Ban on infant formula ads in the Philippines over-turned
Posted
August 29, 2006 at
4:22 am by
Jessica
As an infant feeding, pro-choice advocate I think this is great news.
Apparently, 90% of Philippine women currently formula feed their babies, and although that is a pitiful statistic, education is the key here, not prohibition of infant formula. The Philippines also suffer from one of the worst infant mortality rates, much of it blamed on formula use which has been blamed for diarrhea caused deaths. On the other hand, America also has one of the worst infant mortality rates, and depending on who you ask, a plethora of causes are cited, depending on that persons particular agenda. I have heard the large infant mortality rate in the U.S. being blamed on formula as well, and it just isn’t true.
In industrialized nations, a woman ought to be allowed to decide whether or not to use her body to nourish her babies or use an acceptable alternative. With both methods, education and medical monitoring should be a part of that baby’s health care. If fresh water is not available to properly mix formula (the number one reason for diarrhea related illness in the third world in infants fed formula), then the government should be educating women on that fact, not instituting infant formula prohibition. Granted, some countries populations cannot support the cost of infant formula, coupled with unclean water, but those populations have major issues outside of formula feeding, and unfortunately, as in HIV infected women, formula is the better option, just not a realistic one. That’s unfortunate, but not the fault of formula itself, but rather the conseqeuence of a poor and uneducated society.
Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Foreign Correspondent
Manila, Philippines (AHN) - Manufacturers of infant formula scored a major court victory Wednesday when the Philippine Supreme Court ordered the government to stop its absolute ban on the promotion and advertisement of breast milk substitutes.The high tribunal issued a two-page resolution issuing a temporary restraining order against the ban.
The TRO is “effective immediately and continuing until further orders from this court prohibiting and enjoining the respondents from implementing Administrative Order 2006-012 or the Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of Executive Order 51 or the Milk Code.”
But the petitioners must post a $10,000 bond within five days or the TRO will be lifted.
In May 16, the Palace issued the executive order and said breast milk substitutes or infant formulas “endanger the lives of infants by inadvertently misinforming mothers on their children’s health.”
EO 51 revises the Milk Code which regulates the use of infant formula. Read the rest…
In another part of the world, the world health organization (WHO) has recently revised their infant formula advertisement policies in Africa that restrict formula companies from misrepresenting the product and for health officials to represent formula companies. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
Tags: babies, baby, breastfeeding, formula-feeding, infant-formula, infant-mortality-rates |
11 Responses to “Ban on infant formula ads in the Philippines over-turned”
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1. Amanda said:
November 7, 2007 @ 5:54 pm
This was just sick! You agree?! Have you even read about what goes on in the Philippines, or did you just read an article about how the ban was overturned? If you actually read into the subject you would have found out that man formula feeding compaines, Nestle being the worst, are pushing formula onto mothers. The reason they banned the advertisements was because the formula industries were outright lying to the mothers. Some of the advertisements went so far as to say “Is your baby smiling? Then hes ready for cereal!”
To borrow from your text: “That’s unfortunate, but not the fault of formula itself, but rather the conseqeuence of a poor and uneducated society.”
You’re right about one thing, a poor uneducated society. These women have no idea what the pros or cons are of either breastfeeding or formula feeding, then they see these ads telling them to formula feed. Furthermore, these companies actually give them formula for free. They supply them with formula just long enough for their milk to dry up and then they cut them off. Now it’s up to the Mommy to buy formula, but how can a poor uneducated women go about doing that?
As a result babies in these third world countries suffer and even starve because these companies aggressively force their products onto these mothers.
Saying that you’re happy they took the ban off would be like saying you’re happy if they lifted the ban off of the advertisement of cigarettes here. Both can be potentially dangerous and letal, yet it’s okay for someone to push formula onto a baby but not okay for them to push cigarettes onto someone.
Maybe you should look up the boycott of Nestle and other related articles and see why there was a ban on advertisement there. Isn’t it supposed to be a mother’s decision to choose whether or not to breastfeed or formula feed.
