Holy shit! I didn't know about that. If true, this is pure evil. Any source for further reading?

Edit - never mind. I have just gone through 2 articles and now my blood is boiling.

FWIW there were widespread, decades-long boycotts of Nestle due to their baby formula marketing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestl%C3%A9_boycott

>>> That dependency was a large part of Nestle's strategy in providing baby formulae in Africa. They would supply each new mother with - if I'm not mistaken - one month or three month's worth of formulae. Just enough so that she would stop lactating, but require them to now purchase many month's worth of formulae at prices that they really could not afford.

> FWIW there were widespread, decades-long boycotts of Nestle due to their baby formula marketing:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestl%C3%A9_boycott

So this has been known for 50 years? I'd always assumed this was a much more recent controversy. What's the situation with Nestle's marketing now?

What imperialism and neo-colonialism controlled by european-descended cultures have done to exploit the rest of the world is so terrible that it almost sounds like science fiction, and we in the countries on the taking end mostly manage to avoid knowing about it. It is ongoing.

It's because those countries don't protect themselves from foreign predatory selling. Developed countries have all sorts of restrictions on what their own citizens can import, what can be sold locally, even what free gifts they can accept, to prevent prevent that sort of exploitation. But the common feature of poor countries is that they're bad at self-governing, so they're kind of at the mercy of everyone else. What can other people do about that? Regime change? That's been tried a lot and doesn't work.

I know this sounds cold, but blaming what foreigners do on them is kind of fruitless. There are so many of them waiting to exploit anyone. It's like blaming foreign hackers for hacking your computers or even blaming the weather for blowing down your fence. Yes, it's technically their fault, but you're never going to eliminate those outside forces so you'd better improve your own security.

Not sure why you singled out the ethnicity of the people in those foreign countries since China does it too now.

You need to realize that a lot of this is pushed on developing nations through the IMF and other organizations that force countries to sign extremely poor deals out of desperation.

How exactly do you expect a country to stop stronger countries when they have a weak government, military, social services, and treasury?

You can read a cursory of these issues here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund#Cr...

FWIW China is doing the same thing as the IMF through its belt and road initiative, that doesn't make it right either.

OK, didn't know it was the IMF's fault.

I know you already declared it "fruitless" but it's worth looking into the decades that the USA and other countries spent using all the political, economic, and military force they could to prevent these countries from protecting themselves from foreign predatory selling, it's probably part of the picture.

"Fruitless" is a funny word when you read about the USA+Dole Corporation wars on South America.

Tribal and religious wars are nothing compared to the wars waged for corporate and imperial interests.

> "Fruitless" is a funny word when you read about the USA+Dole Corporation wars on South America.

North America, mostly; specifically, Central America, which is part of North, not South, America.

You do realize that a common feature of these poor countries is non-stop meddling in their local affairs, especially by the West. If there is a politician or political group that would affect the flow of resources out of said country, then they end up having a regime change or their opposition receives a wealth of arms and/or money.

> It's because those countries don't protect themselves from foreign predatory selling.

Can't do that. You'd have the IMF and World Bank on your backs if you tried to place restrictions on trade. This is a one-way street.

Nestle used the same marketing techniques in every country. In the United States today approx. 70% of babies are fed entirely or partially using formula. If that number surprises you, then maybe that's a hint to check your privilege.

Don't forget that one of the major exports of "European cultures"--including European-educated people from elsewhere--is manufactured outrage.

Making a buck off of poor people is hardly unique to European culture.

> If that number surprises you, then maybe that's a hint to check your privilege.

Has "check your privilege" become so cliché that it's just spewed out where it doesn't make sense? I'm honestly trying to understand what kind of "privilege" leads to one being unaware of baby formula statistics.

The phrase is idiotic and I hate it, but in this case it's presumably about education level, or the ability to breastfeed a baby without having to go to work and have someone else take care of it.

It's just such a weird statistic to flex on. I'm upper middle class, and I'm honestly surprised the number is that low, because pretty much every mother I know has used baby formula at some point. It's not ever anything I associated with class or education.

>Nestle used the same marketing techniques in every country. In the United States today approx. 70% of babies are fed entirely or partially using formula.

I have 4 kids, the oldest is 7. I can assure you, there was no nefarious formula marketing going on when my wife was pregnant.

Also, there is a really bug difference between what was being described in Africa and "a baby partially on formula". There were times when we leaned on formula - and it was beneficial. There are moms who are dependent on formula and it is a good thing.

But let's not confuse those positive sides of formula from Nestlé pushing formula in Africa.

Check my lactation privilege?

Oh no, it's certainly not unique to European culture. The rich of Europe, and of other settler-colonies set up by Europe like the USA, have just been the most successful at it for the past few hundred years, including at extracting profit from most other parts of the planet to the benefit of the European (and European-founded/dominated) parts. phenomenally successful.

It shouldn't lessen your outrage that Nestle is being horrible everywhere. This is the strangest form of whataboutism I've seen.

The comment being replied to is specifically about "imperialism and neo-colonialism". How nestle acts in different countries, in that context, is not whataboutism.

