I had the pleasure of being interviewed for the following article. I thought
that this is an approach to addressing some of the barriers to breastfeeding
that might be of interest to Lactnetters. These dinners and their bogus
educational offerings are designed to curry favor with physicians and nurses and pave
the way for the recommendation of supplemented formulas. What a shame that
some health care providers can be so easily co-opted by food, cheapening the
professions that they represent.
Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, MA
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/29/B
AGQV9IA441.DTL
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Friday, October 29, 2004 (SF Chronicle)
OAKLAND/Baby formula protest planned/Breast-feeding advocates to protest at
maker's dinner
Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saying baby-formula freebies jeopardize infants' well-being by
discouraging breast-feeding, a group of health-care workers plans to
protest at a dinner that a leading formula company is giving tonight in
Oakland.
Free formula and hospital-discharge bags that formula firms are giving to
new mothers, as well as gifts to health-care providers, violate the World
Health Organization code of conduct and promote a bias toward breast-milk
substitutes, say members of the Alameda County Breastfeeding Coalition.
"It's a marketing gimmick -- the insidious idea of companies getting in
the hospitals and marketing formula when we know it's not best for the
babies, " said Ellen Sirbu, a public health nutritionist and organizer for
the coalition.
The coalition, which helped sponsor Berkeley's 2002 achievement of the
Guinness World Record for most moms breast-feeding simultaneously, will
stage a protest at Jack London Square near Scott's restaurant, where Mead
Johnson, maker of Enfamil formula, is giving a salmon and prime rib dinner
for local health-care professionals, Sirbu said. The 6 p.m. dinner
includes a lecture on formula ingredients.
Mead Johnson spokesman Pete Paradossi acknowledged that "breast-feeding is
the gold standard when it comes to infant nutrition," but he said a mother
who cannot or who chooses not to breast-feed "needs to know her child can
be raised happy, healthy and normal not breast-feeding as well."
"Whatever decision a mom makes, she needs to be supported in that
decision, not made to feel guilty," he said.
New mothers see the free formula and discharge bags as an endorsement of
breast-milk substitutes by the hospital and are more likely to abandon
breast- feeding unnecessarily, Sirbu said.
Coalition members also object to health-care providers in maternity wards
receiving gifts, meals and conference trips from formula companies.
They point to the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk
Substitutes, which calls for no free samples, no promotion of products in
health-care facilities and no gifts or samples to health workers.
Breast milk is the optimum food for babies, and breast-fed babies suffer
fewer illnesses, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, which promotes breast-feeding. Researchers at UC Berkeley
announced new findings this week that breast-fed babies are at lower risk
for childhood leukemia.
Sirbu said it is ironic that Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland,
which stresses preventative health care, accepts and distributes formula-
company samples and bags.
Kaiser spokeswoman PJ Ballard said the samples are given only to mothers
who are not breast-feeding. "We encourage and support breast-feeding, but
we support the moms who for some reason can't breast-feed," Ballard said.
Kaiser's hospital in Hayward, however, does not accept formula-company
bags and samples. It is one of 42 U.S. hospitals designated as "Baby
Friendly" by WHO and UNICEF.
Breast-feeding advocates acknowledge that some mothers need to use formula
but argue that formula marketing efforts unnecessarily cause many women to
resort to formula at the first sign of breast-feeding difficulty rather
than try remedies recommended by lactation consultants.
One of the state's top-ranked maternity hospitals, Alta Bates Summit
Medical Center in Berkeley, agrees that formula marketing diminishes
breast- feeding and plans soon to provide its own discharge bags and to
stop using formula-company samples and bags, said registered nurse Joan
Gress, manager of the hospital's breast-feeding program.
E-mail Charles Burress at [log in to unmask]
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