Watching the Post Reveal a Breastfeeding Campaign Gone Lame

By Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

It’s only a conspiracy theory if they’re NOT out to get you.

This could apply to breastfeeding advocates. A recent story in the Washington Post revealed that with help from a former head to the Republican National Committee turned lobbyist, formula companies were successful in getting political appointees from the Department of Health and Human Services to tone down their pro-breastfeeding campaigns. Rather than depict the ills of formula with asthma inhalers and insulin syringes, the ads instead showed more “friendly” images of
dandelions and cherry-topped ice cream scoops to show how breastfeeding can help stem childhood obesity.

Representative Henry Waxman, investigating the matter in the wake of former Surgeon General Richard Carmona’s claims that the White House pressured him to make certain policies, called the softening of the breastfeeding campaign ads a “credible allegation of public interference” with potential “serious health consequences.” The US breastfeeding rate did not increase with the kinder, gentler ad campaign and lags well behind Europe. While the original ads were to scare women into breastfeeding, the final product became ads that tried to encourage women into breastfeeding by extolling its benefits, an approach the company hired to consult on the campaign predicted would be unsuccessful, and, not incidentally, was unsuccessful.

The Post article chronicles how formula companies were able to assert themselves such that HHS officials tried to “be fair” to the companies, rather than press hard for public health concerns. This story has made its way across the blogosphere. While some newspapers, including the Kansas City Star, picked up the Post story, other outlets have yet toreport upon it. Breaking just before Labor Day (no pun intended), the jury’s out about whether the story will travel further. Its narrative echoes other complaints about public health, but also management writ larger (think, Katrina, Iraq, oil drilling). My question: will the story follow in those footsteps of mismanagement due to pandering to big business or will the story not be as prominently featured because breastfeeding seems to be shunted to “women’s” issues rather than a national concern (even if the public health implications might loom
large).