This article is about how transnational corporations in collusion with governments and the medical profession are attempting to expropriate health care from women - and about what women are doing to fight this. In promoting the use of commercial baby foods and powdered milk formula to take the place of breast feeding, especially in Third World countries, these corporations are manipulating women for economic gain with disastrous results for the health of their infants. The baby foods scandal described here is a perfect example of how systems of economic domination work, specifically against women as the major consumers of health care.

"Caracas, Venezuela, July 1977: In the emergency room of the Hospital de Nifios, a large hospital located in the center of the city, lie 52 infants. All are suffering from gastroenteritis, a serious inflammation of the stomach and intestines. Many also suffer from pneumonia. According to the doctor in charge, roughly 5,000 Venezuelan babies die each year from gastroenteritis, and an equal number die from pneumonia. The doctor further explains that these babies, like many who preceded them and those who would follow, have all been bottle fed. He concludes, 'a totally breast-fed baby just does not get sick like this'." (1)

In many parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, whether Ethiopia or South Africa, Indonesia, Panama or Venezuela, women are leaving maternity wards with their new babies, laden with free samples of powdered baby milk - "gifts" from a large US or Swiss company. Wanting to do what is best for their babies - and what seems to be modern might seem to be best - they abandon breast feeding and start giving their babies the bottle.

Many people in these areas have no access to clean water or the possibility to boil it or to sterilize a feeding bottle. Neither do they have enough money to buy the continually increasing supplies of the formula necessary to feed a growing infant. These combined factors lead to the baby feeding from a contaminated bottle, with over-diluted solution which is often not sterile. The results are inevitably diarrhea and gastro-intestinal disease, protein-energy malnutrition (marasmus) a reduced immunity to disease and sometimes death. Obviously breast feeding is far preferable.

Many of us have experienced nurses or doctors who are only too anxious to encourage us to stop breast feeding. Bottles fit in better with hospital routines. Doctors don't have to worry about women who have problems breast feeding. They know very little about how to deal with that in any case, since medical text books for the most part hardly deal with breast feeding at all.

All of us want to do what is best for our babies. It is not easy to disagree with a doctor or with hospital staff when they tell you you cannot breast feed, or that you have bad milk, or not enough. It is not easy to see an advertisement for "scientific" and "well tested" commercial milk powder which claims to be the next best thing to mother's milk, and to ignore it completely. Especially if you're busy and tired and a bottle means someone else can do the feeding. It is so easy to believe all these people, because they are the "experts" who govern our lives and our health. Yet commercial milk powder (formula) is never as good as breast milk, because it does not contain many immunizing elements which babies need, and which they get from breast milk. Only if a mother is severely ill, or has a breast abscess or is pregnant can there be a case made for alternative feeding. Some of us may have problems at first, but this is no reason to abandon breast feeding.

Many of us live in countries where maternity laws do not allow us adequate paid leave after giving birth, nor sufficient provision to continue breast feeding when we return to work. Some of us may not want to breast feed, but it's extremely important that such a choice is based on our being in full possession of all the information available. A good example is that psychologically we may actually inhibit the milk flow because we believe there is not enough, that we are not capable, that it is bad etc. This is what multinational companies have been able to cash in on, by suggesting that "when breast milk fails..." or "when supply can't meet demand..." their product will come to the rescue. Advertising on bill boards, in popular journals and newspapers and over the radio and television and through free samples given in hospital all help to enforce the image  breast-milk inadequacy, or at least put a question mark in our heads.

This has all been very well and fully documented (see bibliography) over the past few years. The expose started in 1974 when a group in London - War on Want - published The Baby Killer, an examination of the sometimes disastrous effects of the promotion of baby foods in the Third World. The same year the booklet was translated into German by the Swiss Action Groups for Development Policy, with some additions and the new title Nestle totet Babys (Nestle kills babies). It claimed that Nestle - the Swiss-based multinational - uses unethical and immoral sales methods to sell its infant foods in the Third World, and that the products are being bought and used in areas where people have neither the money nor the hygienic conditions necessary to use the products correctly. The result is that babies, weak through lack of food and from diarrhea, often die. Nestle sued the group for libel.

