Remembering The Nestlé Baby Formula Scandal That Rocked The 1970s

The first attention-grabbing article about Nestlé's baby formula distribution practices in third world countries was entitled "Babies Mean Business," published in The New Internationalist in 1973. The article accused Nestlé of three things when it came to their business practices in the third world:

"Creating a need where none existed. 

Convincing consumers the products were indispensable. 

Linking products with the most desirable and unattainable concepts—then giving a sample."

The Baby Killer booklet, a 1974 British publication, was another tool in sparking the global conversation about baby formula. When a German publisher translated the booklet, changing the title to "Nestlé Kills Babies," Nestlé sued for libel. The parties spent two years in litigation and eventually won the suit. The judge did, however, urge Nestle to adjust their advertising and publicity. 

When Nestlé and other milk companies began introducing their products to developing countries, they waged a full-on campaign, dressing their representatives in nurse uniforms and sending them out to proselytize.

These "milk nurses" visited homes and hospitals to spread the word about their innovative formula and, while some of them may have possessed relevant educational background, most did not. They also spent time at maternity wards, offering advice about nutrition and feedings while giving mothers instructions about how to prepare their Nestlé products. 

In Singapore, milk nurses were so prevalent that they were banned from hospitals. As a result, these nurses would simply wait outside for new mothers to leave and then provide samples.

In Jamaica, milk nurses were able to acquire the names of new mothers and visit their homes. In the Philippines, milk nurses visited public housing, locating homes with newborns and young children by the diapers hanging on clotheslines nearby. 

Once mothers were dependent upon formula to feed their children, the product's cost became an issue. As a result, many women began watering down the milk to make it last longer. They would add as much as three times the recommended amount of water, severely lowering the nutritional value of the formula.

When researchers in Indonesia investigated this phenomenon, they found that "only one in four women had mixed the milk reasonably close to its recommended strength." In a committee hearing on Health and Scientific Research held in the United States in 1978, Dr. Alan Jackson testified that mothers were stretching cans of formula, which were supposed to last three days for one child, for two weeks while feeding two children with its contents. 

Mothers in underdeveloped countries were using water that rife with fecal organisms – among other contaminants – when mixing their formula. When a nurse named Fatima Patel, who worked with Peruvians, testified before the US subcommittee in 1978, she shared how difficult finding clean water for the formula would be:

"The river is used as a laundry, as a bathroom, as a toilet and for drinking water... now, you can tell... but to get the fuel to boil that water, she has to go into the jungle, chop a tree trunk with a machete... and carry it on her back. No mother is going to use that hard-earned piece of wood to boil that water. So, the babies are drinking the contaminated water."

Additionally, the bottles used for the formula were not sterilized. Despite instructions on the cans of formula and from the milk nurses, women often lacked sufficient heating methods to sterilize bottles – alternatively, multiple people could access only one pot, thus lacking the resources to prepare bottles properly. 

Milk nurses gave away free samples to new mothers, providing the opportunity for them to either not breastfeed or to use formula in conjunction with breastfeeding.

Once a child breastfed less or stopped suckling from the mother, however, the mother's milk would dry up. This led to an inevitable dependence on formula.

While the financial burden of this dependence was significant, equally significant was the lack of nutrients and antibodies that babies were consuming from breast milk. Scientists acknowledged the importance of colostrum, the milk-like substance produced by a mother soon after birth, in building a baby's immune system. With fewer babies breastfeeding, the overall health of infants in third-world countries began to decline.