[Civsoc-mw] screwed up US policy

[Maybach Woyee]

My rich friend KB,
US is a buffoon! Akagwere with their formula milk. Am sure this was started
by Obama. President Trump would have denied this

On Mon, 9 Jul. 2018, 16:21 Keyboard Boyd Kilembey, <kkilembe at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Goodly, hewe povo mother's know better about breast feeding. They don't
> need a useless resolution
>
> On Mon, 9 Jul 2018, 14:41 , <cammack at mweb.co.za> wrote:
>
>> *U.S. Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution Stuns World Health
>> Officials *
>>
>> *https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/health/world-health-breastfeeding-ecuador-trump.html
>> <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/health/world-health-breastfeeding-ecuador-trump.html>
>> *
>>
>> Image[image:
>> https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/07/09/business/09breastfeeding-1-sub-2/merlin_74866264_0e99440c-95bc-40f5-8b74-c30bc48e93e4-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale]
>>
>> A Brooklyn mother unable to nurse fed her child donated breast milk. The
>> $70 billion infant formula industry has seen sales flatten in wealthy
>> countries in recent years.CreditJames Estrin/The New York Times
>>
>> By Andrew Jacobs <http://www.nytimes.com/by/andrew-jacobs>
>>
>>    - July 8, 2018
>>
>>
>>
>> ·  ·  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.
>>
>> Advertisement
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> *[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. <http://on.fb.me/1paTQ1h>* *|
>> Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. <http://nyti.ms/1MbHaRU>]*
>>
>> The showdown over the issue was recounted by more than a dozen
>> participants from several countries, many of whom requested anonymity
>> because they feared retaliation from the United States.
>>
>> Health advocates scrambled to find another sponsor for the resolution,
>> but at least a dozen countries, most of them poor nations in Africa and
>> Latin America, backed off, citing fears of retaliation, according to
>> officials from Uruguay, Mexico and the United States.
>>
>> “We were astonished, appalled and also saddened,” said Patti Rundall, the
>> policy director of the British advocacy group Baby Milk Action, who has
>> attended meetings of the assembly, the decision-making body of the World
>> Health Organization, since the late 1980s.
>>
>> “What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the
>> world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on the
>> 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.
>>
>> The State Department declined to respond to questions, saying it could
>> not discuss private diplomatic conversations. The Department of Health and
>> Human Services, the lead agency in the effort to modify the resolution,
>> explained the decision to contest the resolution’s wording but said H.H.S.
>> was not involved in threatening Ecuador.
>>
>> “The resolution as originally drafted placed unnecessary hurdles for
>> mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children,” an H.H.S.
>> spokesman said in an email. “We recognize not all women are able to
>> breast-feed for a variety of reasons. These women should have the choice
>> and access to alternatives for the health of their babies, and not be
>> stigmatized for the ways in which they are able to do so.” The spokesman
>> asked to remain anonymous in order to speak more freely.
>>
>> Although lobbyists from the baby food industry attended the meetings in
>> Geneva, health advocates said they saw no direct evidence that they played
>> a role in Washington’s strong-arm tactics. The $70 billion industry, which
>> is dominated by a handful of American and European companies, has seen
>> sales flatten in wealthy countries in recent years, as more women embrace
>> breast-feeding. Over all, global sales are expected to rise by 4 percent in
>> 2018, according to Euromonitor, with most of that growth occurring in
>> developing nations.
>>
>> The intensity of the administration’s opposition to the breast-feeding
>> resolution stunned public health officials and foreign diplomats, who
>> described it as a marked contrast to the Obama administration, which
>> largely supported W.H.O.’s longstanding policy of encouraging
>> breast-feeding.
>>
>> During the deliberations, some American delegates even suggested the
>> United States might cut its contribution to the W.H.O., several negotiators
>> said. Washington is the single largest contributor
>> <http://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/funding/2018-19_AC_Summary.pdf?ua=1>
>> to the health organization, providing $845 million, or roughly 15 percent
>> of its budget, last year.
>>
>> The confrontation was the latest example of the Trump administration
>> siding with corporate interests on numerous public health and environmental
>> issues.
>>
>> In talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the
>> Americans have been pushing for language
>> <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/world/americas/nafta-food-labels-obesity.html>
>> that would limit the ability of Canada, Mexico and the United States to put
>> warning labels on junk food and sugary beverages, according to a draft of
>> the proposal reviewed by The New York Times.
>>
>> During the same Geneva meeting where the breast-feeding resolution was
>> debated, the United States succeeded in removing statements supporting soda
>> taxes from a document that advises countries grappling with soaring rates
>> of obesity.
>>
>> The Americans also sought, unsuccessfully, to thwart a W.H.O. effort
