Companies
exposed in new monitoring report
Background:
Members of the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN)
from around the world monitor baby food companies against the
Code
and Resolutions. Monitoring results from recent exercises
are gathered together in the report Breaking
the Rules, Stretching the Rules 2004, which profiles the
16 biggest baby food companies. Nestlé is once again
found to be responsible for more violations than any of its
competitors.
Company responses to violations highlighted
on these action sheets demonstrate their refusal to accept
the validity of
the Code and Resolutions and their attempts to excuse blatant
malpractice through denials and deception. Judge what the companies
are doing yourself by downloading
the report from the IBFAN website or ordering a copy from
Baby Milk Action (tel: 01223 464420, price £10 including
UK postage and packing (£30 for for-profit organisations).
Breaking the Rules, Stretching
the Rules 2004 presents
evidence of violations from 69 countries. It describes
2,000 violations and includes
over 700 pictures
of the companies’ own materials. Some exaples are
given here.
The report was launched at the UK Parliament on 13
May 2004 in conjunction with a motion from Members
of Parliament calling for action to stop malpractice
and
for new WHA Resolutions to address new trends.
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A DVD and
video of the report launch are available from Baby Milk Action for £10
including UK postage and packing
(45 minute film with bonus 15 minute film of the 2004 demonstration
at Nestlé (UK) HQ.
The report gives
the contact details of the companies enabling you to write
directly to the Chief Executives who put their
own profits before infant health. See below
for a letter to the worst of the baby food companies: Nestlé
Nestlé still
the worst of the baby food companies
Nestlé
is again responsible for more violations in IBFAN's latest
monitoring report than any other company. Nestlé not
only violates the marketing requirements for infant formula
and other breastmilk substitutes, it promotes other products
irresponsibly.
Encouraging
the use of Nido whole milk for bottle-feeding,
as on this 2003 calendar in the Dominican Republic, is
the height of irresponsibility.
Nestlé has
acknowledged that its whole milk is totally unsuitable
for infant feeding, but argues that
as it is
not a proper breastmilk substitute it can market it
how it likes (click
here to read Nestlé's letter in response to an
earlier campaign on this issue).
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Suggested
letter to the man responsible: Nestlé Chief Executive
Officer, Peter Brabeck-Letmathé, Nestlé S.A.,
Av. Nestlé 55, CH-1800 Vevey, Switzerland. Fax: +
41 21 924 2813. (You can select the text below and copy and
paste it into a word-processor or into the comment
page on the Nestlé site. Note Nestlé keeps
changing the address of the comment page. If the link to
it is dead go via http://www.nestle.com/).
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IBFAN’s Breaking
the Rules, Stretching the Rules 2004 report
shows Nestlé aggressively marketing infant formula
and other breastmilk substitutes in violation of the
International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent, relevant Resolutions of the World Health
Assembly. Your continued malpractice and refusal to
bring your company’s marketing policies and instructions
to staff into line with the Code and Resolutions, as
requested by IBFAN and UNICEF, is deplorable.
Nestlé frequently attempts to divert attention
from its aggressive marketing of breastmilk substitutes
by highlighting that some mothers living in poverty use
unsuitable substances for infant feeding, such as whole
milks. As you are aware this happens, why does Nestlé continue
to promote whole milks in the infant feeding sections
of pharmacies and supermarkets? Why has Nestlé produced
a 2003 calendar in the Dominican Republic showing a young
girl giving her doll a feeding bottle, with Nido whole
milk on display behind her?
This attempt
to gain extra profit from mothers who have been persuaded
not to breastfeed,
but cannot afford your infant formula, demonstrates
the contempt you show for the mothers who you claim
trust
your company. |
Please
help to save Brazil’s
baby food marketing law
Background:
Brazil is achieving
significant increases in breastfeeding rates thanks, in part,
to its strong law implementing the Code
and Resolutions,
but the law is now under attack. The law was recently revised
and now covers baby food for children up to three years of
age. The previous law covered products for children up to
one year of age and it was found companies undermined breastfeeding
in the ways they promoted milks and other foods for children
over one year of age (you can read the history of the
campaign for Brazil's law in the IBFAN report, Checks
and Balances in the Global Economy: Using International Tools
to Stop Corporate
Malpractice - Does it Work?).
