Please feel free to copy parts of this letter for your own letters to Sec.
Thompson if you don't have time to write one all of your own:
Honorable Tommy G. Thompson November 25, 2003
Secretary
Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Ave, SW
Washington, DC 20201
Dear Sir,
The last letter I addressed to you in July 2002 was a plea to curb the
formula industry’s strong arm tactics in their solicitation and advertising
of their products to American mothers. Today I am writing to ask you to
please help keep the current Ad Council’s PSA for breastfeeding promotion
intact.
I can't stop thinking about why it is that an explosive, Ad
Campaign-stopping blowout occurs when the formula industry expresses their
"concerns" regarding the content of a PSA to promote breastfeeding. Yet the
formula industry themselves blatantly spill unregulated - misleading to say
the least - information all over the television and magazines (specifically
speaking of the new DHA & ARA additives to infant formulas). The "science"
the formula industry is claiming backs their statements that these new
additives are "beneficial to eye and brain development" in the child are not
even recognized by the FDA as sufficient evidence to make such claims. The
FDA states that:
"There are no currently available published reports from clinical studies
that address whether any long-term beneficial effects exist… Systematic
monitoring efforts are not in place to collect and analyze information on
effects of infant formulas containing DHA and ARA in countries where these
formulas are in use."
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/qa-inf17.html
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/qa-inf19.html
I don’t understand why an incredibly well-researched, physician- and
lactation professional-supported, fact-based PSA that is going to improve
the well-being of millions of people AND save the US billions of dollars
every year, is permitted to be powerfully shot down by the formula industry,
especially when their disapproval is based on profit-driven "concerns."
It is imperative that the Ad Council share the risks of not breastfeeding.
As a volunteer breastfeeding counselor who has helped thousands of mothers
breastfeed their babies, I have heard hundreds of times from the moms I
assist that their pediatrician/the nurse in the maternity ward/an add on TV
said, "infant formula is just like breastmilk," leading them to either wean
early or never initiate nursing at all. When I mention just a few of the
proven risks associated with not breastfeeding, people are shocked. They
just don’t know the facts, which is why I am especially excited by the Ad
Council’s approach of sharing the consequences of not nursing. Formula
companies will seemingly do anything to keep the facts from the public,
hiding their antics from even the government.
Thank you for standing firmly on this issue and saying "NO" to the formula
industry’s demands that the Ad Council weaken it’s message.
Best regards,
Megan Allen, mother to four small children, volunteer breastfeeding
counselor with Nursing Mothers, Inc (www.nursingmoms.org)
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