Ensure

For the verb insure, see insurance.

Ensure is the brand name of a family of liquid nutritional supplements manufactured by Abbott Laboratories.[1] The beverages are meant to be administered orally, or through nasogastric tubes, directly to the recipient's stomach.

Recipients are either individuals unable to eat or experiencing undesirable weight loss, through age, infirmity or disease, or individuals like captives who are on a hunger strike, who are undergoing involuntary force-feeding.

Hunger strikers at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps are force-fed Ensure via gavage.[2][3][4]

In 2009 Abbott Laboratories sold over $1 billion of its liquid nutritional supplements, Ensure, and the related pediatric product, PediaSure.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b Meg Tirrell (2010-01-27). "Abbott Profit Little Changed as Costs Offset Sales". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2010-02-02. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fapps%2Fnews%3Fpid%3D20601103%26sid%3Da3DZuNgfw8A8&date=2010-02-02. "Sales of nutritional products, including Ensure and PediaSure drinks, grew 8.8 percent to $1.43 billion." 
  2. ^ Barbara Olshansky, Gitanjali Gutierrez (2005-09-08). "The Guantánamo Prisoner Hunger Strikes & Protests: February 2002 – August 2005". Center for Constitutional Rights. Archived from the original on 2010-01-21. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fccrjustice.org%2Ffiles%2FFinal%2520Hunger%2520Strike%2520Report%2520Sept%25202005.pdf&date=2010-01-21. 
  3. ^ Candace Gorman (2007-05-01). "The Guantánamo Hunger Strike". In These Times. Archived from the original on 2010-02-02. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inthesetimes.com%2Farticle%2F3128%2Fthe_guantnamo_hunger_strike%2F&date=2010-02-02. 
  4. ^ Michelle Shephard (2009-07-20). "Is force-feeding Gitmo detainees ethical? 26 men on hunger strike nourished via nasal tube". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on 2010-02-02. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thestar.com%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Farticle%2F668733&date=2010-02-02. Retrieved 2010-02-02. "Twice a day Abdul Rahman Shalabi is strapped into a padded restraint chair, his arms, wrists and forehead kept immobile. Then military medics thread a tube up his nose, into his stomach, and pump in a liquid meal, a can of Ensure." 

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