Baby formula brands place profit above health
Dara Raksmey, the owner of a pharmacy of the same name on Phnom Penh’s Street 294, keeps a record of every can of Dumex baby formula she sells. “If you buy six large cans you get a scooter and if you buy 12 large cans you get a bicycle,” she said on Thursday. … Dumex provides the scooters and bicycles up front, and each month, Ms. Raksmey sends the company her sales record, along with a list of how many prizes were given out to customers. Dumex, which markets itself as a child nutrition company, is one of numerous artificial baby milk brands that are brazenly contravening a sub-decree banning the promotion of the formula in stores and health-care facilities in Cambodia. A report released last Wednesday by Unicef, the World Health Organization and three local NGOs said that breast milk substitute brands have continued to illegally promote their brands despite a law, passed in 2005, meant to reduce child malnutrition and mortality by encouraging breast feeding. “This causes confusion between marketing techniques and medical advice, and can mislead parents and caregivers about the effects of breast milk substitutes versus breast milk,” the groups wrote. .. Article 13 of the Sub-Decree on Marketing of Products for Infant and Young Child Feeding states that manufacturers and distributors “shall not…promote the infant and young child feeding products as stated in this Sub-decree by him or herself, or by his or her representative, at a point of sale, in a hospital, health center or elsewhere.” …
Ouch Sony and George Wright
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/baby-formula-brands-place-profit-above-health-58635/
