Hello, everyone. My name is Jim Akre and I am a technical
officer in the World Health Organization's Nutrition unit in
Geneva, Switzerland. I am pleased to join you all on this
extraordinaryly eclectic electronic energy source. Part of
my job has to do with keeping tabs on what governments
around the world are doing to, in the fairly dry jargon of
international standard setting, <give effect to the
principles and aim of the International Code of Marketing of
Breast-milk Substitutes>. To reply to those who have asked
recently about whether the USA has <signed> the IC, in fact
no government anywhere has ever <signed> the IC since it is
not a ratifiable instrument in the same say that an
international convention is, e.g. the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (1989). The Code was adopted by the
World Health Assembly in May 1981 in the form of a
recommendation. Paragraph 1 of its article 11 concerning
<implementation and monitoring> states: <Governments should
take action to give effect to the principles and aim of this
Code, as appropriate to their social and legislative
framework, including the adoption of national legislation,
regulations or other suitable measures.> Where action by
the Government of the USA specifically is concerned, the
Official Record of the fourth meeting of Committee A at the
Forty-seventh World Health Assembly in May 1994 relates the
statement made by the representative of the USA (Dr Sumaya)
as follows: <Although the United States Government
supported the principles and aim of the International Code
of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, the Code contained
provisions that could not be applied in the United States
because they were inconsistent with domestic law and policy.
Each Member State had to look at the International Code in
the context of its own laws and practices, as had been the
intent in making the Code voluntary; the United States was
no exception.> Even prior to this formal declaration,
however, portions of the IC had already <been given effect
to> in the USA via public policy and programmes and
legislation and regulations concerning, among other things,
quality and labelling.
James Akre (Mr)
Technical Officer, Nutrition
World Health Organization
Geneva, Switzerland
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