Excellent podcast ep about it here:

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...

Not just in Africa. There was a huge ad campaign in the US a few decades ago implying that Enfamil and Similac were healthier options than breast feeding. This was pushed especially hard in economically depressed areas that could least afford it.

Not altogether unlike the ad campaigns convincing folks that (free) water with a meal was vaguely wrong. "By they way," they said, "we've got some special brown water with a fukton of added sugar and CO2 for sale instead!"

> This was pushed especially hard in economically depressed areas that could least afford it.

An interesting choice for a company trying to maximize profits.

It's not hard for these companies to bribe politicians to allow welfare recipients to buy their products through snap/food stamps/ebt by getting exemptions. It's very devious and wrong.

Likely the campaign was found to be most effective against a less educated population that wants to give their children opportunity they didn't have.

Also the most logical choice given that it's a hard sell for wealthy, stay-at-home moms rather than women who need to work and don't have the necessary time to breastfeed.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Also, do not attribute to malice what can be attributed to negligence.

I was about to blow the outrage horn but decided to do some reading. After going over the entire wiki, i could not find any single shred of evidence that could even suggest outright malice or worse, criminality, from nestle.

I remain open minded, but I'd like to see evidence that justifies the claims.

Currently, the accusations seem based on selective facts & theory, used to form a narrative that is questionable at best.

However, nowhere in the article did i see any mention of any of the positive effects by nestle donations.

Here are some counterfactuals: 1- most men do not realize that women may not produce milk for several days despite lactating nonstop during this time. Newborns in such cases will be inmediately be given formula before jaundice sets in. Nestle probably (unintentionally) saved countless children from death this way. 2- formula and breatsfeeding are not mutually exclusive. The notion that free formula would impair the ability of women to continue breastfeeding is not true, as many dads will attest. 3- Africa life expectancy / health outcomes are poor. In any emergency, you do want to have formula as a fallback option 4- this article presents african women as naive with zero proof.

Is there a smoking gun that i missed somewhere?

Hmm.

W1 uses 1/N of the free formula and sells the remainder to W2-N. Next month, she's still lactating AND has enough money to buy 1/N for N-1 months.

Note that the prices in this scheme are independent of Nestle's prices.

However, high Nestle prices are a big incentive for someone to be W0.

That is seriously disgusting. They're sacrificing a baby's health for profit. Do they have no limits?

Wow, this is Peak HN 2022.

Why blame England for the Opium Wars? Couldn't the Chinese just take less opium?

Why blame big pharma for the opioid epidemic? Couldn't people not take opioids?

Why blame cigarette advertisement for lung cancer? Can't people not smoke?

Well as far as “blaming Big Pharma for the opioid epidemic”, when drug abuse was affecting the “inner city” it was because of “poor morals”, “the lack of fathers” and “people not taking responsibility for themselves”.

But when drug abuse started affecting “rural and middle America”, it became “we need to treat drug abuse like a disease and not a crime” and “blame Big Pharma”.

I wonder what the difference could be…

As someone who stopped smoking in my twenties and has thus far refrained from Whatsapp/Facebook and does not watch superpower movies, really, I don't see why people cannot make the choice.

As a collective population, some percentage is in fact expected to make the choice. But why do you explicitly imply that they don't have a choice? Honestly interested, not trolling.

>But why do you explicitly imply that they don't have a choice?

I'm not. I believe people have free will and are not automatons. There is always a choice.

However, it is disingenuous to expect or demand most or many people to make "the right" choice, whatever that might be. Our choices are our own but they are, sometimes heavily, influenced by many things. There is a whole industry called advertising dedicated to just that. I've heard some tech companies are big on that.

Humans are not pure intellect, a brain wrapped in tin navigating through space always running an algorithm to decide the most optimal next step. Try to think why people smoke or took opium or overdose on whatever. Do it as an empathy exercise.

Sorry if I sound grumpy. No intention to be rude, honestly. Hn just sounds so inhuman sometimes.

> really, I don't see why people cannot make the choice

Because of the millions spent in advertising to induce people to choose what the corporations want. Tobacco ads were banned for a reason.

Perfectly good questions. As long as you're not forced to take anything, it's your choice and responsibility, not someone else's.

It's also their responsibility not to lie to the public just to create demand for their products. A doctor would not get away with these bullshit recommendations, why can these advertisers get away with it?

You haven’t been paying attention to the cozy relationships between doctors and opioid producers.

I've heard there's this new industry called advertising that is focused in swaying people in a certain direction. There's also this new contraption called mass media. Also there's this thing called wealth accumulation. It sure seems like putting those three together might kind of, sort of influence a large mass of people into doing certain things.

Because they're straight up lying when they say it's better than breast feeding. Encouraging mothers to breast feed is hard enough as it is, we really don't need some idiotic company spending millions in deceptive marketing designed to get them to stop lactating and become dependent on their products. This caliber of sociopathy is unacceptable no matter how they spin it.

Probably the vast misinformation campaign explicitly targeting vulnerable and undereducated people claiming that Nestle formula was superior to breast milk and would give their children a better shot at success in life.