challenging illegal formula packaging - sorry if this has already been posted but this is from the CEO of the NCT

[harpsichordcuddler]

"The NCT has been given a clear view from LACORS (the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services that some infant formula packaging currently on store shelves is illegal under current regulations.

In order for it to be removed from sale there needs to be a prosecution or threatened prosecution. Local Trading Standards Officers are the people who would bring a prosecution, but to do this they need to receive large numbers of complaints from across the UK.

Would you help? This is your chance to make a real difference.

Next time you are in a supermarket or chemist, check out the infant formula packs (this formula is labelled as ?suitable from birth?) and read the wording.

The wording we are informed is illegal is

? Formulated to be nutritionally close to breastmilk
? With omega 3 LCP,s
? Closer Than Ever to Breastmilk
? Inspired by breastmilk

You may find other wording which is similar.

Send photos or a description to your trading standards office (you can locate your nearest using this link)

Scotland www.scotss.org.uk/scotss2.htm

England www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/consumers/clegis.cfm

Wales www.wrexham.gov.uk/english/env_services/tradingstandards/

N Ireland www.detini.gov.uk/cgi-bin/get_builder_page?page=61&site=9&parent=110

Channel islands www.gov.je/EconomicDevelopment/TradingStandards/

With a note to say

?These packs were on display in my local xxxxxxx on date xxxxx and I believe them to be illegal under current legislation because of the wording on the packs.
Please note the words

[INSERT WORDING ON PACK]

My information is that this wording is likely to be illegal. Please would you follow this up for me and let me know the outcome. ?

They will do the rest. You don?t need to explain why you think it is illegal or comment any further ? just report it. The body from whom local TSOs take their lead has already advised us that this packaging is illegal. Your letter will push them to act."

Oh I missed that one

LOL! Tiktok must be a gazillionnaire

oh yes I hear she just bought a private island with all the money she makes manning the phonelines in the small hours of the morning.
that's a new one actually, we are in it for the money
marginally better than because we want to feel smug
or our lives are otherwise empty?

Or, because you are evil dictators with world domination on your mind, to be assisted by mass genocide.

Or, because you are trying to raise funds for your criminal fraternity.

"no woman has wandered around a supermarket and then decided to feed her baby on formula because what of it says on a tin..(and if she has , she prob got pregnant by running 3 times round the brownie hut at midnight!)"

seriously now... what other information is there other than what it says on the tin? how the fuck else are people making these decisions? doctor's advice? because THEY READ THE TINS TOO. [evidently got pregnant via the brownie hut method]

as for theidea that no-one changes from bfing to ffing because of the advertising, well, anyone who says that is just ignorant of the marketing efforts in the third world. they're not reading the box, though, because many of them can't read. they just take the advice of 'nurses' in white uniforms who are in fact formula manufacturing staff. have a look at previous threads on this subject, one of us (can't remember, perhaps suedonim) has seen this with her own eyes.

[am still roffling re "all the chemicals and pollutants each adult inhales and carries around in their bodies or does this not pass on" because of course cows breathe special different air with absolutely no pollutants...]

LOL Mrs B.

They dont, they are stuck in cattlesheds being milked within an inch of their pretty short life

you know every time i read about nestle's practices (all formula companies, but them in particular) i get more upset.

good story: had an argument with my stepdad in supermarket coffee aisle because i was refusing to buy nescafe. i told him all about their practices and marketing, he was calling me "a stupid b*tch" and telling me to concentrate on my own family etc (nice man ) and a woman who was eavesdropping put her jar of nescaf back.

the thing i don't understand is why you wouldn't be able to buy fairtrade non-nestle coffee AND look after your own family. likewise caring about world poverty AND wanting to empower more women to bf. likewise ban nestle AND read a website checking that our make-up isn't coming from them...or even just ban nestle and occasionally get it wrong and buy something owned by them by mistake.
it's not like we have to tick an opt-in or opt-out box to care about one thing or another. it's such a non-argument. or rahter an argument for complete inactivity, imo.

