[afro-nets] Baby milk advertising - you can help to stop it with an email

[Madeleine Anne Decker <omsdoc@oms-mz.org>]

Baby milk advertising - you can help to stop it with an email
-------------------------------------------------------------

Best regards,

Madeleine

Madeleine Anne Decker
Documentation Officer
WHO Mozambique
mailto:omsdoc@oms-mz.org


----- Original Message -----
From: "UOL" <mikebrady@babymilkaction.org>
To: "IBFANAlert-English03" <mikebrady@babymilkaction.org>
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 4:48 PM
Subject: Baby milk advertising - you can help to stop it with
an email


Please see our press release below for news on why this is a
critical time for protecting mothers and babies from the aggres-
sive marketing of baby milk companies. See the on-line version
for details of how you can send emails to help - it will only
take a few minutes. Please pass this message on.

Your message can help to introduce legislation in the European
Union to ban the advertising and promotion of baby milks, in ac-
cordance with World Health Assembly standards. If you live out-
side the European Union, please do still send a message. If the
baby food industry succeeds in its lobbying to be allowed to put
health claims on product labels, this may well be exported to
your country soon, so undermining breastfeeding. Other countries
also look to the European Union when introducing their own leg-
islation.


---
EU Commission fails mothers and babies

Frustrated health worker bodies call for action at the European
Union this week to stop baby milk advertising

News peg 11 March 2005

(See the on-line version at
http://www.babymilkaction.org/press/press7march05.html for links
to supporting documents and to view examples of advertising).

The baby food industry is advertising breastmilk substitutes
with virtual impunity in the UK as enforcement bodies (Ofcom,
Advertising Standards Authority, Trading Standards) point to
weaknesses in the law. Complaints about advertising of formula
on television and radio and in the press are generally dismissed
out of hand as the government has failed to fully implement the
International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes,
nearly 25 years after it was adopted by the World Health Assem-
bly.

Although the government promised action to implement the Code
after a United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child re-
port in 2003, nothing has yet been done to improve marketing
controls. Public Health Minister, Melanie Johnson MP, has said
the government is pursuing changes to an EU directive being re-
vised this week. The present draft will do little to strengthen
the hand of the enforcement authorities and if approved un-
changed may force a confrontation with Brussels if the govern-
ment is to act unilaterally to protect UK infants and mothers
from aggressive marketing. Government Minister, Dr. Stephen
Ladyman, assured a meeting of health experts at the House of
Commons on 21 February 2005 that he will investigate what steps
can be taken when Britain holds the EU presidency later this
year and what action can be taken if changes cannot be won at EU
level.

Patti Rundall OBE, Baby Milk Action's Policy Director, said:

"Thousands of NGOs, MEPs and Member states have been calling
over the years for the greater protection of breastfeeding and
infant health through the implementation of World Health Assem-
bly marketing standards, which ban of all promotion of breast-
milk substitutes, as law in Europe. In pushing ahead with pro-
posals that so clearly favour the infant feeding industry the
European Commission is ignoring these concerns and the over-
whelming scientific evidence that demonstrates the risks of ar-
tificial infant feeding and the importance of exclusive breast-
feeding. The proposals are also in conflict with the Commis-
sion¹s own advisors and with other Commission initiatives which
are designed to tackle the obesity epidemic that is sweeping
across Europe. The World Health Organisation (WHO)¹s recently
published seven-year study shows that babies exclusively breast-
fed for six months are healthier and leaner than artificially
fed babies."

Health worker bodies, representing about half a million UK
health workers, including the Royal College of Nurses, Royal
College of Midwives, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child
Health, National Childbirth Trust, other members of the Baby
Feeding Law Group and the National Heart Forum have written or
endorsed strong letters to the Food Standards Agency and EU Com-
mission on the draft EU Commission Directive on Infant Formulae
and Follow-on Formulae (click here to view a selection of let-
ters). Health experts want a total ban on the advertising and
promotion of all breastmilk substitutes, feeding bottles and
teats, in accordance with the International Code and subsequent
World Health Assembly Resolutions. The Code and Resolutions
limit companies to providing scientific and factual information
to health workers and give health workers responsibility for ad-
vising parents on infant and young child feeding. Health experts
are also demanding a ban on the use of health claims. Companies
are increasingly claiming formulas boost intelligence and pro-
tect against infection, claims which have dubious scientific
bases and imply the formulas are equivalent or superior to
breastfeeding. (Click here to send a letter supporting strength-
ening of the EU Directive - it will only take 5 minutes).

Monitoring conducted by the Baby Feeding Law Group and launched
at the House of Commons on 13 May 2004 prompted widespread sup-
port for an Early Day Motion, tabled by Lynne Jones MP, calling
for action (click here for launch press release). Dr. Jones
wrote to Public Health Minister, Melanie Johnson MP, last week
pointing out that enforcement authorities are still unable to
act over most of the types of violations taking place in the UK.

Mike Brady, Campaigns and Networking Coordinator at Baby Milk
Action, who coordinated the Baby Feeding Law Group's monitoring
project, made possible by a grant from the King's Fund (click
here for the UK monitoring report), said:

"We will be reporting to the UN Committee on the Rights of the
Child on the action the government has taken to implement the
Code and enforce it using existing legislation. To date, it is
failing infants, mothers and their families miserably. Until the
government takes action to hold the companies to account the
millions it invests in breastfeeding promotion is money wasted,
because the baby food companies can and do outspend it many
times over."

Rosie Dodds, Policy Research Officer at the National Childbirth
Trust said:

"Manufacturers should not be able to get away with using mis-
leading or frankly inaccurate information and continuing to pro-
mote their products. Our government has consistently supported
the Code and subsequent Resolutions internationally, when are
mothers and babies in this country going to get the safeguard
they are designed to provide?"

You can see a graphic example of advertising on the website.
Farley¹s advertised its formula as OCloser by nature¹ in a
month-long TV campaign last year and directed parents to a web-
site which suggests the formulas are equivalent to breastmilk.
The authorities have taken no action.

For further information contact:
Mike Brady on +44-1223-464420 or +44-7986-736179
Patti Rundall on +44-7786-52349 or
Rosie Dodds on +44-20-8752-2330.

Notes for Editors

Scientific evidence has consistently demonstrated that artifi-
cial feeding increases mortality rates, increases rates for ill-
nesses such as infectious diseases, chronic diseases and auto-
immune diseases, offers less than optimal development and
growth, lowers cognitive and visual development and increases
the risk of obesity.

The draft EU Directive permits the promotion of breastmilk sub-
stitutes and legitimizes new claims on labels which will mislead
parents and undermine breastfeeding. They will permit new prod-
ucts to be marketed with health claims without first being
proved safe or of benefit. Baby Milk Action¹s position is that
if an ingredient has undisputed health benefits proven by inde-
pendent research, it ought to be a legally required ingredient
in all formulas. Health claims are deceptive, intended to create
a perceived advantage and to idealize, so undermining breast-
feeding.

-- 
Mike Brady
Campaigns and Networking Coordinator Baby Milk Action

Visit our website http://www.babymilkaction.org/

Baby Milk Action is the UK member of the International Baby Food
Action Network - IBFAN - http://www.ibfan.org/

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Baby Milk Action
23 St. Andrew's Street
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UK contact numbers. Tel: 01223 464420 Fax: 01223 464417 Interna-
tional contact numbers:
Tel: +44-1223-464420 Fax: +44-1223-464417