+
Family

Trump's tweet about the breastfeeding resolution was complete nonsense. Here's why.

In a move that baffled much of the world, the U.S. tried to shut down a global resolution to encourage breastfeeding.

For decades, research has tended to show that human breast milk — when it's possible to use it — is the safest, healthiest food for babies around the world. A 2016 series in the British medical journal The Lancet — the most in-depth analysis of the health impact of breastfeeding to date — concluded that more than 800,000 babies and 20,000 mothers' lives could be saved each year with universal breastfeeding, at a cost savings of $300 billion.

A mother in the Central African Republic breastfeeds her child while they wait to see the doctor in a clinic with no running water. Photo via Florent Vergnes/Getty Images.


So when the U.S. delegation to the World Health Assembly voiced strong opposition to a resolution that encourages breastfeeding — not barring access to formula or curtailing mothers' choices in feeding their children but just encouraging breastfeeding — many were understandably flummoxed. The purpose of the resolution was to prevent misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes and limit the promotion of formula in hospitals around the world.

But at the spring 2018 World Health Assembly, the U.S. tried to shut the resolution down, even going so far as to threaten small countries proposing the measure with trade punishments and military aid withdrawal.

Threatening other nations. Over breastfeeding. Yes, really.

President Donald Trump retorted to the Times report with a tweet, displaying a stunning lack of knowledge on the subject.

"The failing NY Times Fake News story today about breast feeding must be called out," Trump wrote. "The U.S. strongly supports breast feeding but we don't believe women should be denied access to formula. Many women need this option because of malnutrition and poverty."

Each sentence of that tweet contains falsehoods:

1. The New York Times has doubled its stock shares since the 2016 election. It has also won more Pulitzer prizes — the highest award in journalism — than any other news outlet. By no measure is it "failing."

2. Nothing in the breastfeeding resolution suggested denying women access to formula. Formula is sometimes necessary, and women should definitely have the option to choose how they feed their babies — but nothing in the resolution would prevent that. It was about limiting the misleading and predatory marketing and promotionof formula.

3. Malnutrition and poverty are exactly why formula should notbe heavily marketed to mothers, especially in developing nations. Formula is expensive, requires clean water to make, and requires bottles to be sanitized. When moms can't afford it long term, formula gets diluted, and babies don't get the nutrients they need. And unless it's severe, a mother's malnutrition doesn't affect the quantity or quality of her breast milk, so in places where poverty and moderate malnutrition are prevalent breastfeeding is especially important.

So why oppose a measure designed to promote the health and save the lives of infants and mothers? Follow the money.

Since the early 1980s, health advocates have fought to protect vulnerable mothers from predatory baby formula marketers, especially in developing nations. Many resolutions have been passed over the years to promote breastfeeding education and limit such marketing tactics.

But it's not in the baby formula companies' interest to have their product promotion hampered. When the U.S. so clearly puts the interests of corporations over the health of moms and babies, we're in a world of hurt.

Photo via Noel Celis/Getty Images.

To be fair, the Trump administration is not the first to put corporate interests ahead of the public.

Kowtowing to big business isn't new to American politics. A landmark 2014 study from Princeton and Northwestern researchers concluded that "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

While the U.S. has been a corporatocracy for much longer than two years, this administration has been far more bold and brazen about it than most. Trump's cabinet has more big business leaders with no government or public service experience than any other president's. Some of them have been leading departments that they directly or indirectly opposed when they were in the private sector. Some (*cough* Ben Carson) have been leading departments they had no experience with. There are real-world consequences to such elections and appointments.

The move to halt the breastfeeding resolution, like so many other moves influenced by corporate money, would have gone unnoticed if not for the Times report.

For a long time, our lawmakers have placed corporate interests above the will of the people — a fact that we would not know were it not for journalists shedding light on what's happening under the radar.

People's faith and trust in the news media has taken a beating with the constant barrage of attacks from Trump and others. But how are we supposed to place faith in our government when we know that policy is being bought and paid for by profit-driven industries?

The press must keep playing its vital role in our democracy — or rather, our corporatocracy — to preserve whatever power the people have left. And the people must use our power at the ballot box if we don't want to continue to be ruled by big business.

