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BABY MILK
ACTION BRIEFING MARCH 1998
Contents
Conversations
with companies:
- Before
starting a conversation, find out who you are talking
to and who they may be working for - if necessary ask
detailed questions. There are PR codes of practice which
forbid deception and it is very important to know
when
agents try to do this.
-
If your
group has decided that only one person should talk
to companies, pass the call on to that person. If
they are not available tell the caller that it is
not a convenient time and arrange another time.
-
Explain
that you have a responsibility to the network to ensure
that you are not misquoted. You can phrase this in
a way to convey that you both need protection.
-
Remember
that it is in companiesÕ interest to make you feel
friendly and relaxed. They might even use these ÔchatsÕ
to tell others that they are on good terms with you
and that you work closely together.
-
You are
within your rights to tape all your own phone calls.
But even if you donÕt do this, make a written Ônote
for the recordÕ in your diary - on your computer wherever
- of every conversation with PR or companies. Send
the note to the company. If they donÕt challenge your
record - and even if they do - the note is valid evidence.
-
Unless
you absolutely trust the person, do not say anything
that is not already in the public record. Assume that
everything you say will be taped.
-
Send reports
of these interactions - however brief - to the network.
In Europe, send them to G
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The
Guidelines agreed at the IBFAN European meeting
in Luxembourg in March 1996 state that all meetings
with the baby food industry must have:
-
an agreed agenda (ie there must be a purpose);
-
an IBFAN representative never goes alone;
-
the meeting is Ôon the recordÕ ie, taped
or carefully noted.
-
the Ônotes for the recordÕ are sent to IBFAN
Geneva
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Written
material:
-
assume
that everything you write might be read by
companies.
-
be very
careful with what you throw away - if possible buy
a shredder publish only when you have solid
(written) evidence to support - but donÕt be afraid
to publish when you have this. It is vital that we
make things public if we can - the world will be a
far more dangerous place if we are silenced.
-
keep careful
notes of any harassment by companies and inform the
Network
-
keep a
careful notes of how companies respond to the BTR
and national reports and inform the Network.
Publicising
monitoring reports:
-
explain
that companies have a responsibility for monitoring
their activities - IBFANÕs monitoring is an audit
to check if they have fulfilled their obligations.
We have limited resources and what we find can only
be the tip of the iceberg
-
explain
that our monitoring is invariably too late to stop
the actual violations in question - the damage has
invariably be done.
-
explain
that the function of monitoring is to identify problems,
arrive at long term solutions such as legislation
and to raise awareness.
-
emphasize
the way companies undermine legislation. We now have
many examples - most recently Russia, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka, India ... but many more besides.
Some
backgroung examples:
1 General
Synod of the Church of England and BTR launch July/August
1994
At the General
Synod meeting just before the BTR 1994 launch, Nestle
mounted a display and distributed papers which contained
numerous libelous and incorrect statements about Baby
Milk Action, IBFAN, UNICEF, the Catholic Institute for
International Relations (CIIR) and others. The display
included a large poster which included the following
text :
If you
believe that giving away free or subsidized supplies
stops a mother breastfeeding so that her baby is put
at risk, what would you do if you located some supplies
which should not be there?
Do you
keep the information to yourself, hoarding it for a
long time in order to publish it as propaganda and if
you do what happens in the meantime? .....
The need
for trust can be seen in the IBFAN Monitoring manual
(1993). This requires its users to employ subterfuge,
to discourage objectivity by seeking out those Òwho
share IBFANÕs viewsÓ and Òto find out who to avoid.Ó
Users are also instructed to monitor according to Òwhat
IBFAN thinks should be in the Code but recognizes is
not.Ó
The last quotation
was taken from an early draft of the monitoring protocol
used in 1993. It was criticized by all of us at the time
and did not appear in the final draft. Nevertheless, its
use in this context was extremely damaging. Baby Milk
Action sent a 9-page lawyerÕs letter to NestlŽ straight
away outlining many of the inaccuracies. We knew that
the aim of the poster was to influence the Church at this
critical moment and to ensure that the boycott was lifted.
What happened afterwards did not concern them. Many Synod
members - unused to such deviousness - saw NestleÕs efforts
as a sign that they were genuinely concerned to rectify
mistakes. They became confused and the vote on the boycott
was lost by a narrow margin.
Following
the launch of Breaking the Rules 1994 companies tried
hard to discredit us once again. They responded in detail
to the violations, with charts, rebuttals and numerous
brochures which claimed that the report was full of errors.
The accusations that we held onto information for PR purposes
continued. Companies shifted the blame on to us by implying
that:
-
it was
our role - not theirs - to monitor their practices;
-
that the
only problems were the ones we found;
-
that they
would be happy to correct them if it were not for
the fact that they were out of date by the time they
heard about them;
-
that we
were not at all serious in our concerns and were only
interested in expanding the scope of the Code to cereals
etc so that we could continue the fight!
