"Screw the nation's health, where's the money?"

[unixronin]

The baby-formula industry had a Health & Human Services Department campaign to encourage breast-feeding for health reasons suppressed, because it might cut into their profits.

Officials met with dozens of focus groups before concluding that the best way to influence mothers was to delineate in graphic terms the risks of not breast-feeding, an approach in keeping with edgy Ad Council campaigns on smoking, seat belt usage and drunken driving.  For example, an ad portraying a nipple-tipped insulin bottle said, "Babies who aren't breast-fed are 40 percent more likely to suffer Type 1 diabetes."

Gina Ciagne, the office's public affairs specialist for the campaign, said, "We were ready to go with our risk-based campaign - making breast-feeding a real public health issue - when the formula companies learned about it and came in to complain.  Before long, we were told we had to water things down, get rid of the hard-hitting ads and generally make sure we didn't somehow offend."

Oh, well, hell, let's just remove all limits on tobacco advertising and let companies start putting lead back in paint and gasoline while we're at it, huh?  After all, it's only health at stake.  What does that matter compared to profit?

Comments

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

The baby-formula industry had a Health & Human Services Department campaign to encourage breast-feeding for health reasons suppressed,

Toned down. Not suppressed.

This is one of those cases where listening to the 2 advocate sides yelling (and screaming how the other guys are evil, and are TRYING TO KILL BAAABBBBYYYEEEEEEES!!!) misses the big picture, IMO.

Having seen some of those "FORMULA IS EVIL" - and that's exactly what the (original) PSAs were about - it's certainly not an understatement of the program - they were shocking in their over-the-topness.

A couple of my friends have told me about how uncomfortable that program was, implying that if you didn't breastfeed, you were an unfit mother. They certainly were afraid of that opinion - and the "Child Protective Services" showing up and removing their baby!

Do you ever read NHS Blogdoc? (http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/) One of the ... most interesting .. and saddest arguments blows up there from time to time, pitting the good doctor - who I'm sure means the very best - against the midwives, who I also think mean the very best and it gets nasty.

I've had 2 grandmothers killed by idiot doctors. I have no special reverence for an MD, by itself. They ordered my mother not under, any circumstances, to breast-fed my sister, who had had problems at birth. Spent weeks trying to find the "right" formual for her, and slapped each other on the back and thought they were geniuses when she put on a pound in a week. (Mom had started breastfeeding her and lying to them).

But I've also seen friends of mine unable to breast-feed, (one due to surgery, one do to a .. something wrong in the milk production) in the pendulum swing back to "natural" - accused of the most vile hatred toward their child by the hospital lactation director.

I think you've been sucked in by the intented direction of this story - which is "Anything Big Business Does Is Evil". I'm seeing this more and more, and quite frankly, it concerns me. (Not you getting sucked in, but the meme, which is the Accepted Journalistic Paradigm, thus evidence to the contrary Need Not Concern Us.)

To re-disclaim, I don't mean to say that big biz doesn't look out for itself. Look for angles. But, dammit, the reflective demonization of anything they do, even when they're right is destructive, and counterproductive.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

When a public health campaign is "toned down" to the point where it is completely ineffective, it has to all practical purposes been suppressed.