Dear Michelle,

I was very disturbed to read your recent article attacking UNICEF. Please,
please take some time to think this issue through again.  UNICEF doesn't
promote breastfeeding
out of fanaticism but because formula kills more babies than HIV/AIDS.  Even
in the developed world a formula fed baby is five times more likely to be
admitted to hospital with gastroenteritis than a breastfed one.  Now imagine
what that likelihood is in a country with an unsafe water supply and little
means of adequate sterilisation of feeding utensils.

 How long do you think Nestle and co will provide free formula for?  Until
each baby is 2?  Do you know how much the formula costs in these countries?
More than most families earn.  So they water down the feeds and their babies
die of malnutrition.

 Please find out the facts and stop putting out this kind of poison to
credulous individuals who are not likely to question what you write.  Who is
more likely to have an agenda around how mothers feed? Companies that want
to make money out of the switch to formula worldwide or an international
charity?

How much did you earn writing this?  Was it worth it?  When the death rate
soars in Africa because you couldn't be bothered to check out the facts
about infant nutrition and health and convinced Joe Public to stop
supporting UNICEF will you consider that money well earned?

Please, do the world a bit of good today.  Go and talk to the people who
work in these countries...and then write something that is worthy of someone
of your obvious education and intelligence.

Jenny Lesley
A mother, Worthing, England.


PS You might be interested to read this reply to the Wall Street Journal
Article.

>> Letter to the Editor:
>>
>> Your December 5, page one article "Bottled Up.  As UNICEF Battles Formula
>> Makers, African Babies Sicken" may mislead your readers, and turn some
>> against UNICEF -- an organization that serves children well.
>>
>> Your staff reporters raise important, and difficult, questions in a
>> heartrending manner.  I am a physician, and academic, who has worked
>> extensively in Africa, and have studied mother to child transmission of
>> HIV.  I understand UNICEF's dilemma.
>>
>> The AIDS pandemic is a terrible scourge, now wreaking havoc in Africa.
But
>> actions appropriate to prevent the spread of HIV to infants in the U.S.
and
>> Europe, may not be appropriate in Africa, where so many families live in
>> dire poverty.  Pregnant women who learn that they are HIV positive, have
>> very difficult choices to make.  Should they breastfeed their newborn and
>> risk transmission of HIV, or should they accept the very large risks of
not
>> breastfeeding.  For UNICEF, and governments, involved in public health
>> policy, this presents them also with a difficult dilemma.  Infants not
>> breastfed in poor  households have at least a five-fold added risk of
death
>> from infections in the first two months of life; higher disease incidence
>> with added costs to the parents; for the mother, a likelihood of an early
>> pregnancy with another infant at risk of HIV and also destined to be an
>> orphan; and costs related to formula feeding which may further impoverish
>> the family.
>>
>> Recent visits to four African countries convinced me that for almost all
>> poor mothers, the risks of not breastfeeding are much greater than the
>> risks of HIV infection through breastmilk.  It also clearly showed me
that
>> in all four countries there is a spillover effect, and support for
>> breastfeeding has markedly declined directly associated with the HIV
pandemic.
>>
>> As your article shows, out of 1000 pregnant women in Africa only "9 to 18
>> infants are expected to contract HIV through breastfeeding."  So should
>> governments, or UNICEF, condone a major undermining of breastfeeding when
>> 98 percent of women are not expected to infect their infants, even from
>> long duration breastfeeding?
>>
>> Like your reporters, I also visited Nsambya Hospital in Uganda, where
free
>> infant formula is being offered to mothers who test positive for HIV.
The
>> physician responsible for that project informed me, that even educated
>> women attending this private hospital, are not using infant formula
>> properly, or exclusively, thus adding to the risk of HIV transmission and
>> to other infant health problems.  When asked about extending this pilot
>> project he stated unequivocally "that to contemplate using infant formula
>> in place of breastfeeding in rural districts of Uganda is unthinkable."
>>
>> My visits this fall to Botswana, Namibia, Kenya and Uganda convince me
that
>> the broad use of infant formula, in place of breastfeeding, in poor
>> families would do more harm than good.  So it is appropriate that UNICEF,
>> and others are supporting pilot projects to evaluate the benefits and
risks
>> of infant feeding alternatives.  These need to be carefully evaluated so
>> that policy can be evidence based.
>>
>> It is just as heartrending to look into the face of a mother whose
newborn
>> infant has died of diarrhea due to formula feeding, as it is to grieve
with
>> a woman whose infant has contracted HIV due to breastfeeding.
>>
>>
>> Dr. Michael C. Latham
>> Professor of International Nutrition
>> Division of Nutritional Sciences
>> Savage Hall, Cornell University

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