The Synod vote
was an important victory for NestlŽ and we have since
heard (from a NestlŽ employee) that champagne corks were
hitting the ceiling at the UK HQ. We did not let the matter
drop. We circulated the LawyerÕs letter to many important
agencies and put considerable effort into countering the
allegations. It was important that agencies recognized
the difficulty of getting to the truth and our need to
protect the confidentialities of health workers who are
brave enough to Ôblow the whistle.Õ
We learned
a great deal from the whole episode and many of our partner
NGOs now have a much better understanding of how companies
work and to what lengths they are prepared to go to stop
criticism. BTR 94 was well received and continues to be
valued. The IGBM was born as a result of it.
Nevertheless,
for some IBFAN groups, the BTR and the high profile of
the Boycott, is problematic, and itÕs important that we
address this honestly. We are all working in a very different
climate from the one that existed 10 or 15 years ago and
the millions of $$ that companies have spent wooing NGOs
has had its effect. Many of our traditional partners -
and even the IBFAN group in the US - have accepted the
industry argument that it is better to work in collaboration
with companies than to challenge them in a confrontational
way.
In our anxiousness
to counter the industry attack on our good name, misunderstandings
occurred within IBFAN about how much background data we
- as UK publishers of the BTR 94 - should release, and
whether this put in a difficult position. We sent the
BTR to all the companies after the publication and when
they asked for more data we provided them with a list
of the places which had received free supplies. We gave
away nothing which was not - we thought - already agreed
by monitors to be on public record. However, this was
already too much - some of the towns had only one small
clinic and companies were able to identify health workers,
to harass them and even to get letters which looked like
denials. Even before they had received their own copies
of the report, monitors received visits from companies
who exaggerated what had been printed, and tried to cause
divisions in the network. One midwife issued a letter
complaining that unlike the companies, IBFAN never gave
her any posters.
2 Breaking
the Rules 1998
With BTR 1998
it should be possible to avoid these problems. Detailed
questions can be referred to the Regional Coordinators,
who will also be able to deal with the reporting of violations.
However, itÕs important that we share our concerns and
contact each other quickly if we hear anything that worries
us.
The Dutch baby
food industry has contacted WEMOS on numerous occasions
trying to stop us publishing the BTR. In January it issued
a feeble threat that if we published the report they would
go to the press themselves. In fact they issued two press
releases - one on 12 January and one on 11 February which
try to suggest that IBFANÕs purpose is not for better
compliance but to broaden the scope to other products.
They also suggest that we did not publish the report at
the Executive Board meeting because WHO suggested we should
Òopen a dialogueÓ instead and that we agreed with this.
This is of course not true. We delayed the report for
a number of reasons, partly because some national reports
were not ready and partly because we felt that it was
inappropriate to publish the report while the elections
for Director General were happening.
4 1997 IGBM
IBFAN members
are aware of the formation of IGBM and the impact this
has had. Despite UNICEFÕs speedy statement of support,
Synod endorsement in July 1997 and its acceptance for
publication in the British Medical Journal, the industry
has consistently tried to denigrate this report. Once
again, by analysing their responses and maintaining a
firm stand, confidence in the professionalism of IGBM
and in IBFANÕs work has increased. See Baby Milk Action
Briefing Paper, How the Baby Food industry is orchestrating
the attack on Cracking the Code
5 Campaign
for Ethical Action
Baby Milk
Action spends some time researching violations, some of
which appear in the Campaign for Ethical Marketing
sheets. We publicise violations only when we are confident
of our facts. We do not contact companies in every case,
because we already have experience of the way they will
respond to certain types of violation. However we do contact
them about new types of violations, for example, to identify
whether the violation has been generated by a third party
and whether the manufacturer is aware of it. (Of course
it is still the manufacturerÕs responsibility to stop
it.) Publicising the cases has prompted our supporters
and other NGOs to write letters to the companies and this
has definitely stirred them into action. We have compiled
a booklet, The Tip of the Iceberg, which analyzes
the first six months of the project and includes the company
responses. (See also our Home Page.)
6 Unexpected
phone calls from companies:
IBFAN has
some Guidelines for meetings with the baby food industry
(see Page 1), but the issue of phone calls from companies
or their PR agents remains a problem. Our lawyer has given
us the following advice:
There
is nothing wrong in taping phone conversations in the
UK, so long as the conversation is your own, ie not
tapping. So, taping not tapping! It is usual now when
you contact large organisations by phone that you hear
a message on the voice mail system before they connect
you to the effect that they record calls. There is an
ethos developing around the informing of the other party
that you are taping the conversation. Lawyers have to
inform, but we are allowed not to if we think there
is good reason to think the other party will refuse
to talk and there is an overwhelming justification.
I would suggest you simply inform the other party in
all relevant calls that the conversation "may" be recorded.
It may
be that taping is illegal in some countries, so IBFAN
groups should find out if this is the case in their
own country. The issue of admissibility [in a court
of law] is irrelevant. In England & Wales, tapes are
becoming more and more admissible. But even if they
are not admissible in themselves, to have evidence and
to be able to back it up by saying that you wrote a
note after listening to the recording immediately after
the conversation significantly strengthens the evidence.
For more information
contact:
Patti Rundall
and Mike Brady,
Baby Milk
Action, 23 St. AndrewÕs St., Cambridge, CB2 3AX
Tel: + 44 1223
464420 Fax: + 44 1223 464417
e-mail: babymilkacti@gn.apc.org
Home Page:
http://www.gn.apc.org/babymilk contents
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