A reminder that Nestle got third world women hooked on formula by lying about it and giving away free samples (once you stop breastfeeding your child, you stop producing milk). They did this in poverty stricken countries where mothers didn't have access to potable water with which to prepare the milk.
Millions of babies died from illness and from malnutrition (when the mothers could no longer afford to buy formula) as a direct result of Nestle's greed.
Further proof that the US federal government now exists mainly to defend domestic corporate interests.
Climate change -- just like the breastfeeding resolution -- is the other example of corporate greed corrupting the government to the detriment of science, the environment and public health.
The U.S.A. is now literally a poster child for WHY Citizen's United and Unlimited Capitalism or Unfettered Capitalism is probably just as damaging (if not more so) than socialism/communism. I lean a little libertarian-socialist or where I'd love to see M4A, but more personal freedom.
Like legalize all drugs, and only incarcerate people who've committed violent crimes: Rape, Murder, Gunpoint robberies, Assault, etc... Everything else gets an ankle bracelet and fines.
I feel we'd also benefit from more Worker Coops. But I come at it from an incremental point of view, I don't believe full ownership of the means of production by an authoritarian regime is EVER a good idea.. Instead more liquid/democratic control of some parts of industry I think make sense, in a more organic supply/demand way.
You can't have your capitalism without revolutions if you don't have regulations that protect the working class. Eventually guillotines are brought out. It's already happening in Puerto Rico.
Let's suppose I'm contracted to provide concrete for a bridge. I provide substandard concrete, because it's cheaper, and I get to keep the profits.
I do this for years across many jobs and make lots of money. I launder most of the profits to friends and family, by overcompensating them for their "jobs" at my company.
Then, 10 years later the bridge collapses and 14 people die, due to the poor concrete.
All I get is an ankle bracelet and fines? No worries about jail, because what I did isn't a violent crime?
And if I can't pay the fine, because I don't have the money, then all I need is an ankle bracelet?
Woo-hoo! So my friends and family, who made millions from my theft, can support me as a destitute man, while I wear the ankle bracelet in early retirement.
> “The resolution as originally drafted placed unnecessary hurdles for mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children,” an H.H.S. spokesman said in an email. “We recognize not all women are able to breast-feed for a variety of reasons. These women should have the choice and access to alternatives for the health of their babies, and not be stigmatized for the ways in which they are able to do so.”
> Made it harder for nestlè to make money marketing baby formula.
Sure, that's a fair assumption. But what about them made it harder for a mother that had chosen to breastfeed to do so, specifically?
- If you're adding things that make it harder to breastfeed (to support corporations), I think we can all agree you're a bad person.
- If you're adding things to make it easier to choose not to breastfeed (once again, to support corporations), I think it's a greyer area.
The quote seemed to imply the first was being done.
Pushing back against either of them seems to run counter to the pro-corporation stance the US government is being berated for. Hence, why I want to know what was being referred to.
>Companies who sell formula often make nutrition and health claims in their advertising and on their labels which suggest that a certain ingredient, such as DHA or ARA, will lead to better eyesight, brain development or neurological development, Starken says. Instead, she insists, these companies should include warnings that formula can actually lead to increased rates of diarrhea, respiratory disease, obesity and cardiovascular disease, as well as various other long-term consequences.
The problem is misleading marketing claims are currently allowed. Claims like this would be banned under the resolution.
The US opposition to this goes back many years. When WHO adopted the International Code of Marketing Breastmilk Substitutes in 1981. The US cast the only negative vote [1].
At least Nestlé and friends have stopped dressing up their salespeople as nurses....
I don't see how the US will get out of the current "corporations run everything of value" situation. Seems like all tools to help fight it are themselves owned by corporations in no hurry to change the status quo.
Once upon a time, the kind of lobbying that gets us to these kinds of situations was illegal in the USA.
Then a landmark supreme court decision decided that this was unconstitutional. Then a more recent landmark supreme court decision further decided that a lot of campaign finance restrictions were also unconstitutional.
The first step to changing things would be to get the Supreme Court to overturn those decisions. There's nothing in the US Constitution that openly declares that money is speech, and therefore that dumping it on Washington is protected by Freedom of Speech. That's (perhaps arguably) an ideological opinion that could change along with the attitudes of the sitting justices.
I would prefer to live in a society where corporations run everything rather than a world there bureaucrats run things. What to feed their babies is a parental choice and the government should mind its own business.
I can talk to my representatives and possibly work to vote them out when they do things I don't like. How do I do that to corporations with monopoly level powers?
