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BOSTON, May 23, 2006

In a setback for Massachusetts families, the Public Health Council allowed hospitals to continue participating in formula company marketing campaigns. The decision comes in the wake of an eleventh-hour shakeup in which Gov. Romney replaced three Council members who supported marketing restrictions just before the Council’s scheduled meeting today.

“We’re not surprised,” says Dr. Melissa Bartick, an internist who chairs the Massachusetts breastfeeding Coalition. “Gov. Romney has gone out of his way to protect the $8 billion a year formula industry. Not only did his administration block the proposed regulation, but then the Governor resorted to replacing a third of the Public Health Council just before the meeting.” The Coalition intends to use the momentum created by the bag controversy to launch a state and national “Ban the Bags” campaign.
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Boston, May 12, 2006

The Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition held a demonstration at the State House on Friday, May 12 at 10 am. We gathered on Mother’s Day weekend to tell the Administration to keep formula marketing out of our state’s hospitals.

On May 8, Gov. Romney’s spokesman was quoted in the Boston Globe as defending the Administration’s actions to allow hospitals to market baby formula with “free” gift bags from formula companies. He mistakenly characterized proponents of the restriction as a “vocal minority” of
breastfeeding advocates who “seek to punish” mothers who formula feed. On the contrary, we are concerned that mothers who chose to formula feed will end up paying an extra $700 a year in name-brand formula marketed by the hospitals, rather than buying store brands.
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Writing on the front page of The Boston Globe, reporter Steve Smith explains why leading hospitals in Massachusetts are doing away with formula company marketing bages.