For a guy who loves MOST breasts, and usually, the nakeder the betterer for the MOTUS (Misogynist Of The United States) with the mostess, this hijo de puta REALLY doesn't like them when they are full of milk. Remember, this is the guy who said the following about Elizabeth Beck, a lawyer in court against him:
"She wanted to breast pump in front of me and I may have said 'that's disgusting', I may have said something else. I thought it was terrible. She's a vicious, horrible person."
Even though HIS version was bad enough, Beck's was worse!
"He got up, his face got red, he shook his finger at me and he screamed, 'You're disgusting, you're disgusting,' and he ran out of there."
I bring this up because in the Race to Make the United States the Worst Country in the World™, we decided to take the bully level to eleven, and tell Ecuador that if they didn't say breastfeeding kills babies, and infant formula cures cancer and baldness, well, well, we'd give it a country wide titty-twister! Well, actually, what we said was worse.
This past spring, we sent a delegation to the World Health Assembly , the annual WHO gathering, where several topics were discussed. The matter of interest was when Ecuador put forth a seemingly benign resolution to state that mother's milk is healthiest for children and that countries should push to limit inaccurate or misleading marketing of infant formula. I mean, no apple pie, but literally touting motherhood! Of course, that won't fly in Trump's America Inc. Our delegation threatened Ecuador with cuts to military aid and the ever-popular tariffs. The New York Times broke the story this Sunday, so I guess some journalists there are still trying to keep the paper from being useful only to parrots with the runs. How did the resolution turn out? Let's hang on to that thought.
Before I reveal the third act plot twist, a little flashback to July 7, 1977. Ah, what a month! The New York City blackout… Led Zeppelin plays their final concert… Star Wars has been playing to wrap-around lines for two weeks… and of course you remember the Nestle boycott! Um, no? Okay, fine, I'll "remind" you. Back then, an American group organized a boycott of the company's products because of its aggressive marketing campaigns, particularly in developing nations, touting the benefits of infant formula and downplaying the many, many benefits of breast milk.
From the CDC website:
Infants who are breastfed have reduced risks of:
Asthma
Obesity
Type 2 diabetes
Ear and respiratory infections
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
Breastfeeding can help lower a mother's risk of:
Heart disease
Type 2 diabetes
Ovarian cancer
Breast cancer
"Breastfeeding provides unmatched health benefits for babies and mothers. It is the clinical gold standard for infant feeding and nutrition, with breast milk uniquely tailored to meet the health needs of a growing baby. We must do more to create supportive and safe environments for mothers who choose to breastfeed."
Dr. Ruth Petersen, Director of CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity
To be fair, I haven't read the research on the above touted bullet points so won't comment on how good a link there is. Remember the rats and cell phones ? Now, clearly, there is a role for infant formula in some families. While it's ideal to breastfeed a child, it's not something all mothers can do or even want to do (and if they don't, it's none of your damn business!) so it makes sense to have a supplement or replacement for breast milk in those cases. Nestle didn't (and some say still doesn't) market it like that though. They were real dicks about it to the point where it was (is) causing health problems in developing countries. Why? Poor families would use less formula to save money, use impure water getting the baby sick, you can imagine. The boycotts and activism against Nestle and their infant formula business continue TO THIS DAY .
Boycotts against a corporate entity doing harm to the environment or people's health? That's GOP Viagra, right there! Anyway, back to the World Health Assembly hijinks. We threatened the mighty power of Ecuador over their resolution and all the other countries give us the sigh-roll that I usually get from my teen-aged daughter. So who came to the rescue and submitted the resolution when Ecuador blinked and pulled it? That Mother Theresa of countries, Russia. THAT'S the world we live in now, people. It's enough to make a breast-feeding baby cry.
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It's becoming increasingly clear that the freedom-loving countries of the word are going to have to band together and go their own way as far as the U.S. is concerned. We're going to be of no help when it comes to resisting the encroachments of the authoritarian regimes in the world.
"I guess the Melania-bot doesn't need to pee."Or she's learned to be real sneaky about it.