GENEVA, Feb 23, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - The United Nations slammed baby formula
makers Wednesday for "unethical" marketing strategies, accusing them of
aggressively targeting expecting parents and health workers and putting
shareholder interests before children's health.

  It is widely recognised that breastfeeding carries huge health benefits.

  But countries' failure to crack down on the marketing of breast milk
substitutes means far too many children are still being reared on formula,
the World Health Organization and the UN children's agency Unicef warned, in
a new report.

  It found that the $55-billion formula milk industry systematically deploys
aggressive marketing strategies, spending up to $5 billion a year to sway
parents' decisions on how to feed their infants.

  "This report shows very clearly that formula milk marketing remains
unacceptably pervasive, misleading and aggressive," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

  Unicef chief Catherine Russell called for "robust policies, legislation and
investments in breastfeeding to ensure that women are protected from
unethical marketing practices".

  Experts have long extolled the health benefits of breastfeeding, saying
that breast-fed children are healthier, perform better on intelligence tests
and are less likely to be overweight or suffer from diabetes later in life.

  Women who breastfeed also have a reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancer,
research shows.

  - 'Marketing is everywhere' -

  But despite the known benefits, only 44 percent of babies under the age of
six months are exclusively breastfed, as recommended by the WHO and Unicef.

  And while global breastfeeding rates have increased little in the past two
decades, the sale of formula milk has more than doubled over the same period,
Wednesday's report said.

  Lead report author Nigel Rollins, of the WHO's maternal, newborn, child and
adolescent health division, blamed the industry's aggressive marketing
practices. "We see marketing everywhere," he told AFP, pointing to targeted
digital messaging, promotional gifts to new parents, and even efforts to turn
health professionals into a "conduit for messages about formula".

  The report, which surveyed 8,500 parents and pregnant women and 300 health
workers across eight countries in various regions of the world, found that
more than half of parents and pregnant women said they had been targeted with
formula marketing.

  In Britain, 84 percent of all women surveyed said they had been exposed to
such marketing, while a full 97 percent in China had, "increasing their
likelihood of choosing formula feeding," the UN agencies said.

  - Pseudoscience -

  Rollins pointed to how companies use pseudoscience to suggest that breast
milk is not enough on its own or that formula does a better job of helping
babies to sleep through the night.

   "Children or babies crying, not sleeping, are very worrisome to parents,
and the industry uses those moments to say our product is the solution for
your problem," he said.

  Wednesday's report voiced particular concern about marketing targeting of
health care professionals with free samples, promotional gifts, research
grants, and paid conferences.

  Over a third of the women surveyed said a health worker had recommended a
specific brand of formula to them, it found.

  Rollins stressed the goal was not to clear store shelves of formula,
acknowledging that breast feeding is not an option for all parents.

  But he insisted far more needed to be done to ensure adherence to an
international code of conduct adopted by the World Health Assembly back in
1981, demanding that formula not be marketed or distributed in a way that
interferes with the promotion of breastfeeding.

  Wednesday's report did not name specific companies, painting the problem as
an industry-wide issue.

  Nestle, the world's biggest formula maker, meanwhile insisted to AFP that
it was "highly compliant with the WHO Code".

  The Switzerland-based company pointed out that it was "voluntarily stopping
promoting formula for infants 0-6 months across the world by year end",
including in the United States, Canada and Japan, countries that have no
regulation on the issue.

  Nestle said it supported "the adoption of laws on marketing of infant
formula in all countries", adding that it was "ready to work with WHO, Unicef
and others to make this happen".