THE PILL MERCHANTS

THE RELENTLESS AND TRAGIC MARKETING OF PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS

In our work, we strive to alleviate distress and to support and enhance people’s personal growth, transformation, individuation, self-determination, and clear and expanded awareness. Necessity dictates that we also spend a lot of time challenging aspects of the mental health profession that do the opposite—creating more distress, suppressing growth and transformation, violating self-determination, and dulling and blinding awareness.

We call it psychiatric oppression—the systematic, institutionalized mistreatment of those judged “mentally ill.”
This essay focuses on the ever expanding encroachment of psychiatric oppression to more and more of the population, to people of all ages and to individuals who are less and less in need of actual help. This encroachment takes the form of mass marketing for psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry. The elders are covered already, as it appears that at least half of nursing home residents are on psychiatric drugs (as shown in John Breeding’s book The Necessity of Madness and Unproductivity: Psychiatric Oppression or Human Transformation). We will examine the expanding movement downward, from the grave to the cradle, so to speak.

One key aspect of oppression theory is the claim to virtue. For psychiatric oppression, that claim is the notion that mentally ill people need their treatment. Now pharmaceutical marketing is expanding into the concept of prevention—that potentially mentally ill people need treatment, as well!

Disability and Disease: Measures of Failed Development In 2005, investigative journalist Robert Whitaker analyzed adult psychiatric disability in the United States. The data is incredible. A century ago, one in 500 people was considered “disabled”  by mental illness and in need of hospitalization. By 1955, with the advent of Thorazine, that number reached nearly one in 300. Over the next 50 years, as psychiatric drugs became the primary treatment, the disability rate climbed steadily. Today, nearly  one in 50 U.S. adults receives Social Security Disability  Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for psychiatric disability.
The data on schoolchildren eligible for special education amplifies the Whitaker data. As described in my book The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses, the number of children labeled as learning disabled (LD) or diagnosed with “disruptive behavior disorders” has increased dramatically. Federal legislation in the 1960s spurred the growth of special education, and in 1991, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was expanded to include so-called Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) as a qualifying disability, it sparked tremendous growth. It is not unusual for a school district to have one in four of its students in special education.

About 60 percent of children qualifying under IDEA have no physical disability. These children are given labels such as LD, ADD or ED (emotionally disturbed). Could it be that these “diagnoses” are a modern way of “blaming the victim?” Pathways readers know that we are clearly failing in prevention of real illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and asthma, including with our children. The situation in so-called mental
health may be even worse. Childhood “mental illness” is now virtually pandemic in the United States, as an estimated 1 out of 7 school-age children is on at least one psychotropic drug, and many are on several. Our analysis showed an estimated 40-fold (4,000 percent) increase in the number of children on psychiatric drugs between 1970 and 2000. It is a fair estimate that at least 12 million young people are on psychiatric drugs in
the U.S. today.

Pseudoscience and the Creation of Imagined Disease
The drugging of our nation’s children is utterly tragic because of the very dangerous, toxic nature of these substances. But it is beyond tragic when one confronts the fact that these “illnesses” are only alleged or imagined diseases. Real diseases are discovered—confirmed by objective physical or chemical abnormalities such as a cancer tumor or a blood sugar imbalance.

Alleged disease is proclaimed by fiat. The American Psychiatric Association decides that certain behaviors (“symptoms”) are abnormal and votes these sets of behaviors into existence as diseases. For example, ADD was voted into existence in 1980, and ADHD in 1987. It is difficult enough to prevent unnecessary physical diseases among our nation’s children. When one truly understands that childhood “mental illnesses” are imagined, then how in the world can they be prevented or treated? Well, just as the government claims it can detain and torture a man it thinks is a terrorist (not always using those words), our society claims the
right to select, label and drug a child we deem mentally ill. The difference is, terrorists do exist, while ADHD does not. As hard as they may be to accept, the words of retired neurologist Fred Baughman Jr. are nonetheless absolutely true: “ADHD is a total, complete 100 percent fraud.”You cannot prevent ADHD because it is not real. But you can prevent stigmatizing children with the label, and you can  certainly prevent drugging them with addictive stimulants,  commonly called speed.

Further into the Abyss:
The Creation of Real Disease
Columbia University’s Dr. Mark Olfson analyzed national outpatient records and found another incredible 40-fold increase, this time in the diagnosis of “bipolar disorder” in youth (0 to 19 years old) within a 10-year period (1994–2003). The numbers increased from roughly 20,000 such diagnoses in 1994 to about 800,000 in 2003. The primary treatment of so-called bipolar disorder is psychotropic drugs—mood stabilizers like Depakote, and antipsychotics like Abilify or Zyprexa. Olfson’s study also found that
“nearly one in five psychiatric visits for young people included  a prescription for antipsychotics.”
Antipsychotics are powerful and highly toxic, even more dangerous than stimulant speed. They have caused probably the largest epidemic of neurological disease in history—tardive dyskinesia—in millions of adults around the world. There is a nationwide trend of “skyrocketing numbers” in drugging our  children with neuroleptics. The St. Petersburg Times reported  a 250 percent increase in Florida between 2000 and 2007.
“Bipolar disorder” is a prime example of a fictitious medical disease used to justify giving poisoning drugs like Zyprexa to our precious children. A closer look shows that a tremendous percentage of children diagnosed bipolar started off with an ADHD label.

