Photo by nerissa’s ring | CC BY 2.0
The 1974 article titled The Baby Killer blew the lid off the Nestle bottle formula scandal. (1) Companies like Nestle used women in nurses uniforms to sell their baby formula. They provided free samples to mothers who would use the formula. These women would then find their breasts had stopped giving milk after a month of using the infant formula. Now they were hooked and needed to pay for the formula yet the family income in many cases was only $7 a week. What unfolded was a tragedy: from mixing the baby water with unsafe water sources to not being able to afford the expensive baby formula and diluting it to make it last longer. The result was deaths of babies in the millions, malnourished babies with stunted growth condemned to a lifetime of physical and mental disability.
A stunning example of free-market murder feeding the worlds children to a $11.5 billion industry.
A million infant deaths a year are blamed on a reliance of infant formula rather than breastfeeding. (2)
The recent attempt by the United States to overturn 40 years of World Health Organisation consensus that breast feeding is universally better for babies is a prime example of the desperation of United States capital and how entwined corporate interest has become within the government.
American officials first sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding”. When that failed…