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Subject:
From:
Alexis Martin Neely <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 1 Oct 2001 15:45:43 +0000
Content-Type:
text/plain
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Orgone Biophysical Research Lab <[log in to unmask]>
http://www.orgonelab.org
Forwarded News Item
BMJ 2000;320:1362 ( 20 May )

News

WHO accused of stifling debate about infant feeding
Annabel Ferriman , BMJ

International specialists in infant feeding have expressed concern that
the World Health Organization's policy of establishing partnerships with
private industry has gone too far, with the result that debate about the
infant food industry's role in marketing breast milk substitutes is being
stifled.

A group of specialists who want the WHO to recommend that babies should
not be introduced to complementary feeding until about 6 months of age,
claim that at a recent joint meeting of the WHO and Unicef in Geneva on
infant feeding they were prevented from discussing the issue. In addition,
several background papers, prepared for the week long meeting, were edited
so that they were less critical of the infant food industry.

Dr Audrey Naylor, a paediatrician and executive director of Wellstart
International, who was one of the consultants at the meeting, told the
BMJ: "We felt discomfort at not being able to discuss the age at which
complementary feeding should be introduced to infants." She said that 20
of the 28 consultants signed a statement saying that scientific evidence
was now sufficient to warrant changing the WHO's recommendation to about 6
months, but no discussion was allowed.

The current WHO guidelines, which recommend the introduction of
complementary feeding at age 4-6 months, lead to confusion and to babies
being offered other things from the age of 3 months and sometimes even
earlier, Dr Naylor said. "The literatures suggests that this leads to
increased morbidity and mortality," she added.

Two members of the consultants group at the meeting, which included
physicians, policymakers, nutritionists, and lawyers, have written to the
WHO's director general, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, protesting at the way
that their papers were changed.

Ms Ellen Sokol, a US lawyer who had been asked to write a paper on
strengthening the international code of marketing of breast milk
substitutes and who had said in her paper that the marketing practice of
the manufacturers was an obstacle to that end, found all such references
deleted. "The revised paper no longer reflected the assigned topic," she
told Dr Brundtland.

Ms Judith Richter, a specialist in the politics of health from Tbingen,
Germany, also complained to Dr Brundtland. She had been commissioned to
write a paper on how globalisation affects infant feeding; in it she wrote
that infant food manufacturers should not be involved in policymaking on
infant feeding because of their conduct in relation to their marketing
practices and international debates, and because of a conflict of interest
between profit making and public policymaking. She found that the part of
her paper outlining these arguments had been cut from her paper, and she
protested to Dr Brundtland that her paper had been "censored."

A spokesman for the WHO said: "The agreed ground rules for the technical
consultation in March explicitly excluded discussing the WHO's current
recommendation on the duration of exclusive breast feeding (4-6 months)
because WHO research is under way in this connection.

"As far as alleged censorship is concerned, the WHO is an international,
intergovernmental organisation, and the WHO documents have to conform to a
high standard of scientific objectivity and balance. By the time the
consultation meeting convened, seven of the nine background papers had met
this standard and two had not.

"With regard to the suggestion that the WHO is getting too chummy with
industry, it is in fact the WHO's mandated role to bring all legitimate
players together on a given public health issue. The food industry
continues to play an important and constructive role in relation to infant
feeding."


Alexis Martin Neely, Esq.
Mama to Kaia Ray Neely (11/2/99)

"Breastfeeding support is an integral part of the family/friendly workplace
environment." -Work & Family Coalition of San Diego
How have you supported breastfeeding today?



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