Title: Breastfeeding Committee Update
Author:
Section/SPIG: Maternal and Child Health
Issue Date:
The hottest topic of conversation at the Breastfeeding Committee meeting, throughout the conference, and continuing among breastfeeding advocates ever since, has been the delay in the launch of the National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign.
The Ad Council in partnership with the DHHS Office on Women's Health (OWH) developed a three-year media breastfeeding promotion campaign. Development of a national campaign is one of the recommendations of the Surgeon General in the 2000 HHS Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding. APHA has a resolution supporting the Blueprint. The Blueprint calls for an increase to 75 percent the proportion of mothers who breastfeed in the early postpartum period, and an increase to 50 percent the proportion of women who breastfeed at six months postpartum.
Unlike previous breastfeeding promotion efforts, which have promoted the benefits of breastfeeding, the Ad Council – famous for its "in-your-face" style PSAs such as the Crash Test Dummies – created a campaign to address the health risks of not breastfeeding and to stress the importance of exclusive breastfeeding for six months. The content was developed by the advertising agency McKinney and Silver based on the results of more than 30 focus groups around the country. An expert panel of breastfeeding researchers convened by the Office of Women’s Health reviewed the science behind the health claims.
However, representatives of the infant formula manufacturers found out about the strategy to present the risk of not being breastfed. They approached American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) leadership at their annual conference in November 2003, expressing concerns about this. Reports also state that the formula manufacturers heavily lobbied senators, government agencies, and the Ad Council themselves. The AAP receives substantial sponsorship from several infant formula manufacturers. Days after the AAP’s annual conference, the new AAP President, Carden Johnston, sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson questioning the strategy. As a result of the concerns expressed, the campaign is under review by the Office of Women’s Health.
The United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC) contacted Secretary Thompson to support the Campaign and requested that its member organizations do the same. APHA is represented on the USBC by Jan Weingrad Smith, who reports that Kevin Keene, assistant secretary for public relations, met with a delegation from the USBC, the AAP Breastfeeding Section and the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. He assured them that the campaign will be launched this spring. However, after consulting with NIH scientists, Assistant Secretary Keene’s office has made the decision to limit the campaign to addressing respiratory disease, gastrointestinal disease, and possibly obesity. Asthma, childhood cancers, and diabetes have been removed because the NIH scientists consulted did not feel the evidence was strong enough to support the claim that not breastfeeding creates a risk for these diseases.
The Breastfeeding Committee of the MCH Section is concerned that DHHS response to interference in the public health domain by an industry which has a serious commercial interest in promoting the use of infant formula is not in the best interest of public health. Committee members and others concerned about public health are urged to visit the USBC’s Web site at <www.USBreastfeeding.org> to find a full discussion of the issues, a model letter, and addresses for expressing concern to the U.S. government officials and key members of Congress.
Anne Merewood, MA, IBCLC
On behalf of the Breastfeeding Committee and co-chairs
Mary Rose Tully, MPH, IBCLC
and Laura Duckett, PhD