Infant Formula 1979 General Resolution

WHEREAS, world health authorities have documented the disastrous effect the widespread marketing of infant formula has had upon the nutrition and well-being of millions of babies in less developed nations; and

WHEREAS, the distribution of these products to uneducated mothers by medical and paramedical personnel implies the superiority of formula over breast milk, leading to the abandonment of breast feeding on a massive scale; and

WHEREAS, poor mothers living in unhygienic conditions frequently mix the formula in weak solution with polluted water, adding the risk of disease to the problem of malnutrition; and

WHEREAS, many mothers under the influence of aggressive infant formula marketing programs have needlessly invested large portions of their meager family budgets in order to purchase the product, further weakening the family economically; and

WHEREAS, most national and multinational companies producing and marketing infant formula have resisted attempts to require that they alter their marketing methods to eliminate these hazards;

BE IT RESOLVED: That the 1979 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association calls upon local societies and individual members to express their concern for the effects of infant formula marketing methods within developing nations by:

  1. Communicating these concerns to formula-producing companies;
  2. Participating in selective boycotts;
  3. Supporting stockholder resolutions calling for responsible marketing practices; and
  4. Seeking Congressional action to control the international marketing practices of U.S.—based formula-producing corporations.