503 as mothers working away from influence of this is often much the (although overestimated). Nevertheless, the infant-food industry has much blame to bear, because of promotional practices which have thrust unaffordable formulas at countries where breast-feeding was customary and where the vast majority of people are poor and do not have clean homes and a pure water-supply or the knowledge of "domestic mathematics" to make the use of infant foods safe, so that risks of interacting diarrhoea and marasmus are great. There seems little doubt that the industry has achieved too dominant a place in the moulding of infant-feeding practices, largely because the medical profession has shown little interest in nutrition, and has been flaccidly acquiescent towards the infant-food industry’s assumption of leadership in supplying information to the public and to health professionals. Infants should not be nutritionally vulnerable to such commercial pressures; in food businesses, conflicts of interest continually arise between the necessary profit-making and the social and nutritional considerations. To achieve the right balance means some control of promotional activities and an informed medical profession. Indeed, the examination of the interactions between society, the medical profession, and the infant-food industry may seem to be more closely related to real-life problems than today’s emphasis on the recognition of untreatable genetic syndromes or the pathways of intracellular metabolism. In a more and more industrialised world, processed foods will figure increasingly in the diet at all ages. Biologically and economically, these foods need to be geared to real nutritional priorities and not to contrived needs. In less developed countries, the emphasis should be on cheap "multi-mix" weaning foods, on supplements for lactating and pregnant women, and on a limited and unadvertised supply of inexpensive low-solute feeds for babies who cannot be breast-fed. The true place of the infant-food industry must lie in the realm of food technology, where an informed and commercially uncommitted paediatric community lays down the policy, as seems to be the case in Sweden. For this to happen, teaching in nutrition, both basic and social, must be established much more prominently in medical schools and in postgraduate
urbanisation, such home
THE LANCET The Infant-food THE Nestlé trial in Bern,
Industry Switzerland, which
ended recently, was concerned with four criminal libel charges against the Arbeitsgruppe Dritte Welt arising from their booklet, Nestle Totet Kinder, a retitled German translation of the U.K. War on Want report, The Baby Killers.Evidence was collected by both sides from many parts of the world, witnesses called, and much attention given in the world Press. Just before the trial ended, Nestlé withdrew three of the charges concerning "unethical advertising" and the use of milk-nurses. In July, the district-court judge found the 13 Arbeitsgruppe defendants guilty because of the defamatory title of the booklet and sentenced them to the nominal fine of 300 Swiss francs each. At the same time, the court requested that Nestle "carry out a fundamental reconsideration of its sales techniques in less developed countries". The judge emphasised that "the verdict is not an acquittal of Nestle" and warned that the company needed "to reconsider its advertising policies to avoid being accused of immoral conduct" and to change its marketing procedures "if it does not want its products to become
lethally dangerous". As the Press of several countries
noted, this
out-
is, best, pyrrhic victory for Nestle, but, in fact, it has a much wider significance. Dissatisfaction with the present role of the infant-food industry has become evident in various countries. In come
The
at
a
Baby Killers, many companies
were
men-
tioned. In the U.S.A. at the moment, a religious order, the Sisters of the Precious Blood, are suing Bristol-Myers (Mead Johnson) on behalf of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, New York, to obtain further details of this company’s marketing practices with their infant formulas in "chronically impoverished third-world countries".
; !
In San Francisco, Beech-Nut Baby Foods are being sued by Public Advocates, Inc., because of alleged scare tactics used in a letter sent by the company directly to 760 000 mothers in the U.S.A. with infant children. A number of issues are involved. The most serious is the undoubted part that the inappropriate and harmful promotion of feeding formulas in developing countries has had in increasing diarrhoea and marasmus, and in reducing the breast-feeding rate, especially in periurban shanty towns and slums. Various factors have been responsible for the decline in breast-feeding, including the lack of knowledge and the apathy of health professionals and nutritionists and some aspects of 1 See Lancet,
1974, i, 719.
,
training. Mecillinam NEW -lactam compounds are so numerous that the introduction of another rarely calls for comment. But mecillinam, a compound derived from the penicillin nucleus, 6-aminopenicillanic acid (6-A.P.A.), which superficially resembles a penicil-
urbanisation, such home
THE LANCET The Infant-food THE Nestlé trial in Bern,
Industry Switzerland, which
ended recently, was concerned with four criminal libel charges against the Arbeitsgruppe Dritte Welt arising from their booklet, Nestle Totet Kinder, a retitled German translation of the U.K. War on Want report, The Baby Killers.Evidence was collected by both sides from many parts of the world, witnesses called, and much attention given in the world Press. Just before the trial ended, Nestlé withdrew three of the charges concerning "unethical advertising" and the use of milk-nurses. In July, the district-court judge found the 13 Arbeitsgruppe defendants guilty because of the defamatory title of the booklet and sentenced them to the nominal fine of 300 Swiss francs each. At the same time, the court requested that Nestle "carry out a fundamental reconsideration of its sales techniques in less developed countries". The judge emphasised that "the verdict is not an acquittal of Nestle" and warned that the company needed "to reconsider its advertising policies to avoid being accused of immoral conduct" and to change its marketing procedures "if it does not want its products to become
lethally dangerous". As the Press of several countries
noted, this
out-
is, best, pyrrhic victory for Nestle, but, in fact, it has a much wider significance. Dissatisfaction with the present role of the infant-food industry has become evident in various countries. In come
The
at
a
Baby Killers, many companies
were
men-
tioned. In the U.S.A. at the moment, a religious order, the Sisters of the Precious Blood, are suing Bristol-Myers (Mead Johnson) on behalf of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, New York, to obtain further details of this company’s marketing practices with their infant formulas in "chronically impoverished third-world countries".
; !
In San Francisco, Beech-Nut Baby Foods are being sued by Public Advocates, Inc., because of alleged scare tactics used in a letter sent by the company directly to 760 000 mothers in the U.S.A. with infant children. A number of issues are involved. The most serious is the undoubted part that the inappropriate and harmful promotion of feeding formulas in developing countries has had in increasing diarrhoea and marasmus, and in reducing the breast-feeding rate, especially in periurban shanty towns and slums. Various factors have been responsible for the decline in breast-feeding, including the lack of knowledge and the apathy of health professionals and nutritionists and some aspects of 1 See Lancet,
1974, i, 719.
,
training. Mecillinam NEW -lactam compounds are so numerous that the introduction of another rarely calls for comment. But mecillinam, a compound derived from the penicillin nucleus, 6-aminopenicillanic acid (6-A.P.A.), which superficially resembles a penicil-