Two years later, the verdict of the court case in Berne Switzerland, was that the title of the brochure was defamatory (Nestle did not "intend" to kill babies), but a sharp warning was given to Nestle to "fundamentally rethink its advertising practices if they did not want to be called unethical and immoral in the future". (2) The case was a victory for the critics of Nestle and other baby foods companies because it admitted that these advertising practices could transform an ordinary product into "one that is dangerous and life destroying". (2)

The two-year campaign surrounding the Swiss court case became international. Newspaper reports, television films, brochures, pamphlets, consumer boycotts, meetings, conferences, were numerous. The film "Bottle Babies was shown in countries of Asia and Africa as well as industrialize  ones. The overall results of this campaign are hard to assess, but the expose has continued;

• in 1975 a Catholic teaching order that has shares in Bristol Myers - the Sisters of the Precious Blood in Dayton, Ohio, USA - prosecuted this company, one of the biggest producers of baby food, for misrepresentation. Under pressure, Bristol Myers had published a report saying that they did not advertise or sell their products in countries where chronic poverty could lead to product misuse or harmful effects. Investigations subsequently submitted as legal testimony to the Federal Court showed that there was, in fact, widespread dissemination of products and advertising in chronic poverty areas. To substantiate their case, the nuns, through the Interfaith Center on Cooperate Responsibility (ICCR) in New York, gathered documentation from doctors missionaries and others in over 15 Third World countries The case ended in January this year with an out-of-court settlement. Bristol-Myers said it would send stockholder a report on infant formula misuse prepared by the Sister of the Precious Blood and the ICCR, and that it would "consult in a dialogue" with the sisters about ongoing solutions to the problems in the Third World of bottle feeding.
• On 4th July 1977 a national boycott Nestle campaign was started in the USA. This has now become very widespread with seven coordinating groups around the country, and support from more than 30 prominent group and individuals endorsing the campaign. Nestle is sufficiently worried to have sent major representatives from the company to the USA to talk with the boycott organizers, once in October 1977 and once in February 1978. In spite of Nestle statement about "policy changes" after the Swiss court case the Nestle boycott group has found a two-page, full-color advertisement for Nestle's Lactogen and Ceralac in the May 1977 issue of Drum, a Nigerian magazine, 1977 newspaper advertisement for Eledon infant formula from Uruguay and reports of billboards for Nestle infant foods in Rhodes! Obviously the company has not succeeded in this "self-regulation" claimed for itself.
• several governments have started to make investigations into their national situations, and some have even restricted the availability of powdered baby milk.

These are steps forward since 1974, there is no doubt about that. Yet the fact that the boycott group in the States was able to produce evidence for Nestle continuing advertise shows how much the problem is still present.

What concerns us here is that it is the same mechanism in the West as in the Third World which expropriate health care from us - women. By making of health an area which is so "scientific" and complex, only to be mastered "experts", multinationals and the medical profession, collusion with various governments take power away from us. Women in industrialized countries have been duped for decades, and now we are beginning to take that power back. In doing so, one of the duties we have to women elsewhere is to unmask these mechanisms. The baby food scandal is a perfect example of how systems of economic domination work, specifically against women as the major consumer of health care.

References

(1) "A Critical essay on the role of promotion in Bottle Feeding", Leah Margulies, in PAG Bulletin, Vol V, nos. 3-4 (1977), pp. 73-83. Traces the theory and practice of marketing, in the specific case of baby foods; expansion into the Third World and current practice of promotion. Good reference.

(2) "Nestle case will not continue, but dispute goes on Information for the Press N.5, December 1976, SAFE Berne, Switzerland. Citation from an unofficial English Translation of the Court's written opinion (from the original German).

Baby Foods Bibliography

Major works/articles

Bottle Babies, a guide to the baby foods issue, Jane Cottingham, ISIS Switzerland, March 1976, revised December 1976. English, French and German. An assemblage of statements and facts on the medical, marketing and sociopolitical aspects of the case. Includes a section on the action undertaken in industrialized countries and substantial resources. From ISIS, CP. 301, 1227 Carouge/Geneva Switzerland, US $ 3.00 per copy.

Bottle Babies, colour film, 16 mm., 30 minutes. English French or German soundtrack. A documentary, filmed mainly in Kenya on the consequences of using commercial baby foods in the Third World. Available from usual film distributors or involved action groups. Further details from the maker, Peter Krieg, Schillerstrasse 52, D-78 FREIBOURG Federal Republic of Germany.

