Have you read the headlines about China genetically modifying their cows to produce "human-like" breast milk? They claim it will be helpful for women who "can't or choose not to breastfeed." Do you feel that breastfeeding is, in a way, a political statement about what our values are as a society? I'm amazed that they think there is a market for this, considering breast milk is FREE. Why would you buy it, unless you are one of the rare cases of women who truly cannot breastfeed? Especially when we have no way of knowing the long term ramifications? I think that if this catches on we will see women lose the ability to produce their own breast milk (many generations down the road) because it will be so underutilized. This is very troubling to me and I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it. What do you think?
since people keep asking what it is that is so troubling about this, for me it's the genetic modification part. GM'ing foods has ruined the soil making it more difficult to grow food (the exact opposite of what we were promised), has produced larger, yet less nutrient dense food, and has ruined the lives of farmers (google: "Monsanto and suicides). I think GM'ing the food supply is a bad idea. Messing with something as pure and perfect as breastmilk just brings it to a whole new level of sacrelige. I hear arguments about the potential, esp. in the field of medicine and part of me wants to scream, only b/c we are growing sicker and sicker in part, because of our reliance on fake food. The one thing we had that hadn't been tooled around with yet was breastmilk. Thanks. I love the discussion.
Ick! is all I have to say!
And I don't know about anyone else but I would SO NOT trust any genetically modified anything (especially something new to feed to my babies) from China!!!
Ick! Ick! Ick!
I call bullsh!t... or in this case, cowsh!t.
Wouldn't try it....Same thing as the synthetic meat they're growing in a petri dish...No thank you.
Sometimes mother nature should just be left alone.
OK I couldn't let this statement from MomofMany go uncountered:
"Many, many mothers around the world no longer stay home with their children, even putting them in daycare at the very young age of less than 2 months old. That would have been unheard of and shocking 50 years ago."
NOT TRUE AT ALL. The idea of women staying home with their children was really unique to the US in the affluent aftermath of WWII, and only to the middle class. The first daycare center in the US opened in the 1840s to give widows and poor women a place to have their children cared for while they worked. During the Great Depression the US government actually federally funded childcare centers to get more people working. The government also provided childcare during WWII - who do you think watched Rosie the Riveter's children? Even government contractors during that war provided 24-hour-a-day childcare so that they could run factories around the clock. Women have always worked - in developing countries and in past decades in the developed world, women either had family members who could watch their children, left the children home alone, brought their children to work (farms, factories, etc.) or they worked overnights while their husbands worked during the day. The idea that women working and relying on others for childcare is some unnatural, modern invention is simply not true.
And in there is a long history of affluent women not raising their children either. How many novels nonchalantly describe newborns being whisked off by the wet nurse and raised by the nanny? Anna Karenina, Madam Bovary etc. are fictional characters but are a good representation of women of their economic class and point in history.
This sounds gross and weirds me out.
Shouldn't scientists be working on cures for cancer/AIDS/other diseases, solving issues of world hunger and clean drinking water??? I mean, HUMANS already make human breastmilk....can't they think of better uses for the millions (I'm sure) of dollars and thousands (likely) of hours??? I could!
1) It's not just China... Russia has been doing this for the last 8 years and have found goats are easier to manage - both with the genetic modifying as well as cheaper.
2) The amazing properties of breastmilk is now being used as treatments for Cancer patients and HIV... the research findings on who else it can medically help is astounding and continues to grow - another reason why so many nations are trying their own genetic engineering for other mammals to produce breastmilk.
3) Milk donors are unable to keep up with the extreme amount of Mothers begging and needing breastmilk for their children... most is due to lack of education and support on how to start and sustain breastfeeding on their own or deliberate sabotage by formula corporations visiting 3rd world countries, giving them just enough of a supply to almost completely end the Mom's breastmilk... then moving on to another village and starting the sabotage over again. This leaves many Mothers unable to afford formula and without support to re-lactate.
***Added***
The scientist takes a human stem cell and grows it to form a human milk gland system. These are transferred to just born animals in their teats/udders until the human milk glad takes over their bovine/goat cells and they start producing human breastmilk instead of their own species's breastmilk.
I read about this a while ago.
Just another case of genetic modification going mad. It was bad enough when they crossed salmon genes with strawberries so the berries would be "cold resistant" (!), but this is on a whole new level. Genetic engineering of our food needs to STOP. They have NO idea what any of this will do to humans, they have no testing, no proof that it won't be harmful. This is why I will only buy organic products for my family (of course, Monsanto is trying to make THAT difficult now, too, but that's another story!).
