You would think you had heard it all. It is as though President Trump and his followers in the United States are proud of their ignorance. The other day, it was reliably reported that Trump appointees were threatening other countries over mothers’ milk. It seems they went to the World Health Assembly in Geneva and voted against a resolution supporting the use of mothers’ milk over the use of manufactured substitutes.
It seems that over the past 40 years, the assembly has stood firmly in favour of the qualities of mothers’ milk for initial feeding of infants. It seems some American substitute powder manufacturers disagree with the rest of the world. They have products to sell.
We have known for a long time that powdered substitutes were a very bad idea in third world countries where clean water is hard for the mothers to acquire. Infants in third world countries really need the immunities that can be fed to them in their mother’s milk. For supplement manufacturers to promote their products in the third world is ludicrous.
But the stupidity did not end with a single vote in Geneva. The American delegation at first tried to amend the resolution. This was annoying. And then they started to threaten other delegations if they did not support the American position. This made more delegates angry.
But it also meant that some delegations caved into the U.S. demands. Their countries could not afford to lose support programs from America. The assembly in Geneva, makes the rules for the World Health Organization (WHO) and for the past 40 years, it has recommended the use of mothers’ milk as the safest and healthiest for babies. Why the American delegates had suddenly embraced the stand of American infant formula manufacturers was not clear.
But it certainly serves to show us how far President Trump and his troops will go in pursuit of lobbyist supporters. They are available at a reasonable price to any and all with the money to pay them.
All we can say further to this is that the Trump troops were not successful. It was actually Russia that carried the flag for mothers’ milk and presented the resolution. We have no doubt that the Canadian delegation was among those who were pleased to support it.
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Copyright 2018 © Peter Lowry
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