Does anyone boycott Nestle?

[MarkF 0]

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Specifically in light of their aggressive and underhand marketing of powdered baby milk subsitute in developing and 3rd world countries?

I do, i'm just wondering what others thought about this, and if anyone else does.

I dunno how Nestle works these days but about 25 or more years ago they used to give heaps of "aid" to third world countries in the form of baby formula. When the "aid" ran out of course the third world country was quite free to buy more formula, which of course was unaffordable and by then the women who were breast feeding had "dried up" for want of a better term.

The other problem is that in most areas where Nestle distributed their formula there was NO CLEAN, POTABLE water to mix it with. It doesn't matter how good or how free any formula that requires mixing with water is - it's no bloody good at all if the only water available is disease carrying sludge. These days most aid agencies work hardest at getting quality drinking water into the place BEFORE anything else.

25 or so years ago the feeling around the agency where I was working was that the women, and their babies, would have been a lot better off if the women had used the formula to supplement their own meagre diet and continued to breast feed the babies.

Ooroo
Mark F...

Whoa - two posts to SC in quick succession - I think I'll go and have a little lie down...

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[lawrocket 3]

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johnrich, you do a fine job copying and pasting nestle marketing propaganda. have you checked out the websites that i posted?

And you also do a fine job of forwarding propoganda. Have you checked out the sites that JohnRich stated? Furthermore, have you done intensive background investigations to confirm the allegations of EITHER side?

I don't care whose propoganda it is. The initial post is PROPOGANDA.

Earlier you stated that the problem is mothers watering down the formula. Is that Nestle's fault? Heck, I've gotten some fountain sodas at a movie theater that were pretty watered down. Yet, I don't blame Coca Cola for that.

There's a problem with drug resistance because people are not completing their doses of antibiotics. This is not the fault of the drug companies. Are you willing to shout out to the public, "Drug companies are producing antibiotics that are causing people to die of resistant strains of bacteria! Thousands of people each year, including children, are killed by these drug-resistant strains. Had the drug companies not made these antibiotics available, those thousands of people each year might have stood a chance..." No, you seek to get people to finish off their doses of abx.

As you said yourself, "boycott didn't work...but education might." Education can help, but it still is no guarantee.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[JohnRich 4]

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johnrich, you do a fine job copying and pasting nestle marketing propaganda. have you checked out the websites that i posted?

So you think that everything Nestle says is a deliberate lie, and everything your website says is the absolute truth?

[Newbie 0]

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Where does it even say that the formula companies have to provide formula to a third world country? It is FREE or a heavy discounted price. Thats like when I was working at a soup kitchen and some jerk complained because it was Chicken again. I wanted to snatch the food right out of his hands. All those boycotting the formula companies, what are you doing for these mothers and these children. How dare people sit on there high horse and pass judgement on a company who is doing something they dont have to do.

And as far as people who advocate and practually try to force breastfeeding and natural childbirth on others are insane. I esp love it when a man does. Unless you have spent 18 hours pushing a a watermelon out of the smallest visable hole in your body then you have no idea, or had someone suck on your nipples so bad that they actually bleed. That goes for woman advocates to. There is a reason that formula exsist, beside sterile enviroments the invention of formula (nestle invented it btw) is the leading cause in the decline of infant deaths.

Back in the day, people didnt even name their children until they reached about 1 or 2.

Shame on you nestle, for being a company that has single handley given mothers a safer and sometimes safer alternitive to keep there child nourished.

