Business or Health?

It seems that the United States government has decided to help business rather than people's health. At the recent meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO), a resolution to encourage breast-feeding was proposed. The basis for the proposal was years of research that has demonstrated that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. 

Our delegation didn't like the resolution and proposed changes to it. We did not want it to say that the main purpose of the resolution was to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” nor restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children. If the resolution was passed we would issue punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. 

But, when Russia agreed to sponsor the resolution we backed off. One reason why we wanted to kill the resolution is the increase in breast-feeding by women in wealthy countries, which, of course, impacts the sales of substitutes.