The
law introduced in 2003 requires whole milks to carry a 'Ministry
of Health Warning' stating the product
should not
be used for infant feeding except on the specific advice
of a health worker. As we have exposed in the past,
Nestlé promotes
its whole milk, Ninho, in the infant feeding sections of
supermarkets and pharmacies alongside infant formula
costing three times
the price (click
here for Neslé's gallery of shame and
see the picture above).
Poor mothers who
have decided or been persuaded not to breastfeed often
use
whole milk in
place of formula, increasing the risk of ill health.
Nestlé claims
that as whole milk is not a bona fide breastmilk substitute
it can market it however it likes and has refused to remove
it from the infant feeding sections (click
here to read Nestlé's letter).
It does, however, put the health warning on the labels
in
Brazil as
required by
the law.
News has now reached us that there is to be a challenge
to the law in the Brazilian congress by the milk
companies which
object to having to put the 'Ministry of Health Warning'
on their products.
Action:
Please
send a message to the following
people, identified by campaigners in Brazil, asking
them to stand firm against industry pressure. You can
send your letter c/o Baby Milk Action, by
email or via an on-line form as
shown below. You can select
and copy the text
below then
click on the
email
address to open a new email window in your email programme
or to go to the on-line form, then paste the text and
add an appropriate subject line and greeting and edit
as you wish. You can send your message in
English, but if you are able to write in Portuguese, please
do so.
E-mail
addresses:
Deputado Leonardo Vilela
Deputy Chief
of the Chamber responsible for Food issues
E-mail: dep.leonardovilela@camara.gov.br
(If you wish to send messages to other members of the Congress,
you can find e-mail
addresses here: http://www.camara.gov.br/INTERNET/DEPUTADO/Dep_Lista.asp)
Dr Humberto
Costa
Minister of Health
On-line
message form: http://portalweb01.saude.gov.br/saude/area.cfm?id_area=143
Dr Claudio Mayerovich
President -
National Health Inspection
Agency (responsible for enforcing the law)
E-mail: infovisa@anvisa.gov.br
On-line message form: http://www.anvisa.gov.br/scriptsweb/faleconosco/mail.asp
Website: http://www.anvisa.org.br/
Dr Ricardo
Oliva
Chief of Food Sector - President -
National Health Inspection
Agency (responsible for enforcing the law)
E-mail: infovisa@anvisa.gov.br
On-line
message form: http://www.anvisa.gov.br/scriptsweb/faleconosco/mail.asp
Website: http://www.anvisa.org.br/
Pan American Health Organisation/World
Health Organisation
Brazil office
E-mail: pending
Website: http://www.paho.org/
UNICEF Brazil
E-mail: brasilia@unicef.org
Website: http://www.unicef.org.br/
Suggested
message:
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Brazil
is admired around the world for its success in promoting
and defending breastfeeding. As well as its famous
milk bank network and imaginative promotional methods,
such as the baby friendly postal workers and fire
workers, Brazil's implementation of marketing requirements
for baby foods is seen as an example for others to
follow.
It is a great concern, therefore, to learn of the
attempt by milk companies to weaken the Brazilian
Regulations
RDC Nº 222 (Regulamento Técnico para Promoção
Comercial de Alimentos para Lactentes e Crianças
de Primeira Infância) by questioning the need
for warnings on the labels of products, such as whole
milks. The inappropriate use of whole milks for infant
feeding is well known, and monitoring shows that
some companies actually encourage this. Strong warnings
are, therefore, essential to ensure mothers are aware
that whole milk should not be used for infant feeding.
I ask you to do all you can to defend the Regulations
against this irresponsible attack and to monitor
company marketing practices to evaluate whether it
needs strengthening
in other areas. For example, it is a great concern
that nothing can presently be done to stop companies
promoting whole milks in the infant feeding sections
of pharmacies and supermarkets alongside infant formula. |
You
can be a Code Monitor.
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