You think Nestle is supplying powdered baby milk out of the kindness of their hearts? They are not selling it out of the back of a truck in the middle of an African village - they attempt to persuade/undermine/coerce medical professionals, (many of which do not have the necessary skills, training and understanding to know the full in's and out's) to get them to promote the benefits of their product to local people who have little to no basic knowledge of health care provision compared to what we do in the west.
The only free powder they will get is free samples to hand out to new mothers...and as someone has already mentioned, once a switch is made to powdered milk, the natural supply from the mother will stop.
Before casting judgement from the luxury of your 1st world, developed perspective, why not try to put yourself into the mindset and conditions of someone not so fortunate as yourself, who has no access to the internet, reports, television and first rate healthcare provision. Before lambasting those who can see what a developed, first world company is actually doing to these people, it might be worth considering that without outside intervention and pressure, global companies would be allowed to run even more rampant in these developing countries, doing whatever they wanted without care or concern for those that are negatively affected in the pursuit of even more profits. Sure, many of them are already the target of concern for many consumers who consider who they do business with before plumping down their cash, but specifically companies targeting mothers and new born children are top of the pile of those who deserve the most attention in my opinion.

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Shame on you nestle, for being a company that has single handley given mothers a safer and sometimes safer alternitive to keep there child nourished.

If you actually had any knowledge from unbiased sources (like the WHO and UNICEF - organistions who put the well being of people, and specifically children, at the centre of their operations) you would know that last sentence is probably one of the most naive things you could possibly have written into a post on this subject.
As others have said, people have been boycotting and heightening awareness of Nestle and it's practices for almost 3 decades - you should probably look into why that is before trying to address this subject area.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Newbie 0]

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You know, having just been through this process in the last year with regard to babies, I'm coming to the opinion that there are sure a lot of "breastfeeding" advocates who operate on the same lines as the "natural childbirth" advocates. I'd prefer to call them another term instead of "advocates.'

The nautral childbirth "advocates" were emphatic in pointing out how much better babies do when there is no anesthesia for childbirth. My wife started buying into it a bit, too. I was desperately trying to point out that nobody can take 20 newborns and say, "Epidural on that one. General for him. Natural for those two." I made my wife promise (for my sake and hers) to request an epidural at 4 cm. She did, and tells me it was the best thing she ever did for herself.

So, now my son gets breastfed and gets formula. Hey, I don't lactate. He was also starting on solid food at 4 months. Strikingly, he was off the charts in his growth, despite the fact that he received formula as about 50 percent of his diet for months.

Those bastards formula makers helped make a strong, big healthy kid. Sons of bitches did the opposite of kill my son. Those assholes - a nice strong healthy kid? How dare they provide a substitute for when milk is not available?

I can understand how people would be upset at the fact that these people use unsafe water to reconstitute this formula. Probably the same unsafe water they use to reconstitute the gruel used to feed starving people. Probably the same unsafe water used to wash mom's boob before baby puts mouth on it (hmm - you really can't boil the boob to disinfect it, can you).

I find stuff like this to be hogwash...

Again, another person who thinks just because you have the benefit of a leading healthcare provider in the west, and it worked for you means it must be bullshit right? How on earth can you compare your situation to that of a mother in a small town or village in India or Africa? You have the very basics provided for you - clean water, trained and unbiased (for the most part) health care providers - does that mean everyone has that? Of course not. Before casting judgement on the issue, you really need to readjust your mindset and come out of your comfort zone, and do some reading on the subject area.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Newbie 0]

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Maybe Im selfish, maybe Im spoiled,

maybe? For someone who, on the surface, says they volunteer and help out at church, and one would therefore suppose otherwise, you don't seem to have much kinship or compassion towards your fellow (wo)man

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[lisamariewillbe 1]

Your right, I dont feel so bad for the welfare family who continues to have children yet cant provide, or the third world country who does the same. I work my ass off to provide and make life better for me and my kids. I am what i am.

Sudsy Fist: i don't think i'd ever say this
Sudsy Fist: but you're looking damn sudsydoable in this

[Newbie 0]

How does the (un)ethical behaviour of Nestle and it's baby formula provision to the 3rd world relate to you and your tax dollar? Are you somehow saying you working hard means they can have an easier life?

