Date:    Thu, 17 May 2007 10:03:00 +0100
From:    heather <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Formula for Disaster

Samples of formula have not been available in the UK for 20  years or 
more. It is illegal to give a sample.  If a mother needs formula and 
is not prepared with it in the house, there are ways to get it - 
supermarkets are open 24 hours, and if a trip there is not possible, 
anyone truly desperate would be given a bottle from hospital stock 
and no one would argue with that.

What makes the change to 'no samples' difficult to implement in the 
US, as far as I can tell, is that individual hospitals take the 
decision.  That allows hospitals to compete with each other, and for 
the ones who continue with the samples to claim they are somehow 
'mother friendly' (ack).

Once the change is made, people quickly get used to it!  Mothers 
stopped expecting  free samples as soon as they were stopped, and 
there was no resentment.

I applaud all of you in the US in campaigning against sampling.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK

Heather.
	The real reason it is so difficult to get rid of formula samples in
the US hospitals is that WE have to make the ABM companies happy!  Yep, you
heard that right.  I was employed in a very large hospital (500-600 beds,)
our NBN alternated the sample packs and the formula given re: the month.
The even months they were given E______ and on the odd months they received
S_____!  Reason being, the ABM companies give the hospital a lot of stuff.
Like a multi-million $$$ 28 bed, Level III NICU fully paid for by one of the
formula companies and of course all the free ABM, D5W, Sterile Water,
bottles, nipples, pacifiers, crib cards, tape measurers, pens, food, gifts
and on and on and on!  The hospital is NOT willing to spend the $$$ on those
things when they can get them free by sleeping with the ABM companies!
	Makes me want to puke.  All the time I was there, I said "no" to
free gifts, food, etc and what I heard from the other RN's was, "Oh well,
more for us!"
	Royce Anderson, RN, IBCLC, RLC, CD (DONA)
	Oklahoma City, OK

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