Monday, July 9, 2018

U.S. Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution Stuns World Health Officials

ny times

A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.

Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.

When that failed, they turned to threats, according to diplomats and government officials who took part in the discussions. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairThe Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.
When that failed, they turned to threats, according to diplomats and government officials who took part in the discussions. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.
The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.
“What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on best way to protect infant and young child health,” she said.
In the end, the Americans’ efforts were mostly unsuccessful. It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and the Americans did not threaten them.

8 comments:

  1. No point in posting, or even in their reporting; Trump supporters, in their never-ending inebriation, will simply dismiss it as reports concocted by the "lying NYT," or whatever.

    As you've noted in the past, they've willingly walled themselves into a unfalsifiable hashkafa that no report, nor its opposite, can pierce through. Whatever the news, it's thus bound only to confirm what they've already concluded (sic) to be true.

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  2. P.S.-
    A telling anecdote: A couple years back, an alt-right friend of mine sent me a Breitbart piece rancorously decrying some climatological conspiracy based on a recent in-fight among a few folks at NOAA -- really, not a terribly significant event, but one that's just supposed to be yet more evidence of those lying so-called scientists yada yada you've-heard-the-line-I'm-sure. By comparing that story with its counterpart reportage in the Washington Times (a notably conservative paper, but unlike Breitbart actually reputable and where the journalists report under their own names), I proved to him, irrefutably in fact, that the Breitbart piece had twice strategically omitted certain details so as to misrepresent the import of the incident they were "reporting" on.

    In short, I proved to him that he was being deliberately lied to in that piece. He had nothing he could say back to me by way of reply. And he still reads Breitbart!

    (Now just think about what that means and to what it's comparable.... Scary.)

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  3. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/04/the-case-against-breast-feeding/307311/

    http://observer.com/2012/09/time-for-feminists-to-stop-arguing-about-breastfeeding-and-fight-for-better-formula/

    Suggesting that women should be breast-feeding is just so misogynist, objectifying and archaic. Women aren't cows and shouldn't be treated that way! It is only hatred of our president that any feminist in good standing will spin away from the very proper position of not pushing for the restrictive breast feeding to being pro breast feeding.

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  4. Personally, I'm pro-choice. Ask the babies which milk they prefer. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/52a6f391a22ff06df230401dc00a3ceae8c128725d6bfa0c9711216a694b7381.jpg

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  5. Years ago, it was the Swiss who were active against breast milk (Nestlé, the larges manufacturer of several brands of formula, is a Swiss company). Nobody made such accusations against the Swiss, its only against Trump.

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  6. great material for a parasha drosha - putting money before children

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  7. Um, that was the '70s. A lot's happened since then. Goodness!

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