Typically, these kids took stimulants for years before they were diagnosed as bipolar. Given that psychosis, agitation, anxiety, mania and cognitive and mood deterioration are all effects of stimulant drugs, it is easy to see that the end result is a tragic and pathetic example of an iatrogenic disease (a disease caused by medicine or medical doctors). As the above analysis reveals, there is one way to prevent many of the behaviors that psychiatry uses to justify its creation of the budding epidemic of “bipolar disorder”—simply do not put young children on toxic stimulant drugs.

Universal Mental Health Screening and Suicide Prevention
A storm of controversy surrounded the recommendation of President Bush’s 2003 New Freedom Commission for universal mental health screening, and the suggestion that the 56 million young people in the nation’s public schools would be a great place to start. We slowed them down in Texas, defeating the push for New Freedom–type mental health screening in the 2005 and 2007 legislative sessions. The Texas 2009 marketing push had morphed into screening for suicide prevention, and we defeated that, also.
Teen Screen and other programs that claim to prevent suicide by identifying at-risk young people have incredibly high rates of false positives. In a 2004 article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Dr. David Shaffer, the Columbia psychiatrist who developed Teen
Screen, acknowledged that it “would result in 84 non-suicidal teens being referred for evaluation for every 16 suicidal youths correctly identified.” A prime example of the problems that can arise with a false positive is the nightmare that Aliah Gleason went through in Austin, Texas. Aliah ended up taking at least 13
different psychotropic drugs. That is what happens to children targeted by screening in our system today.
These types of suicide prevention programs do not work. The United States Preventive Services Task Force found in 2004 that screening for suicide risk does not reduce suicide attempts or mortality. What these programs do is select more children to be labeled, pathologized and poisoned with psychotropic drugs.
They are very effective marketing campaigns for the psychopharmaceutical industry. Infants and Toddlers:

Targeting Younger and Younger Children
In the 1980s the pharmaceutical industry recognized a market, and with the launching of ADD in 1980 and ADHD in 1987, its expansion into schools was underway. With the inclusion of ADHD as an “other health impaired” category in the IDEA in 1991, the numbers really exploded. Kindergarten and first grade became
main entry points into psychiatry. Now there is an exponential increase in the numbers of drugged preschoolers and toddlers.

Even infants sometimes get drugged!
The ethical corruption is significant. For example, a 2008  New York Times editorial titled “Hidden Drug Payments at  Harvard” revealed that Harvard psychiatric researcher Joseph Biederman and two of his colleagues took millions of dollars  in undisclosed drug company money while acting as public  relations point men for children’s “bipolar.” Boston Globe reporter Carey Goldberg reported: “Newly disclosed court documents  portray Dr. Joseph Biederman, a leading Harvard child psychiatrist, as courting drug company money by promising that his work at Massachusetts General Hospital would help promote  the use of antipsychotic drugs for youngsters diagnosed with bipolar disorder.” (Italics ours.)

Researchers from Rutgers and Columbia Universities found that antipsychotic prescriptions written for privately insured children aged 2 to 5 years doubled between 1999-2001 and 2007.
Children covered by Medicaid are more likely than privatelyinsured children to be prescribed antipsychotic drugs, and have a higher likelihood of being prescribed antipsychotics even if they have no psychotic symptoms. Recall that antipsychotic drugs cause permanent neurological and metabolic damage in most
people who take them for very long.Whitaker notes in his new book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, that
this system of “treatment” disables 850 adults and 250 children every day. He reports that in 1987, there were 16,200 children under 18 who received an SSI payment by virtue of disabling “mental illness”—5.5 percent of the 293,000 children on disability rolls. In 1990, the numbers began to dramatically rise.
The number of children under 6 receiving SSI tripled to 65,928 between 2000 and 2007. By the end of 2007, there were 561,569 “mentally ill” children on the disability rolls, a 35-fold increase, becoming the leading “cause” of child disability and 50 percent of the total number. That’s 250 children every day, enough to fill an elementary school auditorium.

