{"id":203,"date":"2018-11-14T08:22:18","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T08:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/walihaider.dx.am\/?p=203"},"modified":"2018-11-14T08:22:18","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T08:22:18","slug":"u-s-threats-stun-world-health-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootsforequity.org\/?p=203","title":{"rendered":"U.S. threats stun world health agency"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution by U.S. Stuns World Health Officials<\/span><\/h1>\n

By\u00a0Andrew Jacobs<\/span><\/p>\n

July 8, 2018<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother\u2019s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.<\/p>\n

Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.<\/p>\n

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to \u201cprotect, promote and support breast-feeding\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were astonished, appalled and also saddened,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In the end, the Americans\u2019 efforts were mostly unsuccessful. It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure \u2014 and the Americans did not threaten them.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s wording but said H.H.S. was not involved in threatening Ecuador.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe resolution as originally drafted placed unnecessary hurdles for mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children,\u201d an H.H.S. spokesman said in an email. \u201cWe 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.\u201d The spokesman asked to remain anonymous in order to speak more freely.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The intensity of the administration\u2019s 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.\u2019s longstanding policy of encouraging breast-feeding.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0single largest contributor<\/a>\u00a0to the health organization, providing $845 million, or roughly 15 percent of its budget, last year.<\/p>\n

The confrontation was the latest example of the Trump administration siding with corporate interests on numerous public health and environmental issues.<\/p>\n

In talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Americans have been\u00a0pushing for language<\/a>\u00a0that 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Americans also sought, unsuccessfully, to thwart\u00a0a W.H.O. effort<\/a>\u00a0aimed 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.<\/p>\n

The delegation\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s making everyone very nervous, because if you can\u2019t agree on health multilateralism, what kind of multilateralism can you agree on?\u201d Ms. Kickbusch asked.<\/p>\n

A Russian delegate said the decision to introduce the breast-feeding resolution was a matter of principle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re 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,\u201d said the delegate, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cinappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States also insisted that the words \u201cevidence-based\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

A\u00a02016 study in The Lancet\u00a0<\/a>found that universal breast-feeding would prevent 800,000 child deaths a year across the globe and yield $300 billion in savings<\/a>\u00a0from reduced health care costs and improved economic outcomes for those reared on breast milk.<\/p>\n

Scientists are loath to carry out double-blind studies that would provide one group with breast milk and another with breast milk substitutes. \u201cThis kind of \u2018evidence-based\u2019 research would be ethically and morally unacceptable,\u201d Ms. Sterken said.<\/p>\n

Abbott Laboratories, the Chicago-based company that is one of the biggest players in the $70 billion baby food market, declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Nestl\u00e9, 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\u00a0the international code<\/a>\u00a0on the marketing of breast milk substitutes, which calls on governments to regulate the inappropriate promotion of such products and to encourage breast-feeding.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0violence spilling across the border<\/a>\u00a0from Colombia, according to an Ecuadorean government official who took part in the meeting.<\/p>\n

The United States Embassy in Quito declined to make Mr. Chapman available for an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were shocked because we didn\u2019t understand how such a small matter like breast-feeding could provoke such a dramatic response,\u201d said the Ecuadorean official, who asked not to be identified because she was afraid of losing her job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n