All photos courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company

Behind the Scenes Making Recycled Records with Mark Ronson

True

You’re walking down the sidewalk, earbuds in, listening to your favorite hip-hop beats. As your head bobs to the sounds, the sun warms your back. It’s a perfect day.

When the chorus hits, the empty Sprite bottle in your hand becomes a drumstick, passing traffic becomes a sea of concertgoers, and the concrete beneath your feet is suddenly a stage. Spinning on your heels, you close out the song with your face to the sky and hands in the air.

Keep ReadingShow less
@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

Keep ReadingShow less
via Pexels

Parents who just can't stop fighting

Whitney Goodman, a licensed marriage and family therapist, shared a video about kids who grew up in homes where their parents were always fighting, which made many people feel seen. It also started a conversation about who deserves more empathy in the parent-child relationship: the parents or the children.

Goodman is known as the “radically honest” psychotherapist and the author of “Toxic Positivity: Keeping it Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy.”

"If you grew up in this kind of house, you may have noticed that your family would split off into different alliances or teams to try to manage the material discord. Because the marriage wasn't a good or safe foundation for the family, everybody else had to kind of go and form these new teams,” Goodman explained in an Instagram post.

Keep ReadingShow less
Image by sasint/Canva

Surgeons prepared to separate 3-year-old conjoined twins in Brazil using virtual reality.

The things human beings have figured out how to do boggles the mind sometimes, especially in the realm of medicine.

It wasn't terribly long ago that people with a severe injury had to liquor up, bite a stick, have a body part sewn up or sawed off and hope for the best. (Sorry for the visual, but it's true.) The discoveries of antibiotics and anesthesia alone have completely revolutionized human existence, but we've gone well beyond that with what our best surgeons can accomplish.

Surgeries can range from fairly simple to incredibly complex, but few surgeries are more complicated than separating conjoined twins with combined major organs. That's why the recent surgical separation of conjoined twin boys with fused brains in Brazil is so incredible.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

People fell in love with Marty the cat after his owner wrote a heartbreaking goodbye letter

“I know this is a small tragedy in the grand scheme of the world, but one that I feel acutely knowing that I expected many more years with my friend."

Photo by Juanita Swart on Unsplash

RIP Marty

Tons of people found themselves clicking on the trending hashtag #RIPMarty, expecting to hear tragic news about a celebrity of some sort.

Instead, they learned about Marty the cat, whose owner shared the most heartbreakingly beautiful goodbye letter following his passing. That letter quickly went viral online, leaving folks completely invested Marty's story, not to mention utterly devastated.

Will Menaker, who shared the letter on Twitter, began by sharing how he and Marty first met. Or more accurately, how Marty introduced himself by emerging from under a car and unapologetically following Menaker up to the steps of his apartment seeking pets. Eventually, as the weather began to get colder, Menaker experimented with bringing Marty inside.

“From that moment on I was in love. I wouldn’t say I ‘had’ a cat, but from then on I shared a house with a tuxedo cat I would name Marty,” Menaker wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less

Golden Retriever beats her humans at hide-and-seek.

Dogs can sometimes act like doofuses, whether it's eating a sock and doing the poop of shame later or trying to pretend they didn't rifle through the trash while sitting in front of the evidence. Dogs are also pretty smart and hilariously entertaining, especially when you teach them a fun trick, which makes up for their brief lapses in judgment.

A Golden Retriever named Ellie has learned one of the cutest tricks yet: hide-and-seek. In a video posted by The Dodo on Facebook Watch, you see Ellie's parents finding difficult places to hide. And by difficult, I mean opening up the couch storage area and climbing inside to see if the dog's nose can sniff them out.

Ellie's way too smart for their shenanigans and continuously finds each hiding place within seconds. But it's unclear if she's finding her parents or if she's just searching for her favorite toy.

Keep ReadingShow less

Is Atlanta really west of Detroit?

As the old saying goes, “the map is not the territory,” and sometimes maps can be misleading. David Blattman, head of production at Barstool Sports, shared four unbelievable facts about U.S. geography on Twitter, all of which appear to be wildly incorrect, but aren't.

“These geography facts have left me speechless,” Blattman wrote on Twitter.

  • Alaska is the northernmost, westernmost & easternmost state.
  • You can travel north, south, east, or west in Stamford, CT & the next state you hit is NY.
  • Reno is further west than LA.
Keep ReadingShow less