The MOTHERS Act
The MOTHERS Act is a new federal law that seeks to increase screening of all new moms for perinatal mood disorders (during and after pregnancy), and which promotes public awareness and “research” on postpartum depression. This law was allegedly inspired by the story of Melanie Blocker Stokes, a pharmaceutical sales rep who became extremely distressed after the birth of her daughter in 2001. Melanie’s doctors gave her four different cocktails of antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds and anti-psychotics, as well as repeated electroshock sessions. She jumped from a 12th-story hotel window when her daughter was only 3- months old. Some time before her suicide, Melanie told her husband that the treatments were killing her. It
only took 3- months for psychiatry to destroy this woman and devastate her family forever, yet our government offers more psychiatry as its “answer” to emotional problems after birth—in the
name of Melanie Stokes.
If the government were to initiate a “Take Your Zoloft” awareness campaign, we would understand that it is merely for the benefit of Pfizer. Yet somehow, many have been fooled into buying the notion that a screening program for some “mental illness” like depression is for public health. Screening is considered a medical diagnostic procedure, which requires the due process of informed consent. This due process right cannot legally be ignored without an emergency mental health situation (which gives authority to a doctor to screen), or when a court determines a person is incompetent to consent to screening. Because mothers as a group cannot be considered incompetent to consent, nor can their collective due process rights be bargained away by Congress, mass screening programs without individualized mandatory informed consent and refusal procedures are not only a bad idea, they are constitutionally impermissible.
New Jersey’s 2006 mandatory postpartum depression screening law implements the use of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). In practice, the EPDS has been demonstrated to triple the number of women diagnosed with postpartum depression. Due to its subjectivity, almost anyone can be termed
depressed or at risk of depression and treatment would be recommended. Swedish researchers Ingela Krantz et al examined the subjectivity of the EPDS and found: Routine EPDS screening of Swedish postpartum women would lead to considerable ethical problems due to the weak scientific foundation of the screening instrument. Despite a multitude of published studies, the side-effects in terms of misclassifications have not been considered carefully. The EPDS does not function very well as a routine screening
instrument…. Public health authorities should not advocate screening of unproved value. Screening
is not just a medical issue but also an ethical one.Advocates of this instrument have even admitted that based
on screening results, categories of varying risk are established such that 100 percent of new mothers are at risk of depression and candidates for treatment! Postpartum depression is not a distinct disease of its own;
even the preamble to the MOTHERS Act states that we don’t know what causes PPD. Rather, it is a convenient label for widely varying circumstances. The label is used by doctors to excuse their lack of investigation into possible underlying physical diseases, and by society to absolve us of our responsibility to
support new mothers, many of whom will undoubtedly have significant difficulty adjusting without proper support. So many factors can cause a mother’s sadness. How much of so-called postpartum depression is the effect of a stressful, unsupported pregnancy, or of a birth with labor-inducing drugs and painkillers, or unnecessary Cesarean deliveries with anesthesia and forced separation from the baby, and on and on? This is not to say that moms don’t get depressed. But you can’t “treat” something with medicine if you don’t know what’s causing it—and simply giving someone an addictive psychiatric drug is not going to treat depression. Rather than “cure” depression, this drugging can sometimes lead to tragedy or devastating injury of our babies, as in the cases of Matthew Schultz, Manie McNamee and Indiana Delahunty (see sidebar).
Drug company funding of “educational” activities on perinatal depression and other mood disorders has resulted in misinformed doctors placing pregnant and breastfeeding mothers on drugs toxic enough to cause fatal serotonin syndrome in adults. These can cause such effects in breastfeeding babies as excessive vomiting, seizures, coma and death.In a recent article titled “Prescription Drug Epidemic Spreads
to Babies,” Dr. Mary Newport stated that the number of babies being treated for prescription drug withdrawal in the past two years exceeded the number she had seen in the past 25 years combined. Prescription drug withdrawal treatment for babies involves more medication than for heroin or cocaine. In addition, sudden withdrawal of a drug during the pregnancy can lead to miscarriage, or the baby could have a seizure and die.

According to the FDA, from 2004 to 2008 more than 7,000 cases of birth defects, spontaneous abortions and intra-uterine deaths, heart disease and premature births were reported as linked primarily to exposure from psychiatric drugs during pregnancy.

Acting for Mothers
In the world of modern mental health treatment, “at-risk” labels assume a biological or genetic defect, which means drug treatment. It is astounding how many mothers already get “treatment.” The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimates that one third of pregnant women are exposed to psychotropic drugs at some point during pregnancy. In addition, at least 13 percent of U.S. women take antidepressants during pregnancy. This is due in part to unplanned pregnancies, but many women continue consuming medications while breastfeeding or pregnant. Drug companies ensure increased profits by drugging toddlersfor so-called ADHD when these children grow up and become labeled with “bipolar disorder,” and they further ensure increased profits when the administration of antidepressants, stimulants, mood “stabilizers” and neuroleptic drugs results in increasing cases of diabetes, for which the drug companies have treatments. Likewise, drug companies will benefit exceedingly from yhe MOTHERS Act. The MOTHERS Act is not really for Melanie Stokes. Nor is it for moms and babies. It is for pHARMa.
The Ability to See and Act Valid answers to the question of prevention can only come from
the ability to see past the smokescreen and translate the Orwellian language that perverts reality and results in poisoning our children. Here is an example of that translation:
Treating a mentally ill child with medicine for ADHD.
This means…

• Drugging a child judged as behaving poorly  to control or alter his or her behavior.
• Labeling and drugging a child to reduce  adult discomfort.
• Labeling children to create product points,  to sell a product for profit.
• Drugging a child to sell a drug.