The Baby Killer, Mike Muller, published by War on Want, 467 Caledonian Road, London N.7, England. The original investigation into the promotion and sale of powdered baby milks in the Third World. Available in French, German, Italian and Spanish from: Arbeitsgruppe Dritte Welt, Postfach 1007, 3001 Bern, Switzerland or Declaration de Berne, CP. 97, Lausanne 9, Switzerland.

"The baby food controversy: three years later", Jane Cottingham, in Ideas and Action N. 117, 1977/5, Food and Agriculture Organization/Action for Development, via delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy. An up-date on the action and developments in the whole issue since the Swiss court case. Emphasis on lack of restrictions on companies, and discussion of their "codes of ethics".

"Exporting Infant Malnutrition", Leah Margulies, in Health Right, Vol. Ill, Issue 2 Spring 1977, New York, USA. Gives a thorough overview of the whole problem, with resources in the USA, and a look at how the same mechanisms are used in the USA.

"The Bottle Baby Scandal", Barbara Garson, in Mother Jones, December 1977. Mother Jones, 1255 Portland Place, Boulder, Colorado 80302, USA. Subtitled "milking the Third World for all it's worth" this article again gives a thorough overview citing many concrete examples, and using interviews with United Nations officials and Leah Margulies from ICCR.

The Promotion of Bottle Feeding by Multinational Corporations: how advertising and the health professions have contributed, Ted Greiner, Cornell International Nutrition Monograph Series N.2 (1975), Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 14853, USA. 82 pages. The results of extremely solid research into the policies of a number of leading manufacturers of commercial formulas. Looks in particular at the advertising messages aimed at the medical profession, and the policy of the companies in promoting their products. Reproduces many relevant advertisements from publications in developing countries directed toward the lay public, and appearing in journals for health professionals. Also lists 19 companies with details of brand names, types of infant food products, most active sales areas with percentages, and additional comments. An invaluable resource for anyone taking action or doing further study into the subject.

Campaign Information

INFACT - Infant Formula Action Coalition. 1701 University Avenue, S.E., Minneapolis, Minn. 55414, USA. This is the national coordinating group for actions on the baby food issue, including the Nestle boycott. They produce a quarterly newspaper giving information about current campaigns, both national and international and topical articles. See particularly "Sexism and Infant Formula" by Robin Jurs and Jean Rice, INFACT newsletter. Winter 1978, which looks at the myth that bottle feeding liberates women (pushed by industry).

INFACT Update, March 1978, from above, gives latest news on action in the USA, including information about the meetings with Nestle. Good informational resource.
Statements of the Sisters of the Precious Blood and Bristol Meyers Company on Infant Formula Marketing Practices Overseas, January 1978. Gives background to the USA court case, and considerable information about the activities of the Bristol Myers Company. Available from: Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, (ICCR), Infant Formula Campaign, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10027, USA.

NOTE: addresses of contact/campaign groups in other countries are available from ISIS

Breast feeding

"Women's Liberation and Breast Feeding", Elisabet Helsins, in Environmental Child Health, October 1975, London. A feminist viewpoint on a woman's right to reproduce or not and to feed her child as she wishes without male dominated consumer influences. Sees breast feeding as sister solidarity and an aspect of women's reproductive culture. From: ECH, 2a Drayson Mews, London W.8. England. This whole issue deals with different aspects of breast-feeding, especially in developing countries.

"Breast feeding: a political issue for women", in Isis Bulletin N.2 (October 1976). Looks at the class aspects involved in breast versus bottle feeding, and the need in any context to consider breast feeding as a totally normal function for which society should make provision. From: Isis in Switzerland.

"In Praise of Breast Feeding", Sally Wendkos Olds, in Ms, USA, April 1973. Describes psychological pressures against breast feeding and how to overcome these ways of combining breast feeding with working.

For specific literature on the art of breast feeding, practical guides, etc. contact:

La Leche League International, 9616 Minneapolis Avenue, Franklin Park, III. 60131, USA. This is a non-sectarian, nonprofit organization dedicated to educating women about breastfeeding. Publishes many brochures, pamphlets and books, in several languages.

Isis also has a growing stock of references and resources on the practical aspects of breast feeding, especially in language^ other than English. We also have names of groups in different countries. Write to Isis Switzerland or Roma.