Nestle Baby Formula Controversy

¶ … Nestle Baby Formula Controversy

The story of the Nestle Baby Formula Controversy begins almost three decades ago with the publication of a pamphlet called 'The Baby Killer' in 1974 by Mike Muller and War on Want, a London-based activist group concerned with problems of the Third World (Akhter 1994). The pamphlet claimed that Third World babies were dying because their mothers were feeding them infant formula that was being marketed by multinationals such a Nestle of Switzerland and United Kingdom's Cow and Gate (Akhter 1994). The aftermath of the publication led to an international crisis for Nestle.

The pamphlet claimed that the infant deaths were due to irresponsible marketing of infant formula, especially the "use of medically unqualified sales girls, the distribution of free samples, and the association of bottle-feeding with healthy babies to promote the use of infant formula by mothers" who should have been breast-feeding their babies rather than bottle-feeding them (Akhter 1994).

Before The Baby Killer was published, the issue of marketing infant formula to Third World countries had not attracted the attention of developed economies, however, the pamphlet raised public awareness and in 1974 the Third World Action Group, TWAG, translated the pamphlet into German and republished it under the new title, 'Nestle Kills Babies' (Akhter 1994).

Nestle swiftly responded by suing everyone involved with the translation and publication and winning a libel case against TWAG, yet the media and public attention moved an unknown group to center stage and backfired on Nestle by creating a public relations nightmare (Akhter 1994). The infant formula controversy quickly spread from Europe to the United States where the Infant Formula Action Coalition, INFACT, protesting the marketing of infant formula in the Third World, issued a consumer boycott of all Nestle products on July 4, 1977 (Akhter 1994). Soon other organizations such as the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, ICCR, joined the controversy by advocating that "multinationals should curb their infant formula promotions in Third World countries" (Akhter 1994). The involvement of these private voluntary organizations, PVOs, in the Nestle boycott set about a chain of events that changed the relationships "between corporations, PVOs, governments, and international agencies" (Akhter 1994).

The PVOs succeeded in two victories. One, they were able to convince Senator Edward Kennedy to hold a meeting to discuss the issue, and two, they "persuaded the World Health Organization to formulate an international code of marketing of infant formula" (Akhter 1994). The boycott ended after ten years of negotiations and a joint announcement on October 4, 1984 by Nestle and the International Nestle Boycott Committee, INBC (Akhter 1994).

The Nestle controversy is significant because prior to this crisis, private voluntary organizations and international agencies posed little influence on business activities, however, in the wake of this controversy, these groups "became an integral part of the new sociopolitical environment, influencing and influenced by business activities" and how these groups can affect international business (Akhter 1994). These private voluntary organizations managed effective campaigns and united public support by focusing on the moral issue, rather than scientific data, by creating victims and culprits, and thus placing Nestle on the defensive (Akhter 1994). Nestle, on the other hand, committed one blunder after the next, beginning with the law suit against TWAG and by presenting a weak defense at the Kennedy hearings, only to rise out of its pubic relations mire when it "established the new subsidiary, Nestle Coordination Center for Nutrition, NCCN, to deal exclusively with the crisis" (Akhter 1994).

However, the controversy is far from over. Only last year, two prominent writers, Germaine Greer and novelist Jim Crace, "pulled out of one of Britain's top literary festivals to protest of its sponsorship by Nestle," accusing the company of predatory marketing in Third World countries (Leeman 2002).

The writers' main concern was Nestle's marketing of powdered infant formula in countries where, according to the World Health Organization, at least two thirds of the people have no access to clean water and mothers are unable to read the instructions properly, thus baby formula under these conditions represents a danger to newborn infants (Leeman 2002). Although a spokesperson for Nestle issued a statement that the company had changed its marketing practices and were now in compliance with the World Health Organization's rules, the authors claimed that Nestle "has not earned the benefit of the doubt and there are all sorts of reasons not to let it off the hook yet" (Leeman 2002).

According to The International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes companies must comply with the following:

1. No advertising of breast milk substitutes to families.

2. No free samples or supplies in the health care system.

3. No promotion of products through health care facilities, including no free or low-cost formula.