Hopelessness into Hope
The rhetoric of psychiatric treatment of children and their mothers purports to offer hope. But the reality is that such pathologizing and “treatment” undermines hope and causes damage and disability. Real hope for babies and moms lies in reclaiming the sacredness of motherhood with full-on support of pregnancy,
childbirth and early parenting. We love the title of Alice Walker’s book, Anything We Love Can
Be Saved. It is cultural madness to think that salvation of our glorious mothers and precious babies lies in psychiatric labels and drugs. The solution lies in a much more beautiful realm. Walker quotes Samuel Zan, General Secretary of Amnesty International in Nigeria and activist for the abolition of the genital mutilation
(female circumcision) of women: “If the women of the world were comfortable, this would be a comfortable world.” Walker points to the solution by amplifying Zan’s words: “Like Zan, I believe that if the women of the world were comfortable, so would the world be. In fact, I know this in my bones. Out of a woman’s security—which always means free agency in society, sexual and spiritual autonomy, as well as the well-being of her children and the sanctity of her home—comes ultimate security for the world.”

This we can create.
Closing Thoughts on Prevention: The True Nature of Children
The title of John Breeding’s earlier book, True Nature and Great Misunderstandings: On How We Care for Our Children According to Our Understanding, is based on the premise, attributed to Anaïs Nin, that “We see the world not as it is but as we are,”  and act accordingly. As long as people are so confused and
misinformed that they think challenges with children are due  to biological or genetic defects in the children, then children  (or mothers) will be blamed and hurt. Our view on the true nature of children is that we are born with brilliant intelligence, tremendous energy and zest, and  intense relational desire. We also think that we can trust in the natural trajectory of human development, and do not need to tame and suppress our children. Breeding’s “21st Century  Manifesto for Parenting” [Pathways 25] makes clear, however,
that we are also regrettably aware that we live in a highly disturbed society, one not structured to meet well many of the developmental needs of our children nor the safety and support needs of pregnant and new mothers. Blaming moms or children by labeling them defective and then suppressing, controlling
and subduing them with drugs may provide a temporary false absolution of adult responsibility.
The bottom line, however, is that such practice is pathetic, cruel and tragic. Let’s stop it now. The challenge is doing whatever it takes to be clear and strong enough as adults to fiercely defend children from unnecessary harm, and simply to enjoy and take delight in our beloved, spirited children, and the sacred experience of pregnancy and birth.
By John Breeding, Ph.D., and Amy Philo

Chiropractic for Fertility?

Chiropractic and Fertility

     One of the basic premises of chiropractic care is that vertebral subluxations affect nerve transmission. Think of your brain as a computer which coordinates, via your nervous system, the functions of your organs and cells. Nerve messages can be interrupted by spinal subluxations which occur when there are misalignments of one or more vertebrae. Among other effects, vertebral subluxations can compromise optimal reproductive system function and our capacity to conceive. But the field of chiropractic care is yielding some promising results.

     In one review published in the Journal of Clinical Chiropractic Pediatrics (2008), the case studies of eleven infertile women, aged 22 to 42, were examined. Ten of the women were actively trying to become pregnant and had been unsuccessful. Their pregnancy histories included one natural childbirth, two miscarriages, two failed IVF treatments and three failed artificial inseminations. Within 1 to 20 months of receiving chiropractic care, all eleven women had become pregnant. They all had adjustments made to vertebral subluxations in their spines using a variety of chiropractic techniques. Nine of the eleven received no other medical care during this time. This is one example in the growing body of research that suggests chiropractic care improves reproductive system function.

     Regardless of the type of chiropractic technique used, when subluxations are addressed, nerve function is improved and reproductive and endocrine function is enhanced. There is no exclusive infertility cure-all for couples. These proactive recommendations are designed to allow the body to balance itself and recreate its own “order.” Health practitioners cannot take credit for the magnificent design of the human body, which has an innate intelligence working to heal itself.

     If couples take the time to listen to their own bodies, they will receive invaluable advice, for the body is always sending messages. This does not mean we need be alone in the healing process. Chiropractors and Naturopaths will often work together to support reproductive integrity.

     Given the right support and enough time, the body has repeatedly shown that it is capable of transforming “dis-ease” and dysfunction into wellness…and for many couples, infertility into fertility.

BREASTFEEDING BOOBYTRAPS

 

BREASTFEEDING BOOBYTRAPS:

Five cultural misconceptions that come between baby and breast

A few weeks ago my 15-month-old son weaned from breastfeeding. It was an event that passed almost unnoticed because it happened so gradually, and it was a day or two before I realized he hadn’t nursed. When I stopped to think about it, I knew it was the right time for both of us. He was happily going through his day—naps, bedtime and all— without skipping a beat, and I hardly felt a twinge when I realized that part of our relationship was over.

