Renee

Thank you for posting the list of Nestle products 
to the list.  I admire your energy and dedication 
in taking on the issue of inappropriate 
partnerships in the US.  This is such important work.

Personally, however, and with the perspective of 
someone who has spent most of my life living in 
resource-poor settings where aggressive marketing 
of breastmilk substitutes, or in fact any 
marketing of these largely unnecessary products, 
can be deadly,  I always feel a sense of 
frustration about the Nestle 
boycott.  Specifically, that if the energy 
devoted to it were instead channelled towards 
ensuring that the Code was passed in all the 
countries that don't yet subscribe to it, or 
implement it properly, then babies would be 
better protected than from our little efforts to 
boycott all Nestle products. The other products, 
the chocolates and the ice-creams and the 
cosmetics, are not the ones that hurt 
babies.  It's the  unnecessary peddling of infant 
formulas to mothers who don't really need it, but 
apparently are persuaded to choose it from some 
warped notion of their right to 
self-determination and autonomy, or because 
no-one can be found to help them breastfeed, which we need to guard against.

Furthermore, confining the boycott to Nestle, 
misses the other formula-manufacturers and 
distributors, which, in my experience living in 
Southern Africa, market their baby "nutritionals" 
far _more_ aggressively.  In Zimbabwe,where we 
had a properly legislated and implemented Code 
(and I'm proud to say that I sat on the Committee 
that eventually saw it passed through 
Parliament)  Nestle was the only manufacturer, 
but the people we had to watch like a hawk were 
the importers of other formulas and little jars 
from outside the country, like Abbott.  In fact 
the Code was implemented so well that a huge 
consignment of  no-brand formula donated by 
UNICEF, intended for HIV-exposed babies, was 
impounded and returned to the donors because the 
labelling didn't meet our stringent standards 
(they were in French, instead of English, Shona 
and Ndebele - I believe the whole lot went to 
Uganda in the end, even though they don't speak French either ...)

But what I find most curious about the list of 
Nestle products to boycott which you've sent in 
is the important note from Baby Milk Action 
preceding it, which says, "Nestle baby formulas 
are not on the boycott list because sometimes 
they are needed for medical reasons."

This seems to make no sense.  Wasn't the Nestle 
boycott originally started, and continued, as a 
civil society response to the inappropriate and 
aggressive marketing of infant formulas????  Yet 
now the product which provoked this outraged 
action is no longer on the boycott list because 
civil society has decided that sometimes it's "needed", after all?

Pamela Morrison IBCLC (curious in England, 
appalled at the low breastfeeding rates, even 
more disgusted that my government hands out 
vouchers for free formula to low-income mothers, 
and that some of my colleagues actually _defend_ 
this, and wishing for a properly implemented Code 
that covered all formulas/foods marketed for 
baby/toddlers for the full two years that they should be BREASTfed...)





IMPORTANT NOTE: (from Baby Milk Action) We list products from which Nestlé
profits. So Nestlé ice cream is listed because, although Nestlé sold the
company, it continues to receive payments for use of the brand name. We
welcome new information regarding changes in ownership, but please remember
that headline stories about brands being sold do not usually give all the
details of the deal. We only remove a product from the list when we are
reasonably confident thatall links to Nestlé have been cut. Nestle baby
formulas are not on the
boycott list because sometimes they are needed for medical reasons. Items
marked with an * are either part-owned by Nestlé (such a L'Oreal, Body Shop
and Cereal Partners, a 50:50 joint venture with General Mills) or have been
sold but there is an arrangement by which Nestlé continues to profit from
them. For more information go to Baby Milk Action's website.

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