Milking Profits

When I began ministry 35 years ago my first pastoral charge was in very rural Newfoundland. At the time the United Church was involved in a boycott of Nestlé's products because this international corporate giant was actively involved in convincing women in developing nations to forego breast-feeding and purchase Nestle powdered infant formula instead. This was represented as better for the babies but it wasn't. The mothers were often using contaminated water and adding more than indicated to stretch the formula, therefore inadvertently poisoning their children and causing malnutrition. Babies were dying of diarrhea and other intestinal diseases.

I was pleasantly surprised that my earnest efforts to convince folk in the five outports I served actually worked. At that time just about everyone used Nestlé's tinned milk in their tea, a practice that left the drinkers' teeth feeling as though they had been broadloomed! Lots of people told me they had switched to another manufacturer, which was really encouraging until I found out that despite the different name the alternative company was a Nestlé's subsidiary.

I thought of this modest attempt at justice when I saw recently that a film has been made about the life of the Nestlé's formula salesman-turned-whistleblower who now lives in Mississauga and works as a taxi-driver. Syed Aamir Raza Hussain (above) sold the formula until a doctor in Pakistan took him into a hospital ward of malnourished babies and explained what was happening. This was in the 1990's, years after the World Health Assembly passed the “International Code for the Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.” Hussain quit his job and eventually produced a report called Milking Profits in which he decries the practices of Nestlé's to promote infant formula by giving "gifts" to doctors and other health officials to do so.

Life has been difficult for Hussain ever since he decided to speak out about his former employer and he was nearly deported from Canada along the way. Now there is a film on Hussain's efforts called Tigers which was screened at TIFF in September. His story is finally being told.

Do any of you recall this boycott? Do you find it discouraging to hear what has transpired, both in the circumvention of the Code and what has happened for Hussain? Here's hoping that the film will make a difference.