I'm not at all sure that this doesn't belong on Lactivist, but there's been
an awful lot of boycott stuff lately so....Jack's thoughts on governments
etc. have sparked this, but it's a response to lots more really.

>Of course Nestle violates the WHO Code.
Somewhere in the world, including the US, absolutely. So do all infant
formula companies, even in Australia, (except Nestle and Sharpe
Laboratories) and I for one do not believe in giving greater market share
to US or Japanese or Dutch companies which are just as bad or worse, by
singling out Nestle as the company that "kills babies". Whose agenda are we
serving?

>But,and this is an important but, they say they follow government policy.
>Thus, I heard Peter Hartmann in Anaheim say that in Australia, Nestle
>follows the WHO Code to the letter.
Absolutely right. Peter knows what he is talking about, and is an
impeccable source. Jack obviously accepts that he is, but others may insult
him by suggesting he is naive or misinformed or a stooge... the usual
explanations given for those of us who speak the truth without fear or
favour on formula issues! Yet Nestle are still singled out for boycott here
by some activists, and as a result of both boycott and compliance are
steadily losing market share to their more aggressive rivals, thus leading
reps of some other companies to say off the record that the outcome of
compliance with the Code is, as they always said it would be, a loss of
market share not tolerable to their head offices in USA and the rest.

>What this says, is we have spineless governments, and
shows why Nestle [and the powerful US companies with close connexions to US
political parties] is giving money for worthy causes, and sits on
government committees--to have the contacts within government, for
good pr, so that no one says to them to comply.

I'd agree entirely. But governments are not the whole problem. We need to
see where we Code advocates fit in. I'd also say that it shows that
strategy developed by those seeking to bring about Code compliance has not
been clever enough, fair enough, even-handed enough, rational enough, to
persuade caring intelligent healthworkers to support Code advocates in
monitoring and applying an agreed policy, or to persuade legislators to
enforce their own existing consumer protection laws, much less set up
regulatory mechanisms that can lead to Code compliance. Or even to persuade
company executives to take seriously their company's stated commitments and
enforce them. Nestle in Australia took the Code seriously, in part because
its senior management did (and that included a father of breastfed babies
who used LC services). The government took the Code seriously because a
wide-ranging coalition (ACOIF, the Australian Coalition for Optimal Infant
Feeding) had developed in 1989-1990 (at the end of 8 years work by
long-standing advocates such as NMAA, IBFANers such as myself, Kate Short
Glenyss Romanes,and Yong Sook Kwok, and ALCA after its formation in 1987)
and that Coalition was asking government to enforce the Code as it had
agreed to in the World Health Assembly, in conformity with Australian law.
This last was a key phrase that made many things possible (eg, no
advertising to parents even of follow-on formulas so called, since in
Australian law an infant is a person under 12 months of age.) Equally, it
prevented us enforcing one small section of the Code which made retail
price-cutting impossible: our government like most doesn't like artificial
price maintenance. We think the gains outweighed the losses any day.

The weakness of the Australian situation is that companies which are
ignoring the voluntary self-regulatory scheme are prospering. We have
achieved a great deal by working within the system  but we will soon go
backwards because full compliance with the 1992 Industry Agreement has not
brought rewards to the compliant. Why not? because healthworkers, including
LCs, have not used the annual, free APMAIF (Advisory Panel on the Marketing
in Australia of Infant Formulas) reports to guide their recommendations
about necessary use of formula where all other aspects are equal.

Why haven't they? in my view, because the Australian groups that should
have been absolutely united in suggesting this message to a wider audience,
by 1993 were divided and distracted by the newly-emerged Nestle issue:
which at present simply boils down to advantaging one formula company over
another,letting nice people feel good and powerful, but changing nothing
that impedes breastfeeding. In fact making things worse: dividing existing
organisations doing excellent work, and weakening their impact, prolonging
the period of confrontation and making resolution less likely. Some years
ago ILCA was asked to allow its credibility to be used to assist the
boycott in the US; in my view it rightly  chose not to assist American
companies against an overseas rival, the first to successfully break into
the tightly-controlled and overpriced US market which in the 1960's had
expanded the limitless supplies/contract policies to stave off an earlier
overseas rival. (American formula gifts to hospitals and mothers are still
almost incredible to Australians.) ALCA also was asked to support the
boycott and related policies: it chose not to, knowing Australia's
situation rather better than did the overseas interests, which by 1991 had
found some of us local IBFANers unsatisfactory vehicles for their policies,
and which fostered the development of the initially Nestle-Wyeth boycott in
Australia. Industry policy (along with membership policy, as discussed in
an earlier post) in fact was one of the underlying causes of the division
that developed in ALCA from 1993 on. (I do not dignify earlier flaming with
a reply here, but note well-documented fact. I understand that after its
next meeting ALCA Council will reply to that utterly gratuitous attack on
ALCA, ILCA's national Australian Affiliate, by a former member during what
was a calm discussion of LC Association membership policies relevant to the
ILCA membership policy debate.)

