Professor Roger Short has for many years said that there should be warnings
on infant formula containers. We both spoke at the same conference in
Canberra in 1994 and this was picked up by the media. It got coverage on
most of the local TV stations and a page two story in the major Canberra
daily newspaper.
When we arranged for him to speak at a conference in South Australia we
included this idea in our media release and got a similar response.
I think that warning labels on infant formula containers would be a great
idea. It would ensure that parents were adequately warned about the choice
they were making about the way they would feed their baby. However, you
would have to put similar warning labels on all other products that parents
may use as breastmilk substitutes such as unmodified cows milk and
condensed milk. It would be counter productive if parents didn't use
formula because of the warning labels but used less suitable products
instead.
There would no doubt be the usual backlash about making mothers who can't
breastfeed feel guilty about having to use formula. This idea gets hauled
up with monotonous regularity here in Australia. It seems to be everybody's
favourite argument to keep the public in the dark about the benefits of
breastfeeding and the problems of infant formula. I wonder who was the
clever formula marketing executive who came up the idea of maternal guilt.
He has probably been promoted to president of his company!
Laureen Lawlor-Smith
South Australia