HHS Toned Down Breast-Feeding Ads
Formula Industry Urged Softer Campaign

By Marc Kaufman and Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 31, 2007; Page A01 (3 pages)

Excerpt:
In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of breast-feeding,
federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising
campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real
health risks if they did not breast-feed.

The formula industry's intervention -- which did not block the ads but
helped change their content -- is being scrutinized by Congress in the wake
of last month's testimony by former surgeon general Richard H. Carmona that
the Bush administration repeatedly allowed political considerations to
interfere with his efforts to promote public health.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is
investigating allegations from former officials that Carmona was blocked
from participating in the breast-feeding advocacy effort and that those
designing the ad campaign were overruled by superiors at the formula
industry's insistence.
"This is a credible allegation of political interference that might have had
serious public health consequences," said Waxman, a California Democrat.
The milder campaign HHS eventually used had no discernible impact on the
nation's breast-feeding rate, which lags behind the rate in many European
countries.
[snip]
But other current and former HHS officials say the muting of the ads was not
the only episode in which HHS missed a chance to try to raise the
breast-feeding rate. In April, according to officials and documents, the
department chose not to promote a comprehensive analysis by its own Agency
for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of multiple studies on
breast-feeding, which generally found it was associated with fewer ear and
gastrointestinal infections, as well as lower rates of diabetes, leukemia,
obesity, asthma and sudden infant death syndrome.



Judy

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