Thread by @DoctorChrisVT

Infant formula is a £50 billion industry. It’s growing because manufacturers are using the kind of marketing techniques you might expect from the tobacco industry to exploit COVID fears.
Here’s our publication in @TheLancet
and a thread
thelancet.com/journals/lance…

There are many examples of companies using COVID to reduce breastfeeding rates but one of the best (worst) is a YouTube channel “facilitated “ (their word) by Danone called #VoiceofExperts.

You might wonder what “facilitated” means. So do I but the response from Danone didn’t explain. Perhaps a sort of legal insulation. Here’s their full reply to my questions.

An aside: we gave Danone 7 days to respond. They took 6 days 23 hrs 59 minutes and 45 seconds. It felt weirdly childish.

A video on the channel (now taken down) advised mothers with COVID to stay at least 6 feet from their infants and to stop breastfeeding until they had been free of symptoms for 7 days AND free of fever for more than 72 hrs AND had two negative COVID tests.

This advice is incompatible with breastfeeding anywhere in the world so the result will be a switch to formula.

But perhaps this is reasonable: after all, who knows more than Danone about baby milk?

Well @WHO, @RCPCHtweets and @UNICEF_uk all do and the Danone “facilitated” videos directly contradict their advice. Mothers with COVID can safely breastfeed and skin to skin contact is as important as ever.
unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/c…

Anyway a breastfeeding mother with COVID who followed the "Danone facilitated" advice would almost inevitably have to switch to formula. The requirements could likely not be met in any country before milk supply ended - certainly not India from speaking to friends there.

Why is this bad? Because feeding an infant formula multiplies the risk of death by 14. thelancet.com/servlet/linkou…

Because formula causes four problems for kids:
1. Children lack the immune components of breastmilk
2. Formula is often prepared/given with dirty water/bottles. Not the parents fault.
3. Formula is often diluted due to cost.
4. Formula is too expensive for many families.

This doesn’t mean no one should use formula or that parents should feel guilty. Those at the companies who market formula inappropriately and the media doctors that enable them should feel guilty, but not parents. I’m a formula baby. You probably are too.

Plenty of formula babies win Nobel Prizes and Olympic gold medals. But if breastfeeding were increased it would save around 800,000 lives a year globally. thelancet.com/series/breastf…

It may have been an honest mistake but if so it is surprising that Danone don’t seem to have publicly apologised for facilitating such bad advice to such vulnerable people.

I’m not anti-formula or anti industry except when they break the law, The Code and harm children.

Companies with a stake in human health (most companies) and especially infant nutrition should be tightly regulated when it comes to marketing.

In the UK we can protect the most vulnerable people among us easily by simply adopting the @WHO Code into law. unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/b…

And if you're a healthcare professional in a position of influence don't enable them. Don't be a brand ambassador for formula milk companies; don’t do videos on their websites about any of their products. You’re not breaking the law but you are breaking the WHO code.

I wrote the letter with @Prof_AmyBrown @charlmorayplace @globalhlthtwit & @dcmccoy11
It is based on many reports but especially @pattirundall's article from @babymilkaction. babymilkaction.org/archives/24341