tbh aitch he's a vile man anyway (v abusive) and stupid to boot so it was more of an attck on me than anything else

quite so, aitch.
well put if I may say so.

scooby i've been thinking about your very specific qu regarding whether changing the wording changes people's likelihood of bfing or not... i think it's like turning round a ship, that one.

plenty of my mother's friends (generally former bfers, i must say) said to me when i was having difficulties that 'formula is nearly as good now/they add probiotics now/this one is closest to BM' etc etc etc.

they were trying to comfort me, but the fact that this had sunk into the brains of women who were by their own telling the only people bfing on huge maternity wards in the 70s suggests that the message is widely accepted.

not only that, i think that generation has seen so many technological advances that they would more readily accept that scientists had improved formula now compared with the stuff in the 70s.

so for grandmothers who didn't bf their own children in the 70s, there is a certain, erm, emotional incentive to support their own decision by undermining their children's desire to bf. likewise boys are becoming men and fahters without ever having seen a woman bf.

maybe by removing the ff sloganeering, we make it easier for young women to stand up for their desire to bf? maybe in a generation the breast is best slogan will mean something? who knows?

but it's not doiing any harm, is it, to ask companies to be more truthful about their products? 'modified udder milk with added boiled fish heads and corn starch thickeners and no maternal immunities whatsoever' would be the truth but no-one's asking them to write that, are they? we're just asking them to leave off the meaningless 'immunofortis' ingredients and to quit with the 'closest to bm'. because i for one was hacked off when i saw that both C&G and Aptamil (for which i'd been paying a premium) were using exactly the same slogan.

I have read some of the thread and then got a bit bored so if has been said already, please ignore me.

I bf but have some ff to give to ds3 when I go out or fancy a drink - and tbh I bought it because I was told it was closer to breastmilk duh! I was really shocked the other week to read that it contains fish - so checked the box and it does - my sister says it is for the omega 3 oils. I'm not planning to stop using it tbh - as ds2 was ff and he is fine and has no resemblence to a fish

OP - if the labelling is wrong then it should be changed.

sorry octo, if you'd read the thread you'd already know that people who buy formula because it says 'closer to bm' got pregnant by running round the brownie hut three times... apparently we're really thick.

Oh that'll be me then - thank goodness it does have fish oils in then

well there is at least some hope for the next generation with their enormous fish oily brains.

aitch, great point about the mothers telling daughters not to bf. i love my MiL dearly but she freely admits to advising SiL not to bf, too much of a bind, sore nipples, fm is as good as bm etc etc. after talking to her and after she saw how i felt about giving up bf she now regrets it. the problem is that before the WHO guidelines were introduced fm companies pretty much ran amok throughout the maternity wards. and anything new must be better, right?!

yes thank goodness the rest of us are completely uninfluenced by advertising
someone should tell the adervtising industry to stop wasting their time over it

can you sign these please!

Just to confirm - breastfeeding counsellors are volunteers and they train (2-3 years) in their own time. Some breastfeeding counsellors get paid (very small amounts) for helping to run a support group for the NHS, and a very small handful have a job on the maternity ward or clinic (again paid very little). Services to mothers calling bf helplines or getting visits are free. If we man the phone lines on duty we do get a small honorarium for the use of our home phone and for agreeing to be on duty that length of time.

Twofishes, please post again saying you understand this.

Cows milk is subject to the same environmental pollutants as breastmilk, and possibly more, because cows milk then goes through manufacturing and packaging, which puts it through further processes.

I want all mothers to be able to select their choice of infant feeding method based on good, independent, non-commercial information - meekly saying 'business makes the world go round' and allowing whatever lies, exaggerations and claims to be made on the grounds of commercial interests is plain daft. I could bottle my own wee and sell it as 'Tiktok's famous cure-all' if commercial interests was all we were allowed to worry about.