We all work hard here in developed nations, we all pay taxes (we, in the UK pay far more than you in the US) but does that mean we should not look at how companies exploit people for massive profit? I'm a consumerist and capitalist, not some free thinking communist who believes we should all work for the betterment of the state and its people, but somewhere you have to draw the line. For me, it's when a multibillion dollar global conglomerate decides that profit is worth more than the lives of new born babies.

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. I am what i am.

If everyone said that, and didn't want to look at trying to help out the less fortunate this world of ours would be in a sorry ass state thats for sure.
Look at the recent tsunami appeal for evidence of how we should and can come together to help out those less fortunate.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[lawrocket 3]

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If everyone said that, and didn't want to look at trying to help out the less fortunate this world of ours would be in a sorry ass state thats for sure.

True. A good way of helping out the unfoirtunate and starving people of the world is to send food. Since babies cannot eat the gruel and wheat and corn that people send, Nestle sends baby formula.

By the way, you are correct that I shouldn't look to what I have in my own world. My son has the privilege of not being orphaned. 10 percent of the world's population lives in Africa, and it has 90 percent of the world's orphans.

I hate to break this to you, but orphaned babies cannot breast-feed from mommy. I suppose the unethical bhavior of providing, selling, giving away baby formula is just plain wrong.

Why don't we do the world and ethics a favor and let the children starve? After all, it's only Africa, right?

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[lisamariewillbe 1]

I do alot to help out the world that directley affects me, and thats all I can do because mine and my own come first. I dont feel guilty, I choose to have children with the risk of one day being a single mom, I do not recieve govt funding nor any freebies and I still am able to help out others from time to time. Dont think I am better but at least Im not having children when I can support them and at least I didnt have these children hoping that others would come to my rescue.

Sudsy Fist: i don't think i'd ever say this
Sudsy Fist: but you're looking damn sudsydoable in this

[MarkF 0]

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.....at least I didnt have these children hoping that others would come to my rescue.

That's a very easy thing to say from a privileged first world position where there are sophisticated means of birth control readily available. Where rape, and the probable ensuing pregnancy, is a crime and not a way of life. Where even the most down and out members of society are rich beyond all imagining. Where medical help is readily available. Where even the basics of the meanest survival are there for the asking. Where infant mortality is, to all intents and purposes, negligable.

Have a look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and see where you sit. The vast majority of African women, and men, sit right at the bottom unable to satisfy their basic needs for simply staying alive - witness the scrambling and the brawling and the fighting when an aid distribution truck arrives.

There are a lot of people here who need to do a stint in a civil war wracked part of Africa or Asia to really understand "how the other half live". The International Red Cross, MSF, Care USA and a whole slew of others are constantly looking for people to help in those areas. You get to do a whole heap of training which won't fully equip you for the job. You often get to pay your own way to the area you're going to. You the get to work like a bastard for 14 or 16 hours a day. You get inadequate amounts of food. You get meagre shelter from the elements. You get to live, by our privileged standards, a VERY hard life which by comparison to the people you're helping is unattainable luxury. You are also constantly in considerable danger from disease or being caught up in the local fighting.

In short go and have a look before you make statements like "at least I didnt have these children hoping that others would come to my rescue".

Ooroo
Mark F...

[lisamariewillbe 1]

That's a very easy thing to say from a privileged first world position where there are sophisticated means of birth control readily available. Where rape, and the probable ensuing pregnancy, is a crime and not a way of life. Where even the most down and out members of society are rich beyond all imagining. Where medical help is readily available. Where even the basics of the meanest survival are there for the asking. Where infant mortality is, to all intents and purposes, negligable.

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I wont feel bad because I was born in America, and as far as infant mortality, well that was mostly due to 1. sterile birthing rooms and 2 Nestle, which was the inventer of breast milk supplement

***Have a look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and see where you sit. The vast majority of African women, and men, sit right at the bottom unable to satisfy their basic needs for simply staying alive - witness the scrambling and the brawling and the fighting when an aid distribution truck arrives.

