From a netfriend:

This is not about infant formula versus breast-feeding. It is about accountability. The Uniting Church, as a couple of people have pointed out, has been involved in campaigns about commercial infant formula. The current information about the campaign is at

http://assembly.uca.org.au/unitingjustice/issues/peg/corporate/infantformula .html . The UCA assesses what companies are doing against the WHO code of practice. UnitingCare NSW.ACT has not done much work in this area, mainly leaving it to UnitingJustice. I think the Victorian Synod has been doing the monitoring in recent times. I thought the article referred to on the list was interesting, because infant formula corporations claim that they are abiding by the WHO guidelines, and the fining of the company suggests that they are not. If they will break the law in the UK, then they are probably doing much worse in nations with less resources for monitoring their activities. The problem is that when corporations provide information, they have, at best, a conflict of interest - they provide the information as advertising, to get customers. Otherwise, they would provide funding to government or NGO health organisations to assess the evidence independently and publish the information. Women and children are entitled to independent advice - that is the role of doctors, child health care centres and so on. They should be able to rely on advice from people with a duty of care towards them, not advice from companies who put shareholder interests first. My understanding is that infant formula corporations have had to be dragged screaming into the era of codes of conduct, consumer rights, and awareness that what works for affluent nations does not work in very poor nations where mothers (lacking any education) don't understand about the science of hygeine and even if they do cannot afford clean water and the energy to properly boil water and sterilise bottles, teats etc.

The issue is analagous to drug companies providing to doctors, to consumers if they are allowed to do so, what appears to be scientific information about drugs. There is plenty of evidence that drug companies go well beyond the scientifically valid conclusions of studies about their drugs and urge their use for a whole range of other conditions. Apparently objective information is often not what it seems, especially where commercial interests are involved.