger-than-comfortable donation to Tipping Point, a group that is striving to eradicate poverty in our area.
9. Fill a thred up bag full of like-new clothing to benefit Teach for America.
10. Give out extra hugs to the grandmothers in our lives, who really appreciate them.
11. Write a thank-you note to the kids’ preschool teacher: one of those “other mothers” that really made a difference in their lives.
12. Make and deliver “care-kits” to as many homeless people in Berkeley as we can, and give the extras to our friends and family to distribute in their travels.
13. Send someone a book I think they will enjoy, totally randomly.
14. Send all the pregnant women I know some of my favorite parenting books.
15. Write a letter our beat cop thanking him for all he does for our neighborhood.
16. Help a friend with some work on Sunday morning (instead of sleeping in).
17. Visit people at the old age home where my father-in-law used to live (and bring the dog, who despite also being quite old, tends to light up their day).
18. Babysit for the neighbors that have little kids, so that they can have a date-night.
19. Deliver Challahs to temple congregants who are grieving or ill.
20. Serve dinner to homeless and hungry people in San Francisco’s tenderloin neighborhood (Glide Memorial allows kids to volunteer).

What do you think we should add to our list? Please add your suggestions as a comment below!

Happy Mother’s Day, all. Cheers to all the work you and the mothers you love are doing to raise happiness.