Because you know the right answer for every single situation in life and don't need any coaxing in the right direction and all your neighbors do as well?
Weird that you created an account just to post this.
When China/Iran/North Korea/government controls all the media that parents consume, "parental choice" also becomes merely an illusion.
One of the problems with corporate media today is that it's always aligned with the state on topics such as war. "The battle is won when the average American regards a corporate journalist exactly as they regard a tobacco executive." ~Michael Malice
I don't know that debunks is the right word. Rather, it seems like she provides differing opinions and some counter-arguments/data. At least for the alcohol argument, she puts for "it hasn't been proven that drinking is a risk" which, while a reasonable stance, is not the same as "it's been shown not to be a risk". There's a lot of parents that would rather not risk it for the former.
I realize this is a problem since time immemorial, but something needs to be done to prevent corporate interests from dictating government and international policies. I can only call out the problem, I don't know what the solution is. But why should people bother to vote if leaders' ignore their constituencies' needs in the face of aggressive corporate lobbying?
Maybe I'm a bit starry-eyed and innocent, but do you think this would have happened if Hillary got in? I've no horse in this race, but this does seem to be very much in line with how the current white house administration does things.
Sorry, I know this is a fairly indirect answer to your question, but I think how people vote must have some part to play in all of this.
You could I suppose argue that a certain voting segment are staunch, and will only vote a certain way anyway, but I also remember hearing that there were a lot of people who voted against their normal preference because they didn't like her personally, or because she pulled a stroke on Bernie, or something something hurdur leaked emails ...
A reminder that the US is, right now, functionally a cleptocracy and that the immense amounts of corruption we're currently witnessing has been put in place by people saying "job creators" every two sentences.
Man, I've for long been trying to have a "where the world is going" discussion with serious, moderately intellectual people.
I think it's near impossible to have it on the open Internet these days, or on an informal "caucus talk."
I would've very liked to hear somebody like Neil Fergusson, or another serious political historian on it, but people like these charge like $100k for a lunch small talk
>Man, I've for long been trying to have a "where the world is going" discussion with serious, moderately intellectual people.
It's somewhat disappointing that there isn't more substantive discussion going on here. My experience is that the La Leche/Breastfeeding folks are a bit nuts and wildly exaggerate the evidence. The biggest problem with all of these studies is that formula vs breast milk is self selected. Meaning that they don't randomly assign one group to breast milk and the other to formula. In the West, that dramatically skews the groups.
To exclusively breast feed you have to be wealthy enough for Mom not to work or have a job that allows her to pump. Then you have to have the knowledge that breastfeeding is optimal and the dedication to stick with it. And the baby has to be able to breast feed and gain an appropriate amount of weight (A baby not gaining weight would be switched to formula). All of this combines to significantly bias the breast feeding group towards wealthy and involved mothers physically able to breastfeed with healthy babies.
The breast feeding folks have taken these flawed studies and run with them. The pressure on new mothers to breastfeed is enormous and the "if you don't breastfeed you're harming your baby" message is pretty thinly veiled. It's causing a lot of emotional toll for a pretty dubious benefit.
One of the worst things of the Trump era is this nihilistic "both sides!" attitude. The EPA is being run by an oil lobbyist. The Dept of Education is run by someone who doesn't believe in public education. The Interior Department is pushing to sell public lands to private entities. These are all very much not "business as usual".
Why is it any government's business in first place and why would these super bureaucracies waste they time passing such kind of stuff is beyond. If baby formula companies are any smarter they will probably not waste time and money on WHO resolutions.
Because it is government's job to promote the welfare of it's citizens. It is important for babies that they are breastfed if at all possible. That is not happening enough. So government promotes it (when not corrupt). It's similar to a marriage license. Why should the government be involved at all? because it is not purely private, but involves multiple people and is part of the public good, so it falls under the role of government.
Wait, why is this old article even a thing? It's a resolution being drafted by technocrats far away from "real people".
While everyone else here is debating corporate influence, what about the epistemology of the issue itself...why does an inter-governmental organization need such a resolution, and "who the fork cares"?
People across the globe know breast feeding works, and they don't learn that from the UN or any other government. They learn it from their tribe, family, friends, internet, books. It's also intuitively best...AKA its been around for millions of years and we all know that.
People should be upset that time and money was spent on this....someone tell me if I missed some vital thing like "non-compliant governments will be replaced by IMF officials", or "North Korea to ban boobs"?
Millions of babies died from illness and from malnutrition (when the mothers could no longer afford to buy formula) as a direct result of Nestle's greed.
https://www.businessinsider.com/nestles-infant-formula-scand...