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IFM Encourages Transparent and Official Monitoring of WHO Code
Letter to the Editor,
The 18 January 2003 edition of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) included an article on the WHO Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. This article and the study it describes are an example of why IFM supports a better way to monitor and enforce the Code in many countries.
IFM member companies are committed to the health and well-being of infants and young children. They unequivocally support the aims and principles of the WHO Code. However, for the Code to succeed, national governments must oversee monitoring and enforcement, in keeping with their own legislative and regulatory framework. The Code itself recommends this, and indeed, it is key to its success.
The study described in the BMJ article was led by a representative of IBFAN, which has devised its own system of monitoring. Under the WHO Code, monitoring groups are required to inform companies of alleged non-compliance immediately so that they can respond and take corrective actions, if necessary. Yet in the three years since this monitoring took place, none of the researchers contacted the companies mentioned. Accusations only came to light in this article.
Data collection for the study was based on inaccurate interpretations of the WHO Code. For example, most of the alleged violations refer to products that are complementary foods (such as baby cereals or fruit juices), and not breast-milk substitutes. The Code explicitly excludes complementary foods from the marketing restrictions.
As the industry association representing manufacturers of foods for infants and young children, IFM is interested in cooperation and partnership with WHO, other institutions dedicated to the welfare of children, NGOs and its member companies. To protect the health and promote nutrition of infants and young children, it is essential that governments are encouraged to enforce the WHO Code, that monitoring be based on research methodologies that fulfill basic reliability criteria, that it be transparent and that it be carried out according to national legislation and standards. Only when we are focused on this shared goal will the Code succeed.
Best regards
Dr. Andrée Bronner
Secretary General
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