Although it’s a bit early to reminisce, when I think about our breastfeeding time, I do so with complete happiness. It is an aspect of our relationship that kept us close, gave him comfort, and was enjoyable for us both. When I think of the early days, though, I’m a little amazed that we persevered. The first weeks weren’t easy, and I don’t think we settled into a comfortable rhythm until my son was two or three months old. It’s not uncommon to hear of breastfeeding challenges, and sadly, the stories often end with a switch to formula and a declaration that breastfeeding “just didn’t work for us” or “I’m just one of those people that’s not able to breastfeed.”

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that, for all its promotional support of breastfeeding, isn’t very conducive to it. Many women quit after a few difficult weeks due to frustration and lack of support. It’s a shame women don’t always find the support they need through that initial hump, allowing them to develop the fulfilling breastfeeding relationship so many expectant mothers want. There is support out there, and knowing up front what to expect can go a long way toward success. Knowing what pitfalls to avoid is also important, and something that can be difficult to do when cultural norms are so ingrained. Below, I’ve put together a list of five cultural misconceptions that can sabotage the best-intentioned new mother in her attempt to establish a healthy breastfeeding relationship with her baby:

MISCONCEPTION #1

If a baby cries often, especially after eating, they must have reflux.

The truth is, doctors don’t really know why babies cry. Some babies cry more than others, and a pediatrician has to discern from a mother’s description if the crying and accompanying symptoms are actually problematic. It isn’t an exact science, and a diagnosis often has more to do with a particular doctor’s style and experience than anything else. Many doctors only feel comfortable when they diagnose and prescribe, and very few have any formal training in breastfeeding.

Many women don’t know that in spite of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation to breastfeed for at least one year, most medical schools don’t teach anything about breastfeeding. So if a woman comes in with a baby who cries shortly after eating, a doctor will often think “illness.” In fact, it could just be that the baby is hungry again. Breast milk digests very quickly, and breastfed babies generally need to eat at least every two hours, if not more. In the early days it’s not uncommon for an infant to nurse for an hour, sleep for an hour, and then wake to nurse again. This doesn’t last forever, but if a new mother isn’t ready, it could easily give her the impression something could be wrong.

MISCONCEPTION #2

The easiest way to travel with baby is to carry him in a removable car seat.

This cultural phenomenon is reflective of brilliant marketing. Car seat and stroller manufacturers created the “travel system” a few years ago and touted it as the latest convenience. Move baby from car to home to store to another car without disturbing them! He can stay safely strapped in while you do everything you need to do!

It sounds nice, but the result is that the baby spends an awful lot of time in a car seat and not very much time being held. While it might not seem as though this would necessarily affect breastfeeding, one of the keys to successful nursing is building a tactile relationship where the baby gives cues and the mother responds.

When the baby isn’t in his mother’s arms, it’s more difficult to sense what he needs. The subtle cries that distinguish a soiled diaper from hunger can take longer for a mother to decipher, and the resulting frustration can have a negative impact on a budding breastfeeding relationship. For the best chances of success at breastfeeding, keep the car seat in the car, and wear the baby in a sling or carrier to keep him close.

MISCONCEPTION #3

A baby should sleep in a separate bedroom, and absolutely never in the same
bed as her mother.

Open any parenting magazine and you will see page after page of beautifully appointed nurseries: bassinets trimmed in frilly materials, cribs decorated with flowers or airplanes, and matching mobiles that play soothing tunes while the baby nods off. It seems ideal—happy colors, soft fabrics, quiet sounds. In fact, though, babies like being close to Mom, and they don’t notice if the crib bumper matches the wallpaper. For breastfeeding mothers, it’s easier if the baby is close at night, too.

Breastfed babies wake up often (even well beyond the six weeks that many people say a baby “should” sleep through the night), and having the baby close at hand can make the frequent wake-ups easier. Sleeping with the baby in the same bed can be done safely when proper precautions are taken. Dr. Sears’ “Safe Cosleeping” article details how co-sleeping may make nighttime breastfeeding much easier and even prevent SIDS.

MISCONCEPTION #4

If you don’t get your baby on a feeding and sleeping schedule early, you will encounter discipline problems.

Relying on this cultural norm can sink a breastfeeding relationship faster than receiving free formula in the mail. When newborns emerge from the womb, they are leaving an environment where they were always warm, fed, and, in essence, held. Coming into a world where they can get cold, hungry and put down is a big shock. There’s no need to enhance the shock by withholding food so they can get on a schedule that works for your lifestyle. Far from creating discipline problems, responding to your baby’s needs creates a relationship of trust and shows her that she has people she can count on.

Breastfeeding on baby’s cue also helps mother’s body adjust appropriately to the amount of food the baby needs. Women’s milk supplies are based on demand, so the more often a woman nurses, the more milk she produces. Nursing often and for as long as the baby wants ensures that there is plenty of milk to sustain a breastfeeding relationship.

MISCONCEPTION #5

Breastfeeding is natural, and therefore should be easy. If it’s not, then you’re probably not able to breastfeed.

