The nanny state’s bizarre campaign against baby formula
Parents choose formula for all sorts of reasons: some women can’t breastfeed for medical reasons; others simply choose not to. I remember well the delight I felt at being able to bottle feed my daughter when my wife wasn’t able to breastfeed anymore – it was the first time I felt like I was an equal after months of someone else taking the burden. Whatever the reason, formula feeding is a perfectly valid choice.
But the Government clearly doesn’t see it like that. Infant formula milk – a lifeline for millions – cannot be advertised for babies up to six months old, nor can special offers or discounts, and customers cannot use loyalty points, gift cards or food bank vouchers to purchase it. With a tub of formula milk adding around £14.50 to a weekly shop, government policy on formula has a detrimental financial impact on those least able to bear it.
And why? Because the Government has swallowed wholesale the position of the World Health Organization – which has a less than impressive record of dispensing advice – that breastfeeding must be defended and promoted no matter what. Every pack of infant formula sold in the UK has to carry the advice that breastfeeding is better.
8 comments:
"But the Government clearly doesn’t see it like that. Infant formula milk – a lifeline for millions – cannot be advertised for babies up to six months old, nor can special offers or discounts, and customers cannot use loyalty points, gift cards or food bank vouchers to purchase it."
If I were the manufacturer, I'd have a big advertising campaign:
"Say it's for you and the dog, luv. They can't follow you home* to see who you give it to!"
(*yet)
What an odd thing to write given that the world and his wife knows that natural breast milk is better for babies than industrially-produced formula milk.
Sam - they can't follow you home yet, but "Milk Monitor" drones could patrol supermarket car parks.
Vatsmith - the CAPX piece claims that this becomes unclear when there is control for other factors such as income and education. There is also the inability of some mothers to breast feed of course.
"this becomes unclear when there is control for other factors such as income and education"
I infer the results are not from randomised controlled trials but merely observational i.e. untrustworthy. (Like so much medical research.)
dearieme - I don't know, but it comes across as people trying to tease "trust" out of untrustworthy data.
The trouble with "correcting" statistically for confounders is that (i) you don't know whether the list of confounders you wrote down is a list of good guesses or bad, (ii) even if the guesses are pretty good you don't know whether the list is complete, and (iii) you don't know what the best way to "correct" is since you typically don't have much evidence to tell you what the underlying relationship you want to study looks like e.g. is it even linear?
dearieme - yes, the "correction" of historical temperature data by climate bods seems inherently dubious for those reasons.
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