Im quite familiar with Maslow, I also am familiar with the fact that my ancestors came over from a boat with nothing but the clothes on their backs, they did not have enough education to read the welcome sign. Everyone in this country started from a life of poverty, well not everyone but most of us. Our ansestors took care to enrich their lives, they started on the bottom of the pyramid.

I have yet to hear what you do? I have given basics on what I do. Maybe its not enough from your stand point but I have yet to hear how you help. I also am not going to live my life trying to save the world, I will leave that to the liberals and Miss Americas.

Until I got sick I was working 40 plus hours a week, 10 hours of college a week, 12 hours volunteering at the zoo, and taking care of my children. I raise my family to appreciate what we have but I am not going to feel bad for people who dont find a way to take care of their basic needs when as several countries can prove is attainable. We all started with nothing.

People may not like how I speak but I am honest with myself and with others. I do not pretend to help people I dont, nor will I ever. Their is a such thing as the strongest shall survive. Its sad and cruel but that is life. Life is as ugly as death. Nestle does more then it has to. Then again they have deeper pockets. There is nothing wrong with a single mother taking care of her own.

So Mr. High and Mighty what have you done?

Sudsy Fist: i don't think i'd ever say this
Sudsy Fist: but you're looking damn sudsydoable in this

[littlestranger 0]

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So you think that everything Nestle says is a deliberate lie, and everything your website says is the absolute truth?

Lie?

Try spin.

[SpeedRacer 1]

Look what's the deal? So Nestles provides formula. No one is forced to use it. Nestles ITSELF says that breast milk is better. But if for some reason the mother can't produce milk, what's wrongwith using formula? And the people in these countries already know whether or not their water is safe to drink. They don't need Westerners to come and explain it to them. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to boil water before drinking it or mixing it with something. If these people have been living with a questionable water source all their lives, I'm certain they have already figured this out.

In short, I believe it's up to the mother's judgement.

I think there are a lot of well-intentioned people out there who unfortunately buy into a paternalistic attitude that people in the third world can't think for themselves.

Speed Racer
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[freeflybella 0]

It's not only 3rd world countries that have been 'trained' to believe that if big company X says it's healthy, then it must be.

It takes understanding to recognize that many/most in 3rd world countries don't have access to information that isn't directly provided to them.

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In short, I believe it's up to the mother's judgement.

A mother's judgment is only as good as the information she has with which to make that decision. If it's anyone's guess, so be it. If we know something (due to our resources) that they don't - but fail to provide that info in order to make a profit - that has nothing to do with a mothers' judgment.

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Nestles ITSELF says that breast milk is better.

So why not donate something (time, money) that will help them have access to breastmilk? Why provide formula anyway?

Profit. We all know Nestle is not a non-profit. They are in it to make money. Absent their conscience about risking the lives of children to make money, and when there are legal loopholes do dive into, who's job is it to police these companies and educate people?

The collective 'all of us' who are susceptible to those practices. Not just regarding baby formula, but anything/everything we might possibly buy.

LisaMarie said it doesn't directly affect her. It does. Not the formula part - the part where companies/business make money knowing they are hurting us.

When they follow the letter but not the spirit of the law.

Again, not only a 3rd world phenomenon.

Action expresses priority. - Mahatma Ghandi

[lawrocket 3]

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So why not donate something (time, money) that will help them have access to breastmilk? Why provide formula anyway?

How does that benefit all of the orphans in Africa? Should we start breast milk farming? Yeah, UNICEF would dig that...

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[ladyskydiver 0]

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So why not donate something (time, money) that will help them have access to breastmilk? Why provide formula anyway?

And how do you suggest giving them better access to breastmilk? Not every woman is able to breastfeed and those that are some choose not to and others choose to. Are you suggesting that a bunch of lactating women get together, pop out a tit and say "Here you go?"

Why provide formula? It's better than nothing.

Life is short! Break the rules! Forgive quickly! Kiss slowly! Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably. And never regret anything that made you smile.

[Skolls081102 0]

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So why not donate something (time, money) that will help them have access to breastmilk? Why provide formula anyway?