I almost hate to write about this one, because I don’t want discourage new or expectant mothers from breastfeeding because of the possibility that it might be difficult. But in more than a year of attending La Leche League meetings, a common theme with new mothers is that breastfeeding was a lot harder than they expected. It could be that many mothers go to La Leche League meetings because they are having difficulty, but I suspect many mothers who don’t seek help experience the same thing. Breastfeeding is somewhat like creating a well-balanced meal of fresh ingredients. Natural, yes, but not necessarily easy.

Like cooking, it’s often easier to open a can of formula or mix up a bottle in the same way it’s easier to open a package of frozen pizza and pop it in the oven. Breastfeeding is really about learning a new skill and building a relationship—two things that aren’t always easy or intuitive. Of all the women I’ve talked to who had initial difficulties breastfeeding but went on to nurse long-term, each one said she would go through it all again, challenging first weeks and all. If you are struggling with breastfeeding but want to continue, find support. La Leche League is a wonderful resource, and every area has lactation consultants or experienced mothers who are willing to help. Breastfeeding is so much more than feeding your child; it’s the intention of a precious relationship that requires our focused dedication for achievement.

Suchada Eickemeyer is the founder and owner of the holistic parenting website Mama Eve (mamaeve.com). A former Army officer and aerospace engineer, she is now a full-time mom, and her perspective on motherhood has been influenced by the different family dynamics she observed living in Southeast Asia and Germany, and traveling throughout Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. The mother of two boys, she promotes breastfeeding and natural birth in her community through political advocacy and by supporting organizations like La Leche League, and has provided advice and guidance to women throughout the United States and around the world. View article resources and author information here: pathwaystofamily
wellness.org/references.html.



Women don’t always find the support they need through that initial hump,
allowing them to develop the fulfilling breastfeeding relationship so many
expectant mothers want. There is support out there,
and knowing up front what to expect can go a long way toward success.

What’s in Your Grocery Basket?

Jeffrey M. Smith is the head of the Institute for Responsible Technology. An internationally acclaimed filmmaker and author, his first book, Seeds of Deception, made him the world’s foremost consumer advocate for non-GMO choices.

PATHWAYS: Welcome and thank you for talking with Pathways readers and the Pathways Connect community.
SMITH: Thank you for having me. It is so good to speak to parents because so many people are not as concerned about what they put in their mouths until they have kids. And kids are most at risk to the potential dangers of genetically modified food, so I am thrilled to be talking to families.

PATHWAYS: Can you explain to our readers the difference between what our grandparents did, with cross-breeding plants and animals on the farm to create stronger varieties, and today’s genetically engineered organisms?
SMITH: For centuries, we have been crossing plants and animals through natural sexual reproduction. Plants and animals in the same species carry traits from the parents  to create new offspring. But in genetic engineering they can take single genes or combinations of genes from anywhere in the plant or animal kingdom, so we have insects or viruses being inserted into plants. Now, not only is this carrying genes that would never naturally be in there, so it creates new things in our food supply—it is creating new combinations that are not tested—but also the very process of genetic engineering causes massive collateral damage throughout the plant’s DNA. The natural functioning DNA is different after it is genetically modified. This includes hundreds of thousands of mutations and changes in the way the natural genes function. This is a very primitive technology, and a very side-effect prone technology. It is something that has never been done before in nature, and yet the products are being pushed onto our plates without any regard for the serious health consequences. And we’re already seeing serious health consequences in the animals and humans that are eating these foods.

PATHWAYS: On your website—ResponsibleTechnology.org—you have a list of some of the more interesting combinations.

A few of them are:
•  Spider genes were inserted into goat DNA, in hopes that the goat milk would contain spider web protein for use in bulletproof vests.
•  Cow genes turned pigskins into cowhides.
•  Jellyfish genes lit up pigs’ noses in the dark.
•  Arctic fish genes gave tomatoes and strawberries tolerance to frost.
•  Potatoes that glowed in the dark when they needed watering.
•  Human genes were inserted into corn to produce spermicide.

SMITH: These are some of my favorites. Eventually, they will try to take out the mothering gene from livestock so they won’t feel sad when they remove their children from them. It’s a mad scientist field going on right now.

PATHWAYS: So the term “Frankenfood” is well earned. It is not an exaggeration, but an appropriate description. Why would anyone want to create corn that can produce spermicide?
SMITH: They are turning plants into factories. They figure if they can insert a gene into a plant to create something they are looking for, the plant can become the factory. In theory it sounds economical,  but imagine if that corn cross-pollinated. I have talked to farmers  in the Midwest who have noticed that their cows and pigs were  becoming sterile, and some were convinced it was the spermicidal corn that got mixed up. The idea of putting drug-making plants  outdoors where they can be cross-pollinated, or moved by animals or accidentally mixed up, is one of the less intelligent aspects of this technology—which is already suffering from brain-cell deficiency.

