Social marketing has enormous potential to do good works for humanity
but it also has enormous potential for abuse.  My concern stems from
wondering what is the true "interest" of multi-national corporations.
Is it to do social good works?  Or is the bottom line profitability?
What controls do ordinary people have over what ideas or concepts are
being used to influence our behavior?  If it is the government, we can
vote.  What control have we over businesses?  Should we believe that
multi-national businesses have our best interests in mind?

One need only peruse some of the companies' web sites to get a better
understanding of the issues important to them: no price controls,
against changing antitrust laws, against FDA regs that slow new
drug/medical device approval, etc.  At one site, one biotech scientist,
writes about science and ethics. It is his belief(have to believe that
it is also the company's belief) that one cannot judge the ethics of
certain sciences unless one is an expert in that science.  This, of
course, would mean that most of us because of our lack of knowledge,
wouldn't be making ethical judgments about many things.  For example,
let's just let the scientists who develops the new and improved infant
formula decide whether it is ethical to give free samples in hospitals.
Better yet, we can get our social scientists to design a program that
makes this practice more acceptable to breastfeeding advocates.

I know many corporations around the world do good works and account for
the improvement of living conditions.  But I have real concerns about
the potential for abuse when you deal with multi-national corporations
whose money and influence reaches so many of our institutions.  As
breastfeeding advocates, we are not just up against formula companies
and their interests.  We are up against multi-national empires and their
best interest may not be to see breastfeeding as the norm. Valerie W.
McClain, IBCLC

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