>> <http://www.ip-watch.org/2018/05/24/wha-agrees-drafting-roadmap-access-medicines-vaccines-us-blasts-compulsory-licences/>
>> aimed at helping poor countries obtain access to lifesaving medicines.
>> Washington, supporting the pharmaceutical industry, has long resisted calls
>> to modify patent laws as a way of increasing drug availability in the
>> developing world, but health advocates say the Trump administration has
>> ratcheted up its opposition to such efforts.
>>
>> The delegation’s actions in Geneva are in keeping with the tactics of an
>> administration that has been upending alliances and long-established
>> practices across a range of multilateral organizations, from the Paris
>> climate accord to the Iran nuclear deal to Nafta.
>>
>> Ilona Kickbusch, director of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate
>> Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, said there
>> was a growing fear that the Trump administration could cause lasting damage
>> to international health institutions like the W.H.O. that have been vital
>> in containing epidemics like Ebola and the rising death toll from diabetes
>> and cardiovascular disease in the developing world.
>>
>> “It’s making everyone very nervous, because if you can’t agree on health
>> multilateralism, what kind of multilateralism can you agree on?” Ms.
>> Kickbusch asked.
>>
>> A Russian delegate said the decision to introduce the breast-feeding
>> resolution was a matter of principle.
>>
>> “We’re not trying to be a hero here, but we feel that it is wrong when a
>> big country tries to push around some very small countries, especially on
>> an issue that is really important for the rest of the world,” said the
>> delegate, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to
>> speak to the media.
>>
>> He said the United States did not directly pressure Moscow to back away
>> from the measure. Nevertheless, the American delegation sought to wear down
>> the other participants through procedural maneuvers in a series of meetings
>> that stretched on for two days, an unexpectedly long period.
>>
>> In the end, the United States was largely unsuccessful. The final
>> resolution preserved most of the original wording, though American
>> negotiators did get language removed that called on the W.H.O. to provide
>> technical support to member states seeking to halt “inappropriate promotion
>> of foods for infants and young children.”
>>
>> The United States also insisted that the words “evidence-based” accompany
>> references to long-established initiatives that promote breast-feeding,
>> which critics described as a ploy that could be used to undermine programs
>> that provide parents with feeding advice and support.
>>
>> Elisabeth Sterken, director of the Infant Feeding Action Coalition in
>> Canada, said four decades of research have established the importance of
>> breast milk, which provides essential nutrients as well as hormones and
>> antibodies that protect newborns against infectious disease.
>>
>> A 2016 study in The Lancet
>> <https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)00210-5/fulltext>found
>> that universal breast-feeding would prevent 800,000 child deaths a year
>> across the globe and yield $300 billion in savings
>> <https://www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/lancet-increasing-breastfeeding-worldwide-prevent-800000-child-deaths-every-year/>
>> from reduced health care costs and improved economic outcomes for those
>> reared on breast milk.
>>
>> Scientists are loath to carry out double-blind studies that would provide
>> one group with breast milk and another with breast milk substitutes. “This
>> kind of ‘evidence-based’ research would be ethically and morally
>> unacceptable,” Ms. Sterken said.
>>
>> Abbott Laboratories, the Chicago-based company that is one of the biggest
>> players in the $70 billion baby food market, declined to comment.
>>
>> Nestlé, the Switzerland-based food giant with significant operations in
>> the United States, sought to distance itself from the threats against
>> Ecuador and said the company would continue to support the international
>> code
>> <http://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/infantfeeding/code_report2018/en/>
>> on the marketing of breast milk substitutes, which calls on governments to
>> regulate the inappropriate promotion of such products and to encourage
>> breast-feeding.
>>
>> In addition to the trade threats, Todd C. Chapman, the United States
>> ambassador to Ecuador, suggested in meetings with officials in Quito, the
>> Ecuadorean capital, that the Trump administration might also retaliate by
>> withdrawing the military assistance it has been providing in northern
>> Ecuador, a region wracked by violence spilling across the border
>> <https://www.forbes.com/sites/riskmap/2018/05/01/violence-shocks-ecuador-as-colombias-woes-spread-south/#22bcce7672f2>
>> from Colombia, according to an Ecuadorean government official who took part
>> in the meeting.
>>
>> The United States Embassy in Quito declined to make Mr. Chapman available
>> for an interview.
>>
>> “We were shocked because we didn’t understand how such a small matter
>> like breast-feeding could provoke such a dramatic response,” said the
>> Ecuadorean official, who asked not to be identified because she was afraid
>> of losing her job.
>>
>> Wesley Tomaselli contributed reporting from Colombia.
>>
>> A version of this article appears in print on July 9, 2018, on Page A1 of
>> the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Delegation Disrupts Accord On
>> Breast Milk. Order Reprints <http://www.nytreprints.com/> | Today’s Paper
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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