Here is the letter that NABA wrote to the AAP Board of Directors and
Executive Board. Each person on each board received a copy of Selling Out
Mothers and Babies and the Executive Summary of this publication. Ross of
course hopes to add respectability to its corporate name. However, the
purchase of this number of books elevates the book to the status of a "best
seller" so that the AAP can market it in book stores as a best seller! Ross
knows that breastfeeding mothers need to be helped to supplement and wean
early so that they become good formula customers and buy formula for a full
year before switching to whole milk. The goal is to look like Ross and the
AAP support breastfeeding, but assume that due to a number of factors
including slick marketing, mothers will soon give up breastfeeding and
purchase formula. The pressure to supplement is huge! Ross now has a
Breastfeeding Mothers Supplementation Kit (containing formula) that is given
to breastfeeding mothers by their pediatricians. Money talks.

Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, MA

Dear Colleague:

As I am sure you are aware, the AAP has received numerous letters of surprise
and dismay regarding its deal with Ross Labs to imprint the name and logo of
Ross on the cover of the New Mother's Guide to Breastfeeding. This financial
arrangement with Ross will undoubtedly enrich the coffers of the AAP at the
expense of the mothers who will be duped into thinking that their
pediatrician sees infant formula as equivalent to breast milk. Giving this
book away in commercial discharge bags or any other vehicle allows Ross to
use the name and reputation of the AAP to create a public perception of
legitimacy and manipulate Ross's image to that of a beneficent entity, rather
than the commercial competitor to breast milk that it has become. Your
endorsement of infant formula has trickled down to your individual members.
Many breastfeeding mothers depart from the two week check up with their
baby's pediatrician with Ross's Breastfeeding Mother's Supplementation Kit.
This kit contains formula samples, instructions on how to supplement breast
milk with formula, and of course how to order more formula. Supplementing
breast milk with formula dilutes the disease protective effects of human
milk, increasing many acute and chronic conditions and diseases that are
becoming epidemic in this country.

The AAP receives large sums of money from the Federal government for its
breastfeeding programs and CATCH grants. Do your funders realize that the
likelihood of reaching the Healthy People 2010 goals for breastfeeding is
being systematically reduced by AAP's alignment with formula makers? The gap
between your words and your deeds is staggering. The defensive posture of
physicians regarding the use of infant formula has become a public health
issue. Your marketing department's PR spin in its response to the letters of
protest takes the typical approach of deflecting the responsibility for use
of this book onto the hospitals where it will be peddled. The AAP is
responsible for this, not anyone else. It is a shame that you have chosen not
to follow your own policies contained in the 1997 publication Breastfeeding
and the Use of Human Milk as well as in the Pediatrician's Responsibility for
Infant Nutrition. Your reputation and image has been elegantly commandeered
resulting in a breach of trust of infants and children who have no means to
protect themselves from unscrupulous predators on their health.

I am enclosing two publications that document the extent of formula company
manipulation and exploitation. Your conflict of interest is astounding and is
surpassed only by your efforts to insulate yourselves from the consequences
of your actions. How much illness and suboptimal developmental outcomes need
to occur before the AAP will cut the umbilical cord to the formula
manufacturers? Please consider refusing the next deal that comes along which
will certainly be for the AAP to allow several million of these books to be
imprinted. One wonders if the loss of respect, mistrust, and outright anger
with the AAP has been worth it.

             ***********************************************

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