Even if we could improve sanitation for the third world overnight, formula milk is a dreadful waste of the world's resources - mothers have the milk there already, in their breasts. In addition, formula milk makes a massive dent in a poor family's budget. Even if everyone, somehow, was on a level playing field worldwide, with the same income and the same access to water, as a public health measure, increasing breastfeeding would make positive health changes everywhere.

Can I just say, Scooby, with reference to this sentence:

"And isn't it really about you hating formula/formula companies when in fact they are a necessity for the vast majority of babies in this country?"

I don't hate formula. I was fed it for some of my babyhood, fgs. Some of the babies I love best in the world have been fed it. Some babies of MNers I love most of all were/are fed it.

My problem is with the formula companies. They are the ones worthy of hatred, imo and in the opinion of many on this thread and elsewhere in RL, because of their shady practices and manipulation of women.

And MrsB, I was wondering about these cows that are unaffected by all the pollutants bfeeding women seem to have in their bodies too...

A Hunker post.

I understand bf counsellors are volunteers who give their time free and pay their own costs i am sorry if i offended anyone

May I add that I get deeply offended by the assumption that women who don't breast feed have been brainwashed by the formula companies and do not understand that breast is best..at the end of the day it is a personal choice such as pain relief in labour, dressing your child in organic cotton using disposable nappies etc etc

Nobody has the right to slag off a decision somebody else has made , everyone has different causes to fight, because others choose to fight a different corner doesn't make them wrong..that is a free world isn't it ..the right to choose....

Twofishes, I am sorry I really have to respond to your post because I think you may have been reading a different thread . this thread is about illegal advertising - where doo you see "the assumption that women who don't breast feed have been brainwashed by the formula companies and do not understand that breast is best"

Yes, for some/many women it is a choice. For lots of women (ime), they feel they have no choice or they are very unhappy with their choice. but noone on this thread is trying to retrict anyone's choice. why would stopping illegal wording on packaging equate to taking away choice?

"Nobody has the right to slag off a decision somebody else has made , everyone has different causes to fight, because others choose to fight a different corner doesn't make them wrong..that is a free world isn't it ..the right to choose" OK WHO? WHERE??

I must say I get crosser and crosser about this kind of groundless accusation. The only people who have been slagged off on this thread as those who "choose to fight a different corner" - the corner to challenge misleading and dodgy practice by formula companies, and YES I do believe that I have the right to choose to fight that corner without being slagged off for it and being called a nazi (nice). Still, I shall wait in vain for the day when I am permitted to fight for a cause I believe in, without ever being offensive about formula in any way and giving support to all women no matter how they choose (or otherwise to feed their babies). I would appreciate it is I would be permitted the same courtesy.
yeah, dream on, eh?.

Thanks for acknowedging the volunteer thing, twofishes

You still seem relaxed at the idea formula manufacturers can make illegal claims, because it's ok to do this when you are in business, and because you are aware women do not get 'brainwashed'.

I don't think women are 'brainwahed' either - I think they are misled, because they have no information to go on that they can trust ie that is not linked to someone trying to sell them something.

We are talking about the sole nutrition of a vulnerable human being here, and there is no way mothers can trust what they are being told. You can read 'prebiotics' on a tin, but you will not read where they come from. Watch out for 'added probiotics' - they're coming. But I will be very surprised if you read 'with added live bacteria' on the tin (which is what the probiotics will be) - any information has to sound as if it will help sales.

My heart sinks when I read posts on mumsnet asking tis talkboard - a talkboard! - which is the best formula. I can understand women doing this, because in the absence of any independent comparisons, they then become reduced to asking strangers their anecdotes.

There's more information around to help you buy a flippin DVD player.

....and sorry forgot to say I never said that cows milk was pollutant free I am obviously not very good at putting my point across, I was just trying to show that as a free thinking person I can see good and bad to both sides......

note to self: do not enter into MN discussion re formula again..

Might I be permitted a great big "ditto" to Harpsi's post, please?!

Hunker