And how do you suggest giving them better access to breastmilk? Not every woman is able to breastfeed and those that are some choose not to and others choose to. Are you suggesting that a bunch of lactating women get together, pop out a tit and say "Here you go?"

Why provide formula? It's better than nothing.

My wife breastfed our son. And when she went back to work, she used to pump (at work) for a few months more. Adn I'll tell you what, she barely got enough for my son to drink. No way would she have been able to produce enough for him, and some other children. So I think the Brestmilk Farming option is kinda out the window.
And Im not saying that women dont produce more than is needed in some instances.
But you think Nestle makes a profit on formula? See how much profit would be made on human breastmilk...holy shit.

The sole intention, is learning to fly.Condition grounded, but determined to try.Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies.Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit.

[Gravitymaster 0]

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But you think Nestle makes a profit on formula? See how much profit would be made on human breastmilk...holy shit.

I'm getting this very strange mental picture depicting how they would "harvest" human breast milk.

[freeflybella 0]

Whether or not you think it wouldn't work, in some cases it is.

here

here

here

and here

Action expresses priority. - Mahatma Ghandi

[rehmwa 2]

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For example - Profit. We all know Nestle is not a non-profit . . .

A couple things here:

1 - Profit motive, everyone here on both sides of the argument has been extremely clear that there is zero revenue available in many of these areas. So why 'exploit' the people for their money when they have none. Seems over the top in terms of suspicion and paranoia. From the sounds of it, some of these poor people are likely eating the free formula themselves in addition to giving to the children.

2 - "Nestle" is being discussed as a great big faceless entity. Decisions are being made by humans/individuals within a business - regardless of how big that business is, the employees are just as human and different as the mix on these boards. It's not "Company" it's people. No one here knows if the decision makers are greedy, snickering, selfish bastards, or if they are really decent people trying to do a decent thing within the best bounds of what they know. No one here can unless they personally know every single person there. As always, it's likely a mix of personalities.

Always assuming the worst possible motives about another person says more about the persons making those assumptions. And stereotyping business owners into one set of expectations is just as bad as stereotyping based on other reasons.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[littlestranger 0]

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I'm getting this very strange mental picture depicting how they would "harvest" human breast milk.

They actually do this. Women donate breastmilk all the time for seriously ill preemies who are not strong enough to breastfeed.

[freeflybella 0]

It is untrue that there is zero revenue to be generated.

Corporations by definition are faceless entities. Yes, there are people behind them. A few of them are whistleblowers revealing Nestle's marketing tactics.

As it turns out, the 'free samples' are prohibited according to the WHO/UNICEF Code of Marketing. Have you read it?

I don't think it's just a naive "assumption of the worst possible motives about another person" that has caused the WHO and Unicef to create this standard of conduct and Nestle to be at the center of controversy for the last 25 years.

Action expresses priority. - Mahatma Ghandi

[Skolls081102 0]

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I'm getting this very strange mental picture depicting how they would "harvest" human breast milk.

They actually do this. Women donate breastmilk all the time for seriously ill preemies who are not strong enough to breastfeed.

I never said it wasn't possible to harvest breastmilk- I just don;t se it being implemented on a wide scale basis. I doubt there are enough people out there that would be willing to jump in and donate breastmilk.
The other point I made was that if you think Neslte makes a profit on formula, think of the profit in breastmilk...It would be astronomical.

The sole intention, is learning to fly.Condition grounded, but determined to try.Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies.Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit.

[lawrocket 3]

What do you propose to be done with the tens of thousands of orphaned infants? By the way - orphans cannot afford to buy formula.

Also - freeflybella listed a link that stated the cas eof a mother that, due to stress, could no longer produce breatmilk. I'd think Africa has examples of these. Ethiopia is back in the news with regards to famine. I don't think starving mothers produce much milk.

So, I'll ask you two again - what should be done with starving or orphaned infants?

My wife is hotter than your wife.