PATHWAYS: So, this is not a product that was or is being developed for the benefit of our children, or with their wellness in mind. From the beginning, GMO products were the result of a business plan, straight up, and you point that out in the introduction to your book, Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically-Engineered Foods You Are Eating. In your book, you talk about how Monsanto paid the consulting company Arthur Anderson to come up with a plan to help them corner the market on the world’s food supply. This plan led to Monsanto purchasing and patenting traditional seed and seed companies, engineering suicide and GMO seeds, and then not labeling these products in supermarkets so we don’t even know we’re eating them.
SMITH: You are absolutely right about this being a plan to help Monsanto fulfill their goal of converting 100 percent of the seeds in the world to become genetically engineered and patented. One of their biggest assets has been the control over the U.S. government decision mechanism. In 1999, when documents were made public through a lawsuit, what became clear was the overwhelming consensus of scientists who helped to create GMOs; they were warning the industry in 1991 of their dangers, which are allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. But those documents also revealed that the U.S. FDA was under orders from the White House to promote biotechnology. So their response was to create a position—a person who would be in charge of GMO policy. They gave that position to Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s former attorney and vice president, who is now the U.S. food-safety czar. When he was in charge, he ignored the scientists and allowed the foods on the market. Now, years later, their concerns have been vindicated: The American Academy of Environmental Medicine says that everyone should avoid GMOs, that every doctor should prescribe non-GMO diets, and that they are actually linked to things like reproductive problems and immune system problems, accelerated aging, gastrointestinal problems, organ damage, etc. So, this business plan was a hijacking of our regulatory agencies.

PATHWAYS: And a part of that business plan is lack of consumer awareness, and no labeling? Even if we wanted to make informed choices, there is no labeling. [Note: You can download or print out a Non-GMO Shopping Guide from ResponsibleTechnology.org.]
SMITH: Yes, that is by design. And if you ask an American if they eat GMO foods, 60 percent will say no, even though most Americans are eating it at almost every meal. The FDA continues to be under orders to promote biotechnology; it is one of their explicit mandates. They ignore the desire of the 95 percent of Americans who want GMOs labeled in order to promote the economic interests of five companies. Labeling these foods would destroy the biotech industry. Even if we only had five percent of shoppers avoiding GMOs, that would be enough to eliminate GMOs from the market. Our organization is equipping consumers to do this with information and the shopping guide, so we will  create a tipping point of consumer rejection to drive GMOs out  of the food supply.

PATHWAYS: How does the U.S. compare to other countries, like the European Union, Japan and Australia? Are their consumers  allowed to know what they are eating?
SMITH: Absolutely. They have labeling in almost every other industrialized country, but not in the U.S. or Canada. In other countries, consumers have rejected the GMO food companies and they have followed consumer demand.

PATHWAYS: The traction consumers in other countries have been able to get with their informed choices is inspiring. However, in December 2010, a round of WikiLeaks revealed that [in 2007] our own U.S. ambassador to France, Craig Stapleton, recommended taking action against pro-informed-choice activists in Europe. In the WikiLeaks document, he states, “Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voice.” Stapleton went on to specifically recommend the U.S. government “calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory.”So, according to this document, there is a “measured and sustainable” plan in place to wear down European consumer rights organizations who continue to make headway to preserve informed choices for their families and children. If our government is collaborating with the biotech industry, both in the U.S. and abroad, and clearly there is long-standing collaboration, then apparently we as consumers are going to need our own “measured and sustainable plan” for informed choice.
SMITH: And that’s what we’re doing at ResponsibleTechnology.org. We invite people to join the Non-GMO Tipping Point Network, where they can joint up with local and national groups. The focus is to bring proper and true information out to our communities and targeted groups like healthcare practitioners and parents, schools and campuses, religious and spiritual organizations, green groups, etc. Our experience is that most Americans want  to hear this knowledge. So we have audios, videos, pamphlets and books to get out to them. We have developed a measured  and sustainable way of educating consumers and it is having  an impact. The fourth fastest-growing food claim among all food brands this year is “Non-GMO.” I am also seeing an unprecedented number of parent groups, doctors and health food stores who are becoming actively vocal on this issue, and I have been traveling around the U.S. for eight years getting the word out.

PATHWAYS: Your website is full of information and inspiring videos, but one of the newest programs invites everyone to become a Dragonslayer.
SMITH: In the myths of dragon slaying there was always an invincible armor around the dragons, but there would always be a chink in the armor, some weak spot exploited by the dragon slayer to slay it. The biotech industry is like a dragon right now, a modern dragon, and the chink in the armor is consumer concern based on informed consumers. The biotech industry has captured the minds of politicians, farmers and mainstream media, but they know consumers are the top of the food chain. Not everyone can take up arms and travel to 32 countries like I do, but they can support us and be a part of the team. So we have this extended family of supporters who can contribute time or money or both. We are seeing an unprecedented upsurge in consumer awareness and action right now.

