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Mechanical Milk

An Essay on the Social History of Infant Formula

University of California at Berkeley children{at}publichealth.org

This article describes how the infant formula, originally designed to save babies' lives, ended up responsible for perhaps millions of their deaths. It reaches back 300 years into the idea of the body as a machine, the rise of science and industrial capitalism, the emergence of nutrition and pediatrics, the growth of the formula industry and resistance to it. It shows how the formula became an icon of modernity, whose promise was truth and happiness through technology, work and the production of goods, but whose reality was, for most people, exploitation, colonialism and the destruction of `vernacular' ways of life.

Key Words: formula • history • infant • nutrition • policy

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