Here is my response also.
Dear Sirs/Madams:
I would like to echo Ms. Neely's remarks in her email dated today, Tuesday,
March 6, 2001.
As a former advertising executive of ten years, I personally have had to deal
with such moral dilemmas as you now face. It is very easy to dismiss those
troublesome arguments such as Ms. Neely's as the rantings of a few
extremists. I urge you not to do so. Formula marketing is looked upon the
world over as one of the great ethical debates of our time. And while you may
not percieve that as true inside the United States, due to the lack of highly
visible infant mortality we enjoy here, formula use and marketing are not
without serious effects even here. Indeed, the worldwide market leader in
infant formula sales--Nestle--would certainly rather the populace of the US
not be aware of such well-documented ramifications or of its reputation and
actions outside our borders.
Consider an alternative argument to those already presented so well by Ms.
Neely. The US is a leader in many respects. One of those is in behavior. What
is good enough for Americans is good enough for the rest of the world in
terms of aspirations. In Nicaragua, for instance, mothers often choose to
formula feed their babies not because they have to work but because it is
seen that American mothers formula feed and they feel that that is what they
should do to be like Americans--free from the "encumbrances" of motherhood,
wealthy, self-reliant. The babies of these mothers suffer far more illness
and death as a result than their breastfed country-babes and our own infants
in the US. And mothers in many nations behave similarly.
The International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes is clear. There
may be only one standard of marketing for all nations--not a standard for
rich nations and another for poor. We must put formula in its rightful
place...as a last resort for those babies who require it to live rather than
as the "norm" for nearly every infant born in our country.
As the freest people on the planet, we have a responsibility to the rest of
the world to make and market products that are for the good of all, in such a
way as to consider all. Indeed this is a global village. We must think of
more than just ourselves, particularly when it concerns the smallest, weakest
of us, our infants. Formula marketing is, in my mind, excepted from our
cultural norm that corporations must be free to market how they will in order
for the market economy to work. Formula companies must learn to self-regulate
or they will, sooner or later, be regulated.
It is sad to know that so many of our babies are not nourished at the breast,
but are often left holding their own plastic (lifeless) bottle and nipple,
handed off to nannies and daycare centers and reared on a diet of potato
chips, cola and questionable television. Then we wonder why our SAT scores
are down, our health is at an all time low, cancer at an all time high and
youth violence grows each year.
Life begins in the womb, is nourished in arms at mother's breast and grows
into the world steadily, securely and joyfully. The NBCi Nestle Sweepstakes
is a deliberate and unseemly for-profit interruption in that continuum. Your
actions seek to separate a mother from her child by injecting the notion that
a mother's needs cannot be met but by giving a bottle of formula and getting
out for a night or two without baby. I can attest to the fact that nothing
can be further from the truth. Instead of promoting this baby-as-nemisis
image, you might consider promoting the idea that mother is fully capable of
meeting her baby's needs for the first few years and that, while early
infancy is difficult, it lasts only a short time and there will be plenty of
opportunity for Mom to be away from her child in the future. Oh, but of
course, then there would be no need for formula, would there? Silly me.
I, too, will boycott NBC and NBCi and all affiliates as I do now with Nestle,
even, yes, even my dearest hour of television, ER. And I will urge all of my
well-to-do American friends to do the same.
Yours,
Martha Hartney-Schatzle
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