PATHWAYS: For readers who want to make informed choices  in their grocery stores, how can they tell the GMO products  apart from Non-GMO? If you are buying certified organic,  you’re safe, but I heard trying to decipher the coding on produce was a myth.
SMITH: It is a myth. But what is happening now, despite federal lack of labeling laws or any regulation, companies are starting  to label their own products as Non-GMO.

PATHWAYS: Is there a simple plan of action for parents and  practitioners to follow?
SMITH: Well, first, I have talked to a lot of parents, and many  of them say, “I can’t believe I fed my kid this!” I tell them to  remember we all do the best we can, and if we don’t know, we don’t know. But worrying and fear are toxic. We don’t want to deal with two toxins, GMOs and worry. Once we know, we can  get armed with a shopping guide and do much better. We do  the best we can and move forward. The first thing people say when I hand them a shopping guide is, “Can I have some more  to hand out to friends?”

PATHWAYS: And this Non-GMO Shopping Guide is a downloadable app now, as well as being a pdf on your website. So, what is the simplest way for parents to get started?
SMITH: There are four tips to simplify the question of what is GMO and what is not GMO. The easiest and first step is to buy certified organics, because that means it has been tested and  not just labeled. Second, companies are volunteering to label their products as Non-GMO who participate in the Non-GMO  Project, so they have to be verified that it means the standard Non-GMO. We have thousands of these companies listed in  the shopping guide. Third, use products that are listed in our shopping guide. Fourth, avoid the at-risk ingredients, which  is like a mine field when you get to processed food. You won’t  know if the names of the ingredients are derived from soy or corn. Aspartame, for example, is from genetically-modified  microorganisms. We have a list of those at-risk ingredients on  our shopping guide.
It may seem like a lot of work for someone who is just getting into this, but it is really only a period of brand changing. You  figure out what your new brand is—after removing all of the other stuff from your cupboard.

PATHWAYS: So what is the good news?
SMITH: The good news is, we are in the process of creating a tipping point. In 1999, when a gag order was lifted from GMO scientists in the United Kingdom, the press went wild, and within a few weeks the consumers knew about the risks of GMOs and refused to buy them. We have not had the benefit of a high-profile major scandal in the U.S., like they did in Europe, to bring attention to GMOs, but even a slow-burning campaign going from parent to parent in the U.S. was able to get labeling on dairy products with no bovine growth hormone, rBGH.
So now we are focusing our attention on kicking GMOs out of the food supply. For that, we have three basic messages: one, health dangers; two, how to avoid; and three, the fact that we only need five percent of U.S. shoppers—of the 95 percent who say they don’t want them—to avoid GMOs to create a tipping point. Right now we have 150 people a week in a training program learning to speak on and hold seminars on GMOs. We have an opportunity right now to be the force of change!
I ask people to choose to feel empowered by this information so they will feel not like a victim, but like a victor. We can have more control over the food we choose and not have it dictated to us by the biotech industry and its enforcers in Washington. We will all benefit when we achieve a tipping point and reclaim a Non-GMO food supply.

The full audio interview with Lisa Reagan and Jeffrey M. Smith can be found on Pathways’ website, pathwaystofamilywellness.org. Pathways Connect Gathering Groups will find the resources and citations in this article hyperlinked in this issue’s Dialogue and Resource Guide. Part One of this feature on GMO mythbusting, “Beyond the Fields We Know,” appeared in Pathways 29, the Spring 2011 issue. The Institute for Responsible Technology is online at ResponsibleTechnology.org. The complete Wikileaks document is available here: tinyurl.com/wikiGMO.

GMOs in Food
Here is a summary of crops, foods and food ingredients have been genetically modified as of May, 2010:
CURRENTLY COMMERCIALIZED GM CROPS IN THE U.S.:
(Number in parentheses represents the estimated percentage that is genetically modified.)
Soy (91%); cotton (71%); canola (88%); corn (85%); sugar beets (90%); Hawaiian papaya (more than 50%); alfalfa, zucchini and yellow squash (small amount); tobacco (Quest® brand)

OTHER SOURCES OF GMOS:
• Dairy products from cows injected with the GM hormone rBGH
• Food additives, enzymes, flavorings and processing agents, including the  sweetener aspartame (NutraSweet®) and rennet used to make hard cheeses
• Meat, eggs and dairy products from animals that have eaten GM feed
• Honey and bee pollen that may have
GM sources of pollen
• Contamination or pollination caused by GM seeds or pollen

INGREDIENTS THAT MAY BE GENETICALLY MODIFIED:
Vegetable oil, vegetable fat and margarines (made with soy, corn, cottonseed and/or canola)

INGREDIENTS DERIVED FROM SOYBEANS:
Soy flour, soy protein, soy isolates, soy isoflavones, soy lecithin, vegetable proteins, textured vegetable protein (TVP), tofu, tamari, tempeh and soy protein supplements

INGREDIENTS DERIVED FROM CORN:
Corn flour, corn gluten, corn masa, corn starch, corn syrup, cornmeal and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
—from ResponsibleTechnology.org