There have been two reports in the press in the last two days about a 
shortage of "formula" (the powdered type) in Australia in particular brands. 
These are the market leader (on the basis of sales) and an organic brand. 
The articles I saw were in the Courier-Mail (Brisbane), which means they'll 
be in papers round the country owned by the same company.

In the first article, mothers were interviewed about how desperate they were 
to buy enough of it for their infants' and newborns' needs. The article 
suggested that there was a run on stocks of these brands by people who were 
sending it to China. The reason was fears about safety of supplies of 
artificial infant milk (AIM) in China since the latest concerns about 
contamination. Australia (which is awash with artificial baby milk) is seen 
as a safe source.

A second article, today, made it to page 3, and it claims that students from 
China have been recruited to buy up stocks in bulk to ship to profiteers for 
sale in China. One of the companies profiting from this, and quoted in the 
article, is Australian.

So, what does this say?
1) It reinforces what I know, that a lot of Australian mothers and babies 
are totally dependent on AIM.  That doesn't include those who use it to 
supplement breastfeeding daily or for part-time use. The first article 
really emphasised to me the food security issue. Clearly, Australia mothers 
are listening to messages about artificial feeding, and not to internalising 
information about maintaining breastfeeding.
2) Both articles show how fast the practice of feeding with AIM is catching 
on in China, which is likely to create public health concerns in th future, 
as well as skewing an economy that wasn't geared up to dairy production.

I find this very sad.

Virginia
in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

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