In the 12/5/00 edition of the Wall Street Journal, front page no less, there is
an extensive article titled, "As Unicef Battles Baby-Formula Makers, African
Infants Sicken".

The article starts off describing the case of a baby in Africa whose HIV positive
mother was not told about formula.  Baby was breastfed and became HIV positive at
11 mos. of age. The mother is quoted as saying, "I knew I was doing something
wrong".

The article goes on to describe the struggle between well-meaning formula
manufacturers who want to donate formula to babies of HIV positive mothers and
UNICEF that refuses to "green light" the "gifts" because of marketing misbehavior
on the part of formula manufacturers in the distant past.

No mention, need I say, of the recently published research about the protective
effect of exclusive breastfeeding.

One especially upsetting piece of information in the article is that Geraldine
Ferraro is a hired gun for Nestle to lobby UNICEF.  Silly me,  I thought
Geraldine Ferraro was one of those soft-hearted liberals and a feminist.  For
those of you not U.S. citizens, Ms. Ferraro, a Democrat, was the first, and so
far only, woman to run as a Vice-Presidential candidate for a major political
party.

By the way, this is a major article with a full column on the front page and a
complete page (pg. 18).  I read the WSJ regularly.  There aren't very many news
stories that warrant this much coverage.  Duh, I wonder what's up with that?

I hope one of you out there who is better informed than I on the research writes
a letter to the WSJ editor.

Mary Cummins, M.Ed., IBCLC
Scottsdale, AZ

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