2. Jessica said:
November 8, 2007 @ 11:07 am
3. waisum ng said:
November 13, 2007 @ 6:13 pm
These companies are unscrupulously earning their profit at the cost of the health of these third world country babies, whose mothers, unfortunately, are not priviledged enough to have accurate information about breastfeeding due to the lack of resource/funding of the government. When the broad education about the benefit of breastfeeding is not feasible in the immediate future, the question of such “commercial freedom” is second to the health and wellbeing of these newborns. Moreever, these companies bribed the health workers (perhaps it is not well documented and the evidence have not been organized in a proper manner), it is a prevalent practice in phillipines. (you might challenge me on this, but you cannot disprove the nonexistence of such act as well) You are welcome to write any refute and I will follow you to the end on this debate.
4. waisum ng said:
November 13, 2007 @ 6:14 pm
Also, as a note, by attacking one point of the opponenet does not render his/her argument weaker, nor does it make your argument stronger.
5. Amanda said:
November 14, 2007 @ 5:25 pm
I didn’t equate the two, I merely said both can be dangerous and lethal. They are! Even if you’re all for formula, the facts are that babies die from formula. It may be the companies fault for mishandling the product and causing product recall. It may even be the mothers fault for mixing the formula wrong. In the end it comes down to: babies die from formula. That’s not to say every baby does, but then again not every body dies from cigarettes.
That wasn’t even the point of what I was saying. I was comparing the agressiveness of both product advertisement and the chance of them being dangerous. If you see a cigarette add in a teenager magazine you would be appalled. How dare they advertise something that is dangerous or that you may not agree with, in such a manner, to someone who is not as educated. This is the same thing the formula companies are doing there.
Sure, we see the nice adds here about a mommy holding her baby and them saying something along the lines of, “Our formula is easier to digest and better on the stomach…” That’s all fine, nothing to aggressive. But the advertisements there are basically saying, if you breastfeed then your poor. Or, your baby is better off on formula. They’re pushing the mother to do something dangerous.
You may say, but formula isn’t dangerous. In an uneducated person’s hands where there is limited and dirty water supply, it can be. I wish you would have read the rest of my post where I talked about their advertisement policies, and the way they only give their product to the moms until their milk dries up. I understand you’re all for formula, but in this case people like Neste should be stopped or toned down.
6. Allison said:
November 15, 2007 @ 5:06 pm
Amanda, I think you and your scare tactics should be stopped or toned down. I feel that I am educated and definitely financially secure, but due to genetic issues, myself, my sister, and our mother are were all unable to produce enough milk to exclusively breast feed our babies. There simply was not enough and the babies were starving. Believe me, I tried everything, even herbal Fenugreek to increase milk supply. It just didn’t work. So does that make me poor or uneducated? Like my breasts were not ’smart’ enough to produce milk?
And let me tell you, my kids are healthy as can be. No major illnesses, no chronic earaches (that are commonly blamed on formula), no food allergies, no respiratory issues. I can’t believe you’re on here implying that Formula is poison.
Besides, even educated wealthy women who breastfeed can do damage to their children through breastfeeding. They could be taking prescription meds that a doctor swears could be safe for a baby, that turn out to not be safe after all.
Maybe you should try compassion and research before you go on implying how formula-feeders are the new wave of child-abusers.
How’s the weather up there on your high horse, honey?
7. Amanda said:
November 16, 2007 @ 10:18 pm
Wow … I read my posts over again and no where did I see where I said the following: you need to make an excuse for formula feeding, formula feeders are child abusers, babies who formula feed are unhealthy, and that you were uneducated for formula feeding.
I thought I was talking to someone intelligent. You obviously just take things to offense and twist them until your content. Here let me spell it out for you, I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE WOMEN IN THE PHILIPPINES. I was obviously talking about your article, which had to do with advertisement bans in the Philippines. Some women there are uneducated. Most don’t get proper schooling, if at all, and most don’t know anything about breastfeeding and nutrition.
Just look up the world wide ban on Nestle and their advertisement policies in the Philippines. I know it’s suprising to learn that major corperations are actually forcefully selling their product for a quick buck.
I was only stating the facts. Everyone, even formula feeders, recognize that breast is the best. I understand that some people can’t breastfeed, and that’s fine. It’s not the mother’s fault (usually) and it’s not the baby’s fault, yet millions of babies die every year from a product that is marketed as safe for babies. There are recalls every year on formula, which results in atleast a few infant deaths. There are mothers out there who don’t know, or even sometimes care, that they are improperly using the product.
