Get Out the List

I can’t really say that finding yet another situation in which American business interests have been running amok during this administration really came as a shock to me, although I have to admit that this one is even more despicable than usual. We’ve already seen companies getting the government to let them start dumping mine tailings (poison) into rivers and lakes, pushing to repeal even common-sense regulations on air pollution, trying to gain increasing support for failing industries like coal mining (which even our former coal customers don’t want anymore), and advocating for additional import tariffs that are now threatening several previously solid manufacturing sectors. But allowing the US-led infant formula lobby to interfere with U.N. World Health Assembly’s efforts to promote breast feeding is still a new low…

You can pick up the New York Times article here, if you really want to see things hit their worst, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. All the assembly was trying to do was pass a resolution saying that “mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.” This isn’t exactly a controversial statement; there are quite literally decades of evidence, from hundreds of studies, which support this position. On the other hand, it’s easy to see how the $70 billion formula industry, led by Abbot Labs here in the US, would consider such a resolution to be against their interests…

It’s hard to imagine how, exactly, the industry leadership would justify promoting their business interests over the health and welfare of millions of infants, and the HHS statement that this move was to prevent “stigmatizing” women who want/need to use formula isn’t particularly convincing. It’s even less convincing when you consider that American representatives at this same Assembly meeting were also threatening to withdraw international aide and military support from various small nations if they chose to support the resolution – starting with Ecuador, which was originally going to propose it. American delegates apparently also threatened to slash US funding for the World Health Organization…

Now, I wouldn’t want you to place all of the blame for the United States delegation behaving more like organized criminals than advocates for public health on the shoulders of a single, albeit gigantic, industry. During these same meetings, the Americans were also noted as advocating to limit the ability of countries with rising rates of obesity and diabetes to put warnings labels on sugary beverages, and opposing changes to patent laws that would make it easier for poor countries to gain access to potentially life-saving medications. It might be possible to argue that intellectual property rights and free trade without regulatory interference are good for business in every country, and therefore these other efforts are still slightly into the grey area, but those claims don’t hold up well when accompanied by threats of extortion…

There are times when it really does seem as though the people who are running this place have a checklist of completely disgusting things they want to accomplish, just to make sure that they don’t miss anything. I feel constrained to point out, however, that even if these mainly political moves made sense in a purely business-friendly context – and they really don’t – the degree of international resentment this kind of behavior is generating has potential long-term consequences that dwarf whatever immediate gratification these companies may be receiving. When things get to the point where the Russians have to step in and propose the resolution in support of breast-feeding because the Americans have been threatening everybody else you really know that the regular order of things has been upended…

In the simplest possible terms, we’re still going to have to live on this planet, and do business here, once the current administration finishes lining their own pockets and leaves office. That’s going to be really difficult to do if all of the residual goodwill we might still have had with the rest of the world gets flushed in order to sell more infant formual…