Spilled corporate milk in the Philippines

By Cher S Jimenez - Asia times Online

MANILA - United Nations agencies, Philippine health authorities and multinational milk companies are in a heated legal battle for the hearts, minds and breast-feeding habits of Filipino mothers. How the Philippine Supreme Court finally decides the case will set an important regional precedent adjudicating developing-world public-health concerns up against developed-world corporate profits.

Infant milk formula is among the top three consumer products in the Philippines. Last July, the Philippine
Health Department imposed a ban on the advertisement and promotion of breast-milk substitutes.
Multinational milk companies responded by requesting a temporary restraining order on the policy´s implementation and have challenged the constitutionality of the move in a complaint against the Health Department now being heard by the Supreme Court.

The case is being widely viewed as a crucial test of corporate social responsibility toward developing-country consumers. At issue is the United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF) recommendation that mothers should breast-feed their newborns exclusively for the first six months and continue to breast-feed for two years or more with appropriate complementary solid foods.

UNICEF also cites scientific studies that found that bottle-fed infants in disease-ridden and unhygienic conditions are between six and 25 times as likely to die of diarrhea and four times as likely to die of
pneumonia as breast-fed infants - statistics based on the disastrous public-health experiences witnessed in some poor African countries where strong marketing campaigns persuaded mothers to opt for infant formula over breast-feeding...

See the full article at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IG25Ae02.html

Read also: Breast-feeding: A Philippine battleground, by Carlos H. Conde, at:http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/17/news/phils.php