Report by WHO and UNICEF : How Marketing Influences Decisions of Parents on Infant Feeding / Tom McDermott

"From the moment you tell the world you are having a baby 

and start looking for information online 

You’re on the radar of formula milk marketing executives

They’re logging you on their future sales spreadsheet 

Thinking up ways to take advantage of your fears and insecurities 

You have a target on your back 

Nothing will stop them from reaching you 

And it’s not just one formula milk company 

It’s all of them Spinning the truth about what’s in their products 

Hiding behind people you trust online and in health care settings 

Showing up wherever you turn for advice 

Piling on pressure to buy their products 

At a time when what you really need Is some time to yourself 

To just be"  

From the introduction to the report

This joint report by UNICEF and WHO with funds from the Gates Foundation seems to mark an important point in recent developments on the International Code on Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.  It was particularly nice to see that the two agencies dedicated the report to the late Peter Salama.  

Despite fears by many that support by UNICEF and WHO for implementation of the Code was fading, the report makes clear that the two agencies are still very much in the fight.  Let's hope so.

Earlier this week Janet Nelson alerted us to a call by IBFAN to halt a Gates-funded study using commercial breastmilk substitutes in Guinea-Bissau and Uganda to determine whether they might help prevent wasting and stunting.  IBFAN argues that whatever the good objectives of such a study might be, they end up allowing further expansion of marketing of substitutes in poor countries.  

Last September Ellen Tolmie sent us a PassBlue article illustrating how marketers of substitutes are using fears of COVID as a wedge in countries like Cambodia.

In November 2020 IBFAN joined many public health experts in calling on the international community to 'rethink' the decision taken by the 73rd World Health Assembly to 'sunset' the requirements for reporting on implementation of the Code by 2030.  Richard Jolly, Kul Gautam, and the late Peter Greaves joined that call.  See also Peter Greaves' article at the time 'Why the Politics of Breastfeeding Matter'