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Statement On Infant and Young Child Nutrition and Progress in Implementing the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes to the WHO Executive Board, January 2004

Thank you Chair for this opportunity to address the distinguished members of the Executive Board as a representative of the International Special Dietary Foods Industries (ISDI). On behalf of ISDI, I wish to affirm our long-standing commitment to working with WHO to help combat malnutrition by continuously seeking to develop better products for the specific nutritional needs of infants and young children.

ISDI welcomes the Report by the Secretariat, strongly supports its main finding on Code implementation, and encourages governments to increase their efforts to put national legislation or guidelines in place. Only through these mechanisms will the Code succeed. We note with regret that since the last report to the World Health Assembly, only three member states have provided information on new implementation efforts. Again, such mechanisms are the only way to reliably and fairly implement the Code.

While we believe the Report has great value, we wish to articulate strong concerns about statements in Paragraph 23, Reducing Nutrition Risk Factors Throughout the Life Course. ISDI believes some of these statements misrepresent the totality of current scientific evidence and are therefore misleading.

The assertion that breast-milk substitutes are associated with a greater risk of chronic diseases is poorly substantiated. It does not reflect a complete and balanced review of current scientific evidence. In addition, this assertion is not consistent with WHA resolutions such as the Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding and Codex Alimentarius' own standards, which recognize infant formula as the only nutritionally safe alternative to breastfeeding.

ISDI feels that any departure from scientific principles, in favour of unsubstantiated conclusions, has the potential to undermine public trust in WHO and diminish its credibility in the broader scientific community. Moreover, these assertions may create public concern over the safety of infant formulas.

Therefore ISDI calls upon WHO to ensure consistency and the highest standards of scientific inquiry. ISDI respectfully requests that the Secretariat either remove paragraph 23 or remove the sentence starting with "Meanwhile…" from paragraph 23.

In closing Mr Chairman, I would like to remind the Executive Board that the primary use of infant formula is not to replace breast milk, but to replace inferior and low quality breast-milk substitutes such as sugar and water, cereal and water, and rice and water.

Infant formula plays a critical public health role when, for whatever reason, a breast-milk substitute is needed.

Thank you, Chair.

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