December 4, 2003
 By MELODY PETERSEN





Federal officials have softened a national advertising
campaign to promote breastfeeding after complaints from two companies
that make infant formula, according to several doctors and nurses who
are helping the government with the effort.

A newsletter distributed by the Ad Council, a nonprofit
group developing the advertisements for the government,
said that the Department of Health and Human Services
planned to begin the campaign this month. But Christina Pearson, a
spokeswoman for the department, said yesterday that it was not clear
when the advertisements would begin.

Today, Kevin Keane, the department's assistant secretary
for public affairs, plans to meet with a group of
breastfeeding experts who have been working on the campaign
to discuss changes to the ads, according to people invited
to the meeting. The campaign includes television, radio and print public
service announcements.

The original campaign focused on "the risks associated with
not breastfeeding,'' according to the Ad Council's
newsletter, and included statistics from studies that have found that
babies fed formula have a higher risk of developing asthma, diabetes,
leukemia and other illnesses.

According to the newsletter, one planned spot, titled
"Roller Derby,'' showed pregnant women roller skating. The voiceover
said: "You'd never take risks while you're pregnant. Why start when the
baby's born?''

Ms. Pearson said that the information in the newsletter was preliminary
and should have not been released.

Peter Paradossi, a spokesman for Mead Johnson, the Bristol-Myers Squibb
division that makes Enfamil formulas, said that the company supported a
campaign to promote the benefits of breastfeeding, but that the planned
ads went too far.

"We worried it would give an impression that infant formula
is unhealthy and potentially dangerous,'' he said.

Tracey Noe, a spokeswoman for Ross Products, the Abbott Laboratories
unit that makes Similac, said her company also supported projects
promoting breastfeeding. But she said Ross executives were concerned
that claims made in the government's campaign were not based on solid
science. "The overall approach was like a scare tactic,'' Ms. Noe said.

After the two companies and the top officials of the
American Academy of Pediatrics complained to federal health officials,
the government decided to eliminate spots discussing the risk of
leukemia and diabetes in babies not breastfed, said Amy Spangler, the
chairwoman of the United States Breastfeeding Committee, a group that
promotes breastfeeding. According to the Ad Council newsletter, those
ads said that babies not breastfed had a 30 percent increased risk of
developing leukemia and up to a 40 percent increased risk of developing
diabetes.

Ms. Spangler, a nurse who over the last year has been
helping the government develop the ads, said that a federal official
told her of the recent changes. She said that government officials still
planned to say in the ads that infants who are not breastfed face a
higher risk of developing obesity and ear infections, but they have
removed all specific statistics on the estimated level of risk.

Ms. Pearson declined to specify how the ads had been
changed, but said that the ads had been continuously
modified as they were reviewed by government scientists.
"We are very committed to doing this campaign and doing it right,'' she
said.

The campaign has divided physician members of the American Academy of
Pediatrics. Dr. Joe M. Sanders Jr., the academy's executive director,
and Dr. Carden Johnston, its president, sent a letter to Tommy G.
Thompson, secretary of health and human services, in early November
expressing their concerns about the tone of the campaign and the
soundness of the science providing the base for some of its claims. That
upset the academy's own breastfeeding experts, who had been working with
the government on the ads and supported their aggressive message.

Dr. Lawrence M. Gartner, the former chairman of the
pediatrics department at the University of Chicago and
current chairman of the academy's executive committee on breastfeeding,
said he believed that academy officials might have sent the letter to
appease formula manufacturers; some of them are large financial donors
to the group.

"There is a lot of money involved,'' Dr. Gartner said.


But Dr. Sanders and Dr. Johnston said that the companies' financial
contributions had nothing to do with their criticism of the campaign.
They said that they had decided to send their letter before Ross
executives expressed their concerns at the academy's national
conference, held last month in New Orleans.

Dr. Sanders said that some members of the academy were concerned that
the advertisements could make mothers who chose not to breastfeed feel
guilty if their child later developed leukemia or another medical
condition. Instead of emphasizing the risks of not breastfeeding, he
said, the campaign should emphasize breastfeeding's benefits.

Ross was one of the top three corporate donors to the
academy's budget in 2001, giving more than $500,000, Dr. Sanders said
last year. Dr. Sanders's staff said yesterday that more recent
information was not available.

Last year, Ross purchased 300,000 copies of the academy's latest book on
breastfeeding. Dr. Sanders said he would not disclose how much the
company had paid for those books, which it is distributing to new
mothers. He said last year that the academy had made a profit of no more
than $500,000 from the initial book purchase by Ross. Dr. Gartner said
that Ross recently purchased another 300,000 copies.

Ms. Spangler said she believed that the campaign would
still be effective in persuading mothers to breastfeed. But other
breastfeeding advocates expressed disappointment with changes that they
said had weakened the message.

Marsha Walker, who sits on the leadership team of the
United States Breastfeeding Committee with Ms. Spangler,
said that the information on leukemia and diabetes should
be left in the ads.

"I'm a registered nurse, and we would never withhold information from
our patients because we thought it might make them feel guilty,'' Ms.
Walker said. "This is being shot down by an industry that has no
business interfering. Ultimately it hurts the health of our babies and
our moms.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/business/media/04adcol.html?ex=1071554
533&ei=1&en=54b6eb4978a0ea59


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