To whom should I be talking,
to get an accurate history of WIC?

Dianne, the USDA is bound to have a history, and if I am remembering right,
WIC began before the infant formula people got involved, as a USDA feeding
programme for low income W+C, using surplus agricultural product. I do have
lots of literature on this but it's packed away with teh historical stuff.
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that it was about 1964 that US formula
companies cracked that market (or maybe that was when they got follow-on
accepted into the programme- there was huge company rejoicing over some
triumph of persuasion). ICCR (Interfaith Centre for Corporate
Responsibility) in Washington DC had some useful materials that I read in
1984 when researching BFM. Don't know if they still exist or if the files
do. I'd also ask Ross et al for their history of involvement with WIC. You
might also like to chart for how many years those huge quantities of
formula were bought at virtually full retail value: it was that incredible
direct subsidy which allowed US companies to pioneer the free everything to
hospitals approach, and freeze out any competitors without such access to
the US taxpayers' purse. (Again as I remember it, they succeeded in the
1960's with one European company wanting a slice of the action; and
possibly would have succeeded in the 1980's except that Carnation wasn't
going to be beaten and decided to market direct when locked out of
significant hospitals and WIC programmes initially). It always struck me as
funny (peculiar, not ha ha) how big industry can be so heavily subsidised
in a country where welfare is often begrudged pennies by powerful people...
Interestingly, having seen and wondered at this massive subsidy for many
years, looking from the outside I consider perhaps the single most
important thing that's happened to change US industry marketing has been
the WIC competitive tenders forced on US companies by pressure from people
like in Tennessee and also by "non-US" competition developing in the US
market. However, even there the companies seem to have won if they've made
breastfeeding support dependent on their rebates, rather than simply being
forced to sell for lower prices and leave clean tax dollars free for needed
programmes. How they have always got their way would be fascinating to
know. At one stage I was told that key US political figures were on the
Board of Directors for some US infant formula companies, and reliable
sources tell me that at least one past US vice president has acted as a
messenger boy for a US infant formula company engaged in pressuring a
European nation to purchase its product. A really well-researched, fully
academic and balanced history of US companies and their marketing
strategies would be a mind-blowing exercise, I suspect. Anyone with 5 years
to give to a really important writing project?

Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this. I can't double check at present.
NABA would also seem an obvious source of info...Marsha, where are you?

Maureen Minchin, IBCLC. Christ Church Vicarage, 14 Acland St., St.Kilda,
Vic. 3182 Australia. tel/fax: 61 3 9537 2640
"Taking paths of least resistance is what makes rivers - and people -
crooked." poster in Palmerston North NZ bookshop...