WHO accused of stifling debate about infant feeding

International specialists in infant feeding have expressed concern that the World Health Organization's policy of establishing partnerships with private industry has gone too far, with the result that debate about the infant food industry's role in marketing breast milk substitutes is being stifled.

A group of specialists who want the WHO to recommend that babies should not be introduced to complementary feeding until about 6 months of age, claim that at a recent joint meeting of the WHO and Unicef in Geneva on infant feeding they were prevented from discussing the issue. In addition, several background papers, prepared for the week long meeting, were edited so that they were less critical of the infant food industry.

Dr Audrey Naylor, a paediatrician and …