In the meantime, I want to share this UNICEF documentary I found on YouTube. It’s about formula marketing in the Phillippines. This is similar to the practices that led to the scandal in the 1970’s with Nestle, only now there are more companies at it than just Nestle. I’m beginning to think that the allure of money is just too seductive for big companies (and sometimes even small businesses, like some of the unscrupulous midwives shown in the documentary) to ignore. I suppose it can become easy for individuals with already shaky ethics to be swayed completely when confronted with the opportunity to make extra cash. I’m not saying I don’t understand that this is part of human nature. I just wish so many big businesses in the baby-nutrition industry would stop disappointing me with their questionable marketing campaigns.

As you watch this documentary (which is broken up into five parts that pick up one after another after you push the “play” button on each), note that what it portrays in the Phillippines with regard to formula is analogous to the situation here in the USA with Prolacta and the methods they employ to recruit breast milk donors (complete with midwifery/birth center recruitment as well). I guess one thing Prolacta has going for them is at least they’re not recommending that people formula-feed. It’s actually to Prolacta’s benefit that more women lactate, so that they can provide them with the raw material for their human milk fortifier. There are a lot of problems with the Prolacta-midwifery/birth center arrangement, though, which I’ll get to in later posts.

I hope you learn as you watch the video, entitled “Formula for Disaster.” (The beginning was a bit hard for me to watch, with the baby crying for sooooo long without getting picked up, but once you get past it, the information conveyed is very compelling.) Duration: about 30 minutes for all five parts together. If you can’t watch the whole thing, one part is better than nothing, and they all teach something valuable.

What can you do about this?  You can visit the Baby Milk Action “Campaign for Ethical Marketing” page and learn more about how you can write to the formula companies who are doing this.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, too. Comment below or contact me privately.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Formula, Videos, Lactation, Breastfeeding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.