They're trying to replace formula with it. I'm a breast is best mama, and I'd say that a good (organic!) formula is leaps and bounds BETTER than "breast milk" from cows. Cows already produce breastmilk; the kind THEIR offspring need!
Also, if those researchers had any sense, they'd start with goats, not cows. Goatmilk is already genetically very close to humans!
Urrrgh this makes me sick. It should be ILLEGAL to screw around with an animals (or humans, or fruits!) genes.
I think that it is a way that society is trying to remove the importance of mothers' unique roles in the life of their children. Many, many mothers around the world no longer stay home with their children, even putting them in daycare at the very young age of less than 2 months old. That would have been unheard of and shocking 50 years ago. Today, we have not only accepted it, but many people think it is normal and somehow good for the baby to get that socialization. No offense to those who must work, but it is not better for baby to be away from mother. So, why would we "need" mom to give breastmilk to baby? Breast is best. Now we don't even need your breasts to provide that. Did you know that it may not be too long before pigs will be able to carry unborn babies instead of mothers? http://asutriplehelix.org/from_bacon_to_human_babies
One of the thing that they commented on is the fact that the first hurdle to overcome is public acceptance. "New technology, especially when it pertains to human life, unequivocally brings with it new moral dilemmas. Society’s acceptance of possible technology often influences how quickly, and even if, a technology will ever be explored. Radical new technologies are often first rejected, then accepted, then embraced. Because of unease and ethical questions regarding pigs as surrogate mothers, the idea has been strictly monitored and restricted in its development." When you see new things like this, watch what happens. First, people reject it, then they start coming around, then they embrace it as a good thing. Think of the things that people accept today that they didn't before. We are a brainwashable people. We accept whatever the media wants us to accept. They carefully groom us to follow their agenda. We need to be thinking people, not just lemmings.
sounds like this is how zombie movies start... im not comfortable with it...
No one I knew breast fed and it didn't affect my milk. The fact is in this busy world, many people simple don't breastfeed. I am all for a better milk for those that don't BF. I am actually kind of tripping out on why people are grossed about this, but are perfectly fine with cows milk or formula? For me the troubling thing, is in our society breastfeeding and breastmilk is still very taboo to allot of people. To much importants of sex on the boobs, and not enough accectance for what they are, milk producers.
Oh well who I am to talk, I do not slaughter my own food, I get it a store.
Well, the govt also tortures groups of people to death and then sells their organs on the black market, so this doesn't particularly surprise me. Not just executed criminals either, but living Falun Gong members, who often die after many organs have been removed.
So, this whole breastmilk thing is just another way to get a dollar. I wouldn't be surprised if they had nursing moms hooked up to cow milking machines, with the way their labor laws and no care for human life is right now.
But, with every Happy Meal toy we bring home, we support their twisted ways.
Why would someone buying cow's human-like breast milk cause women to lose the ability to produce breast milk "down the road"? It might if EVERYONE started buying it, but that would not take "many generations" it would most likely take "many epochs"! People buying "cow breast milk" across the world is not going to affect our, or our daughters, or their daughters-daughters-daughters-daughters ability to produce breast milk!
No, I don't think our values as a society are a political statement reflected by breastfeeding or the lack of. How could that be?
It only becomes "political" when policies are dictated by the government.
There ARE women who can't or don't choose to breastfeed. It is a choice because we are NOT dictated to on this issue by the government.
WHY would people buy it? Because they want to maybe? People buy breast milk ice cream and if that is not the weirdest thing I've heard in quite a while, I don't know what is.
I wouldn't buy it, but it's certainly not the most ridiculous thing available for sale.
People buy and use things ALL the time that are KNOWN to be bad for you (Happy Meal, anyone? Tanning bed?) so I don't know why this would be even more troubling...
Wow, I think it has great potential. I don't think BF is going the way of the dinasour any time soon. But there are a great many woman such as myself who had a heck of a time making BF work out. I would have loved it if there was a milk that mimicked human breast milk better than formula. I think you are making too much of this. I find your fear of evolutionizing nonlacting women over this as ridiculous as a man I once talked to who thought women were going to evolutionize into larger cup sizes because of breast implants.
Why would someone want another alternative, when they already have either a natural product, or formula?
And why torture the poor cows?
All the research, time and money would probably be more useful if spent in helping to produce good cow's milk as organic as possible, and NOT damaging the cows further with external hormones and chemicals!
I am not a fan of this and I am one of those women who does have a difficult time breastfeeding naturally, however with the assistance of a Good Lactation Consultant I was able to maintain 50/50 until 13mo old. I never considered an alternate method, I never considered purchasing none of those options, I think this is another overseas fad that will go away.