The worst part of it all is that companies are profiting. So while Nestle is pushing their formula and cereal on “uneducated” mothers in the Philippines and making millions, innocent babies are dying or becoming ill. Maybe if the advertisements were toned down and there were less products being sold then the companies would spend more time in the lab trying to perfect their product. Fromula is missing over a hundred ingredients that are found in breastmilk. Maybe instead of putting their money toward advertising they can try to cause less deaths.
8. prescott said:
November 16, 2007 @ 10:26 pm
[quote comment="122977"]I thought I was talking to someone intelligent…I was obviously talking about your article, which had to do with advertisement bans in the Philippines.[/quote]
The commenter you are replying to is not the author of the blog post. (Hence the use of the name “Allison” instead of “Jessica”)
9. Allison said:
November 17, 2007 @ 12:56 pm
[quote comment="122977"]Wow … I read my posts over again and no where did I see where I said the following: you need to make an excuse for formula feeding, formula feeders are child abusers, babies who formula feed are unhealthy, and that you were uneducated for formula feeding.
[/quote]
Maybe you need to re-read your posts, AGAIN. Maybe I’m off, here, but Post #5 1st paragraph, you said
“the facts are that babies die from formula”.
Are you implying that babies on formula get in more car accidents tham BF’d babies, or are you saying that they become so unhealthy from formula that they die……..
Forget being uneducated.
Maybe the fact that breastfeeding take practice, and a baby can sense when a mom is stressed, and that a happy un-stressed mom can care for her baby in a loving way is their reason.
Maybe they realized that to start breast feeding is very painful to the breasts and nipples is their reason.
Maybe they have to formula feed so they can go to work. Or they CHOOSE to work.
And I’m not “taking things to offense and twisting them until I’m content”. I’m just standing up for mothers everywhere who are doing the best that they can. I swear, people like you make the women’s movement take a step back, everytime we judge other moms’ decisions on how to raise their kids! I’m sure if it weren’t formula, you’d bash moms for using disposable diapers, pacifiers, plastic bottles, baby walkers, or anything else that doesn’t fit into a perfect Martha Stewart world. Who knows where you and your types will stop…..
I don’t care what tactics you imply that the companies use. These women have a choice. They choose formula. Which is worse, choosing to abort their babies or choosing to formula feed?
Apparently, after re-reading your posts, I get the feeling that you equate the two…..
10. Amanda said:
November 18, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
Maybe you should read up on formula relaed deaths first. Here is a credible website to do just that:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=15121986&query_hl=8&itool=pubmed_docsum
If you don’t want to read it let me just take out an excerpt from it: “…promoting breastfeeding has the potential to save or delay approximately 720 postneonatal deaths in the United States each year.”
You read correctly, 720 deaths. Formula also cause 1.5 million deaths a year world wide.
I wasn’t judging anyone, I was making a point about the way formula COMPANIES were aggressivley advertising to uneducated mothers. You’re totally missing the point of my post. It’s the formula companies I have a problem with. They don’t care about their product or the babies they only care about the dollar. If they cared then they would make formula better and cause less deaths. Not to mention they would watch what they were putting in their product so it didn’t have to be recalled atleast once a year. I can’t even name off hand another product that has been recalled as much as formula and not taken off the shelf. It doesn’t even have to be food related.
I don’t even want to argue about whats better. All I’m saying is that the companies should let the mothers there do exactly what you’re all for “CHOOSE”. Don’t tell me that if you saw a commercial saying how great breastmilk is and that if you don’t do it then your child won’t get the right nutrients, that you wouldn’t be running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. If the companies only cared about the children then why are they spending millions of dollars on trying to make people use their product.
11. Jessica said:
November 19, 2007 @ 6:18 pm
LOL. That’s not even a real statistic, “Promoting breastfeeding has the “POTENTIAL” to save or dleay approximately 720 postneonatal deaths?”
Spin. Spin. Spin.
[quote comment="123944"]You read correctly, 720 deaths.[/quote]
Actually, I think you’re the one that misread that.
[quote comment="123944"]Formula also cause 1.5 million deaths a year world wide.[/quote]
Ugh. More rhetoric.
That’s a pretty bold accusation considering it’s a fly by night statement without any proof of causation. Really. Dig a little deeper than the sound bites. This is a quote that has never been able to be substantiated. The actual quote that you’re referring to goes something like this, ‘1.5 million babies have died from being with-held from breastmilk’.
This includes babies whose mothers have died, it includes babies that were given watered down formula or starved to death and babies in third world countries.