Cindy asked about the URL for NABA. Well, we have a brand new web site that
is still under construction but adding new things weekly. The old web page
has been taken down and the new one is: www.naba-breastfeeding.org. Also new
from NABA is the Executive Summary of Selling Out Mothers and Babies. This
has some updates from the original Code monitoring exercise as well as a
reproducible sheet of action strategies to counter some of the marketing
excesses occurring around the country. This sheet mentions things contained
in the Medicare and Medicaid Patient Protection Act such as the federal
anti-kickback statute, informed consent, and patients' rights that are all
violated when formula companies engage in their common practices with
hospitals.

I checked with the Inspector General's Office of the Department of Health and
Human Services regarding some of these practices in hospitals. They said that
these do indeed violate the anti-kickback statute and jeopardize the
hospital's ability to receive Medicaid money. Perhaps it is time to escalate
our actions and use state and federal regulations to help protect our mothers
and babies.

If you are interested in purchasing copies of the Executive Summary please
contact me. These are designed to be given to policy makers, hospital
administrators and staff, coalitions and task forces, legislators, and
breastfeeding advocates who wish to make changes.

Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, MA

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html