Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10596

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Publication type: news

Battle over breastfeeding reaches Supreme Court
Sunstar Network Online 2007 Jun 20
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2007/06/20/battle.over.breastfeeding.reaches.supreme.court.html

Full text:

MANILA — The debate over whether new moms should breastfeed reached the top Philippine court Tuesday, with health officials claiming that aggressive advertising has many women believing that formula is better than their own milk.

With breastfeeding rates declining across Asia — just 35 percent of mothers breastfeed exclusively for their baby’s first six months — the Philippine health department last year proposed regulations to strengthen its national milk code.

The goal was to make it harder for formula companies to target parents of children under age 2 with advertising of products that claim to foster smarter, stronger babies. The earlier regulations banned companies from promoting products for infants younger than 1 year old.

“We have seen a dramatic decrease of our breastfeeding rates. We have seen an increase of the profits and sale of infant formula companies,” Health Undersecretary Alexander Padilla said.

The Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP) has sued the government agency, arguing only Congress has the power to change regulations.

During Tuesday’s oral arguments, Attorney Felicitas Aquino-Arroyo, counsel for petitioner PHAP, told Supreme Court magistrates the health department’s revised implementing rules and regulations for its breastfeeding program bordered on “censorship and prior restraint.”

The Supreme Court initially backed the health Department, but on appeal, it ordered a temporary halt to the stiffer rules, which also call for stricter labeling that would include warnings that formula could be harmful if contaminated and companies could face sanctions if they do not comply.

Arroyo also said the new regulations were unconstitutional because the department had acted beyond its authority.

PHAP is supportive of Executive Order 51 but said its implementing rules are beyond the provisions specified in the Milk Code, which took effect on July 7, 2006.

Arroyo said US-based milk companies Wyeth, Mead Johnson Nutritionals, and Abbott Laboratories, along with British-based GlaxoSmithKline, all represented by the association, stand to lose about US$208 million if the stricter rules are enforced because they will be forced to change labels and destroy milk products already in circulation.

She argued the advertising ban also deprives women of a right to information that would allow them to freely choose whether to use formula or not.

“PHAP and the milk companies have been painted to look like corporate ogre, motivated by nothing more than corporate profits,” she said after the court adjourned. “That is not the issue in this case. We are not battling breastfeeding.”

About a dozen Filipina mothers lined up outside the court to protest against formula, which they say harms children. They bared their chests, which had been brightly spray-painted with slogans like “God’s milk is life” and “Greedy milk companies.”

Elvira Henares-Esguerra, Children for Breastfeeding Inc. director, said milk companies have resorted to deceiving mothers into substituting infant milk formulas as the primary food for babies through their multibillion peso advertising campaign.

The row has prompted the Washington-based US Chamber of Commerce to intervene. Its chief sent a letter to Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo urging her to reexamine the health department’s plan or risk the country’s “reputation as a stable and viable destination for investment.”

Attorney Agnes Devanadera, representing the health department, argued that exceptions would be made to the ban for ads that a department committee says do not undermine breastfeeding or idealize breast milk substitutes.

“It is a matter of explaining to our people, for those who have forgotten, that there is no substitute for breast milk,” she told the justices. “We are not prohibiting the sale of milk substitutes, but we are prohibiting the advertisements.”

Associate Justice Presbiterio Velasco pointed out during Tuesday’s oral arguments that the issuance of the revised implementing rules and regulations is well within the authority of the health department.

“Why do you object to the law on absolute ban in advertisements when the (health department) can extend the coverage to two years? Milk can also be given to adults, even us,” he said.

The World Health Organization recommends mothers nurse exclusively for the first six months and continue providing breast milk along with complementary foods until age 2. Research has shown that babies given breast milk develop fewer respiratory and intestinal diseases, and those given formula have a greater chance of developing asthma or allergies later in life, along with obesity.

WHO estimates up to 1.45 million children die annually in poor countries because of low breastfeeding rates.

Exclusive breastfeeding rates during the first four to five months have dipped from 20 percent in 1998 to 16 percent in 2003 in the Philippines, where more women with disposable income are working full time and juggling busy lifestyles like many women in the West.

But unlike mothers in the United States and the European Union, who are moving more toward breastfeeding in the first few months, many in rapidly developing Asian countries are abandoning the practice.

Thailand has the region’s lowest exclusive breastfeeding rate during the first six months, with only 5.4 percent of mothers nursing. Vietnam’s rate has fallen from 29 percent in 1998 to 15 percent in 2002, while Indonesia dropped from 42 percent in 1997 to 40 percent in 2002. (AP/With ECV/Sunnex)