“The U.S. Government Defended the Overseas Business Interests of Baby Formula Makers. Kids Paid the Price,” Heather Vogell, ProPublica.
Stop whatever you’re doing and read this right now. It’s not surprising, if anyone is familiar with U.S. foreign policy and history, but still. Wow.
U.S. corporations are very effectively lobbying U.S. government officials to overturn policies that would restrict the marketing of formula in countries like Thailand, where breastfeeding rates have dropped below twenty percent. Many of these countries have attempted to pass legislation aligned with WHO guidance, which strongly recommends breastfeeding, only to find those attempts watered down or completely thwarted when U.S. government representatives complain that it will hurt – you got it – U.S. corporations.
The result? Sick children, and in some cases, dead children, as was the case when Nestle so aggressively marketed formula in Africa that many women stopped breastfeeding: “Not only were mothers using costly formula to replace breast milk, which would have given their babies better immunity, but the water parents mixed milk powder with was sometimes contaminated, leading to life-threatening bacterial infections and diarrhea. Overdiluted formula was causing severe malnutrition, too.”
Read this if you read one thing this week.
“The Art of Fiction No. 262,” Jhumpa Lahiri, The Paris Review
Jorge and I have loved Jhumpa Lahiri since we first read Interpreter of Maladies while I was in graduate school. Jorge has an unabashed artist crush on her and still talks about that book fondly.
If you haven’t explored these Paris Review interviews yet, make an artist date for yourself ASAP. In this interview, Lahiri talks about her decision to leave the U.S., where her family immigrated from India when she was a baby, for Italy. (A reminder that if you don’t subscribe, you can access the magazine for free on Libby through your local library.)
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