Renee
Thank you for posting the list of Nestle products
to the list. I admire your energy and dedication
in taking on the issue of inappropriate
partnerships in the US. This is such important work.
Personally, however, and with the perspective of
someone who has spent most of my life living in
resource-poor settings where aggressive marketing
of breastmilk substitutes, or in fact any
marketing of these largely unnecessary products,
can be deadly, I always feel a sense of
frustration about the Nestle
boycott. Specifically, that if the energy
devoted to it were instead channelled towards
ensuring that the Code was passed in all the
countries that don't yet subscribe to it, or
implement it properly, then babies would be
better protected than from our little efforts to
boycott all Nestle products. The other products,
the chocolates and the ice-creams and the
cosmetics, are not the ones that hurt
babies. It's the unnecessary peddling of infant
formulas to mothers who don't really need it, but
apparently are persuaded to choose it from some
warped notion of their right to
self-determination and autonomy, or because
no-one can be found to help them breastfeed, which we need to guard against.
Furthermore, confining the boycott to Nestle,
misses the other formula-manufacturers and
distributors, which, in my experience living in
Southern Africa, market their baby "nutritionals"
far _more_ aggressively. In Zimbabwe,where we
had a properly legislated and implemented Code
(and I'm proud to say that I sat on the Committee
that eventually saw it passed through
Parliament) Nestle was the only manufacturer,
but the people we had to watch like a hawk were
the importers of other formulas and little jars
from outside the country, like Abbott. In fact
the Code was implemented so well that a huge
consignment of no-brand formula donated by
UNICEF, intended for HIV-exposed babies, was
impounded and returned to the donors because the
labelling didn't meet our stringent standards
(they were in French, instead of English, Shona
and Ndebele - I believe the whole lot went to
Uganda in the end, even though they don't speak French either ...)
But what I find most curious about the list of
Nestle products to boycott which you've sent in
is the important note from Baby Milk Action
preceding it, which says, "Nestle baby formulas
are not on the boycott list because sometimes
they are needed for medical reasons."
This seems to make no sense. Wasn't the Nestle
boycott originally started, and continued, as a
civil society response to the inappropriate and
aggressive marketing of infant formulas???? Yet
now the product which provoked this outraged
action is no longer on the boycott list because
civil society has decided that sometimes it's "needed", after all?
Pamela Morrison IBCLC (curious in England,
appalled at the low breastfeeding rates, even
more disgusted that my government hands out
vouchers for free formula to low-income mothers,
and that some of my colleagues actually _defend_
this, and wishing for a properly implemented Code
that covered all formulas/foods marketed for
baby/toddlers for the full two years that they should be BREASTfed...)
IMPORTANT NOTE: (from Baby Milk Action) We list products from which Nestlé
profits. So Nestlé ice cream is listed because, although Nestlé sold the
company, it continues to receive payments for use of the brand name. We
welcome new information regarding changes in ownership, but please remember
that headline stories about brands being sold do not usually give all the
details of the deal. We only remove a product from the list when we are
reasonably confident thatall links to Nestlé have been cut. Nestle baby
formulas are not on the
boycott list because sometimes they are needed for medical reasons. Items
marked with an * are either part-owned by Nestlé (such a L'Oreal, Body Shop
and Cereal Partners, a 50:50 joint venture with General Mills) or have been
sold but there is an arrangement by which Nestlé continues to profit from
them. For more information go to Baby Milk Action's website.
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