Keeping A-Breast of the Situation II

The winds of fate are blowing the way of breastfeeding. After my post heaping praises on the militant mommy protestors who bared their breasts to protest aggressive milk formula advertisements, a maelstrom of misfortune has fallen upon the milk formula industry in the country.

Yesterday, I passed by my favorite newsstand only to read that the Philippine government has ordered one of the bigger milk subsitute giants in the market, American-based Wyeth, to recall millions of cans of contaminated formula. 4.3 million cans to be exact - encompassing a product line that caters to babies ranging from newborn infants to toddlers.

Would this include cans already partially consumed by the children of an unsuspecting public?

Still, Wyeth continues to insist on the integrity of their products. They actually covered up the incidence of contamination until the Bureau of Food and Drugs conducted a routine inspection and cooked their goose. According to news reports, no claims have yet been filed against the multinational. How? We are talking about the residents of a third-world country here. Even if they file a class-action suit, how would they stand up against a phamaceutical firm backed by THE Western superpower?

How?

I shudder to think about those poor babies who might have inadvertently consumed the tainted formula. My heart (and mammaries) bleed for them.

As it is, according to the Department of Health, breastfeeding in the Philippines has dropped at an alarming rate, primarily caused by eerily convincing advertisements by multinational companies, claiming that so-and-so-brand will build stronger, smarter, brighter-eyed babies; subliminally suggesting that their milk substitutes will give your progeny a better chance at life compared to the "poor unfortunate" breastfed mulititudes.

Addidcted to the media, and blind as bats, even fully lactating mothers succumb to the lure of these advertisements, which push for the purchase of exhorbitantly expensive milk formulas, and going to the extent of implying that a picky toddler can skip a well-balanced nutritious meal as long as he can have a glass of so-and-so milk brand. Load of bull. But for the gullible public, it may as well be the only way to go.


And for the rest of us whose milk ducts have gone the way of the Gobi dessert, we are constrained to make this "informed" choice. It's practical and less messy than having to raise goats for milk, like my great-grandmother did after her milk dried up. Her lucky, lucky children.

There is hope that this huge milky mess to lately hit the baby formula industry will pave the way towards a positive change in attitude towards breastfeeding. But will it stand a chance against the profit-oriented super producers?

Alas, the work of breastfeeding advocates, like a mother's work, is never done.