Protesters dumped a giant coffee mug full of baby dolls at the foot of the Nestle Tower (CROYDON, BRITAIN) on Saturday 23rd MAy, and urged continued support for the international consumer boycott of Nestle products. Nestle is the focus of an ongoing campaign because it has the biggest market share in the baby food industry and still promotes its baby food in violation of WHO ruloes.
Where water is unsafe, a bottle fed child is 25 times more likely to die as a result of diarrhoea than a breast fed child, according to UNICEF. Over dilution of expensive feed can lead to malnutrition. WHO estimates that 1.5 million babies die every year from unsafe bottle feeding.
The boycott was instrumental in bringing about the WHO code in 1981 which bans the promotion of breast feed substitutes, feeding bottles and teats, causing Nestle to end some of its most blatant malpractices. But, selling by stealth has continued, often using ingenious methods. Seventeen years after the WHO Code was adopted, Nestle is still putting profits before health.