In my view, Code advocates do not need to work harder. They need to work
smarter. They need to be the ones on government committees, arguing in the
language of the bureaucrat and the politician and the healthworker, not the
language of the emotional and distressed and anti-capitalist. They need to
know who their enemies are, and to listen seriously to critics of policies
that have been tried for years and apparently ARE NOT WORKING to do more
than change market share.

It's not all Nestle. And bankrupting Nestle - if we could- simply means
more money for companies that have made fewer changes and blatantly
disregard the Code. The first Nestle Boycott was a powerful and innovative
demonstration of consumer potential, called off in time to prevent its
probably inevitable decline becoming apparent. I may be proved wrong, but I
cannot yet see what the second has achieved, in the very different global
context of the late 1980's- 1990's. (Except perhaps to make direct
marketing of formula inevitable in the US, as a major company locked out of
lucrative hospital/clinic contracts will go direct to the consumer or go
broke: this latter a breach of their legal duty to shareholders, for which
directors could be sued.) I believe, as I have said since before the Nestle
Boycott weas revived, that we should be impartially identifying and
punishing the worst offender in each market, collaborating with national
governments to do so: not taking directions from people outside our local
situation as to who the problem companies are and what we should do about
them.

The allegation will be that this doesn't support groups in countries where
Nestle is the problem, the sole supplier of formula, or the rest. Our best
contribution to stopping this trade, like the drug trade, would be to
regulate it at source: in countries where companies CAN be held
accountable. But telling people that Company X is dreadful in Xanadu when
they are obviously lilywhite in the local scene does not convince or build
a credible movement, except perhaps among the naturally trusting who
believe what they are told if told firmly enough by people they believe or
assume to be good guys....hardly the professional attitude to proof!
Creating the just environment in which all company marketing misconduct is
noted and penalised locally allows other criteria to be introduced, such as
behaviour in overseas markets with products manufactured locally. All
governments should be insisting that there are not two quality standards
(something US governments have often allowed in the past, whatever about
now). Knowing where infant formula is sourced (it's mostly imported) means
that networks such as IBFAN could provide incontrovertible proof of
misconduct sufficient to convince professional associations beyond
reasonable doubt.(Standards of evidence need to be what we would expect if
we ourselves were being accused of a crime: even companies deserve justice
and we weaken our cause by acting unjustly. MALAM, the Medical Lobby for
Appropriate Marketing, does this very professionally.)

We need more skilled lobbyists profoundly expert not only about
breastfeeding but also infant formula and marketing. Code advocates need to
consider their strategies; if we are not achieving power behind the scenes,
we are wasting our time. I start by assuming that every person I meet
(politician, industry rep included) is a potential breastfeeding advocate
if I can sell them the product and its benefits. They deserve respect
initially, until proven otherwise, because they are people first, not jobs;
and because respect and humour and liking gets me further in talking to
them than contempt and anger ever will. They don't know what I know: if
they still don't after some time it's partly my fault (unless they utterly
refuse to talk, sometimes because they have been so fed-up with
anti-industry fanatics!) I don't know what they know in some cases, and
once I know it, I may be able to see a way to meet that objection or need
or whatever. But if I rant and rave about them as moral defectives (and I
see too much of that on Lactnet for my personal liking) : well how far
would anyone get with you if they treated you with contempt? We all deserve
justice and equality.
Even, God help us, Nestle.

The measure of our professionalism is how we deal with people we do not
like. If we do not extend to them due process and courtesy, we are a
hindrance to the growth of justice in this world. And we help them feel
better about themselves, more convinced of their own righteousness and our
extremism.

in short, I feel we all need to keep assessing how far we ourselves and our
friends and colleagues are part of the problem, rather than the solution,
where industry and GOVERNMENT is concerned. It's time breastfeeding
advocacy matured. I hope this is what NABA is achieving in the US. For if
we could bring the US into line, the rest of the world would follow (except
maybe France!!). We've blamed the bad guys for too long without wondering
why, if we are so marvellously right, we have not communicated that to
government, which has a major incentive to notice in reduction of
healthcare costs, or industry, which can be very responsive to consumer
pressure, or even consumers/parents, who all want the best for their kids.

All of that is just my opinion. Informed opinion which does not have to
pretend to be humble, but opinion. I'm interested in yours.  I'll be
interested in reactions on and off Lactnet. If Kathleens A and B deem
boycotts and such off-limits I'll be happy to correspond privately (as time
permits.)

Maureen Minchin

copyright. This post may not legally be excerpted or copied, except for the
purposes of reply on Lactnet or to me directly, without written permission
from the author. I disapprove strongly of selective quotation, distortion
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