HEALTH: Governments Under Pressure from Baby Food Companies

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 12 1998 (IPS) - The baby food industry is putting pressure on governments to block legislation based on international recommendations on breast milk substitutes.

The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) denounced such irregularities before the World Health Assembly meeting this week in Geneva.

Annelies Allain, director of the IBFAN Code Documentation Centre in Penang, Malaysia cited the Dutch firm Milupa and Switzerland’s Nestle as the worst violators of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.

Allain also denounced Nestle for “directly pressuring governments” to keep them from adopting legislation in line with international recommendations.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) implements national, regional and global infant and young child nutrition programmes that promote breast-feeding.

A WHO document presented to the World Health Assembly reports that data from 94 countries indicates that exclusive breast- feeding rates remain low: only around 35 percent of infants are fed only breast milk at some point between birth and four months of age.

WHO laments that “all too often” breast-feeding rates remain low in countries where malnutrition and mortality are high.

“Breast-feeding in the world is being threatened,” said Alison Linnecar with IBFAN-Geneva upon offering the results of the organisation’s monitoring of compliance with the International Code.

The IBFAN study demonstrates that of the 19 companies monitored, two particularly stood out: Milupa, recently bought by a Dutch company, and Switzerland’s Nestle, both of which violated seven of the International Code’s eight requirements.

Allain said the two companies ignored the following code requirements: no direct promotion to the public; no promotion in healthcare facilities; no promotion to health workers; no free or low-cost supplies; no promotion of follow-up formulas; no promotion of other foods marketed as breastmilk substitutes; while only partially complying with the requirements on labelling. The French firm Danone/Diepal closely followed in third place.

“What we are worrying about is that now the controversy is going from the international to the national level,” Allain remarked.

“Over the past six months or one year, companies have been putting pressure on governments directly to influence their adopting of legislation based on international recommendations, and they are doing this quite brutally by threatening with economic sanctions, with not investing in a particular country, by insisting that the monitoring only be done by governments and not by NGOs.

“Particularly Nestle interferes in legislation. In the meantime, other countries have come up to us and said: this is happening to us. So we decided that this should be made public,” she added.

IBFAN reported that Nestle wrote to Uruguay’s Health Minister on Apr. 30, urging that national legislation be limited to the International Code as published in 1981. The letter strongly attacks resolutions adopted after that date, and argues against the World Health Assembly adopting any further resolutions on the issue.

In Zimbabwe, Nestle “threatened to pull out investment, arguing that it would not be economically viable for the company to continue operating under such regulations,” said Allain.

“It appears that Nestle, once again, has taken the lead in lobbying governments to dilute good drafts or suspend paliamentary debates on strengthening measures,” she added. According to IBFAN, other countries coming under such commercial pressure include Ghana, Swaziland, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and nations of eastern Europe.