Experts sound alarm on ’exploitative’ baby formula industry 

Baby milk formula companies are exploiting parents' emotions and manipulating scientific information and policymakers to generate sales at the expense of the health and rights of families, women, and children, argue an international team of scientists including experts from The Australian National University (ANU) and Deakin University. In a special three-paper series published in The Lancet , the researchers argue less than half of infants worldwide are being breastfed as recommended by World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, while milk formula sales are on the rise. According to the researchers, only about a third of infants in Australia are breastfed as recommended. The 2023 Lancet Series on Breastfeeding calls for active promotion of breastfeeding, enabling mums, families and health professionals to make informed decisions around infant feeding that are guided by accurate information and free from industry influence. The authors are calling for the urgent adoption of an international legal treaty to better regulate formula marketing ploys and protect the health and wellbeing of mothers and their infants. Lead author Dr Phil Baker, from Deakin University's Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition ( IPAN ), said Australia is one of only a few countries worldwide that has not implemented the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes into national law.  "Instead, we have a voluntary code of conduct, so-called 'self-regulation', that is supposed to stop this marketing.