Lobbyist Know No Bounds: Even Infants are Fair Game

LadyT

LadyT

JPP Modarater
Contributor
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20523460/

In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed.
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Plans to run these blunt ads infuriated the politically powerful infant formula industry, which hired a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former top regulatory official to lobby the Health and Human Services Department. Not long afterward, department political appointees toned down the campaign.
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Republican's have no morals what so ever. This is absolutely disgusting: Big business countering healthy guidelines for infants so that their profit margins aren't hit. Someone needs to be raked over the coals for this.
 
From the article:
the Bush administration repeatedly allowed political considerations to interfere with his efforts to promote public health.
 
I think they probably overstated the risks. Like 75% of people my age weren't breastfed. Of course you should try because the baby gets live antibodies from the breastmilk but some people just can't.
 
This should be the biggest, most talked about story for the next month, but it won't be.

This is our government, America. It is BOUGHT & PAID FOR, and much more a tool of corporate America than of the American people.

This is a really sick, and very revealing, story...
 
Blackflag said:
I think they probably overstated the risks. Like 75% of people my age weren't breastfed. Of course you should try because the baby gets live antibodies from the breastmilk but some people just can't.
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Some people can't but most women can. And you're right, our generation was bottled fed. Additionally, allergies and asthma are up to with younger people. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way the general public should be made aware of this and the fact that the industry was able to silence them is sickening.
 
LadyT said:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20523460/

In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed.
......

Plans to run these blunt ads infuriated the politically powerful infant formula industry, which hired a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former top regulatory official to lobby the Health and Human Services Department. Not long afterward, department political appointees toned down the campaign.
_________________________________________

Republican's have no morals what so ever. This is absolutely disgusting: Big business countering healthy guidelines for infants so that their profit margins aren't hit. Someone needs to be raked over the coals for this.
Click to expand...


That is pretty amazing. But, am I the only one who sometimes feels like Mark Twain must be writing all of this, that it can't be real? "the politically powerful infant formula industry is outraged".

I mean, come on.
 
LadyT said:
Some people can't but most women can. And you're right, our generation was bottled fed. Additionally, allergies and asthma are up to with younger people. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way the general public should be made aware of this and the fact that the industry was able to silence them is sickening.
Click to expand...

There is even a higher rate of childhood leukemia in children who are not breast-fed.
 
LadyT said:
Some people can't but most women can. And you're right, our generation was bottled fed. Additionally, allergies and asthma are up to with younger people. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way the general public should be made aware of this and the fact that the industry was able to silence them is sickening.
Click to expand...
I'm wondering if it causes the increase in ADD and Autism.
 
You can take what they're doing here & apply it to just about any other issue.

When I think about the environment, it turns my stomach. Corporate polluters basically wrote the so called "Clear Skies" act, which would gut previous Clean Air legislation, and who can forget the guy from ExxonMobil who headed up Bush's environmental council, redacting sections of official reports tying man to climate change?

People have a right to be cynical. Our government sucks...
 
Onceler said:
You can take what they're doing here & apply it to just about any other issue.

When I think about the environment, it turns my stomach. Corporate polluters basically wrote the so called "Clear Skies" act, which would gut previous Clean Air legislation, and who can forget the guy from ExxonMobil who headed up Bush's environmental council, redacting sections of official reports tying man to climate change?

People have a right to be cynical. Our government sucks...
Click to expand...

I know, it's the most blatant dismantling of government agencies there has ever been, and worse, using those agencies to work against what they were meant for. The Department of Labor being used to find ways to screw the laborer, for instance. It goes on and on and on. I do wonder if bush and his cohors giggle when they pull these things off. I think that he at least, does.
 
LadyT said:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20523460/

In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed.
......

Plans to run these blunt ads infuriated the politically powerful infant formula industry, which hired a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former top regulatory official to lobby the Health and Human Services Department. Not long afterward, department political appointees toned down the campaign.
_________________________________________

Republican's have no morals what so ever. This is absolutely disgusting: Big business countering healthy guidelines for infants so that their profit margins aren't hit. Someone needs to be raked over the coals for this.
Click to expand...

I oppose the ads too, government should not be advertising one way or the other. Those companies tax dollars should not go to funding government advertising campaigns and they do have a right to lobby against it.

Just as I would oppose the opposite if say infant formula companies wanted government to fund ads that encourage no breastfeeding.

Government shouldn't be promoting either side, let people make their own decisions with doctors, magazines and plenty other resources.
 
Darla said:
I know, it's the most blatant dismantling of government agencies there has ever been, and worse, using those agencies to work against what they were meant for. The Department of Labor being used to find ways to screw the laborer, for instance. It goes on and on and on. I do wonder if bush and his cohors giggle when they pull these things off. I think that he at least, does.
Click to expand...
How do they screw the laborer?
 
TheDanold said:
I oppose the ads too, government should not be advertising one way or the other. Those companies tax dollars should not go to funding government advertising campaigns and they do have a right to lobby against it.

Just as I would oppose the opposite if say infant formula companies wanted government to fund ads that encourage no breastfeeding.

Government shouldn't be promoting either side, let people make their own decisions with doctors, magazines and plenty other resources.
Click to expand...

Umm something about promiting the public welfare or some such garbage.
 
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