HHS Toned Down Breast-Feeding Ads

[Guest guest]

Formula Industry Urged Softer Campaign

 

By Marc Kaufman and Christopher Lee

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, August 31, 2007; Page A01

 

In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of

breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an

attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince

mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not

breast-feed. It featured striking photos of insulin syringes and

asthma inhalers topped with rubber nipples.

 

Plans to run these blunt ads infuriated the politically powerful

infant formula industry, which hired a former chairman of the

Republican National Committee

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Republican+National+Committee?ti\

d=informline

and a former top regulatory official to lobby the Health and Human

Services Department.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Department+of+Health+and+Hu\

man+Services?tid=informline

 

Not long afterward, department political appointees toned down the campaign.

 

The ads ran instead with more friendly images of dandelions and

cherry-topped ice cream scoops, to dramatize how breast-feeding could

help avert respiratory problems and obesity. In a February 2004 letter

(pdf)

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/documents/yeutterletters.pdf

the lobbyists told then-HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Tommy+G.+Thompson?tid=informline

they were " grateful " for his staff's intervention to stop health

officials from " scaring expectant mothers into breast-feeding, " and

asked for help in scaling back more of the ads.

 

The formula industry's intervention -- which did not block the ads but

helped change their content -- is being scrutinized by Congress in the

wake of last month's testimony by former surgeon general Richard H.

Carmona

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Richard+Carmona?tid=informline

that the Bush administration repeatedly allowed political

considerations to interfere with his efforts to promote public health.

 

Rep. Henry A. Waxman's

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/w000215/

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating

allegations from former officials that Carmona was blocked from

participating in the breast-feeding advocacy effort and that those

designing the ad campaign were overruled by superiors at the formula

industry's insistence.

 

" This is a credible allegation of political interference that might

have had serious public health consequences, " said Waxman, a

California Democrat.

 

The milder campaign HHS eventually used had no discernible impact on

the nation's breast-feeding rate, which lags behind the rate in many

European countries.

 

Some senior HHS officials involved in the deliberations over the ad

campaign defended the outcome, saying the final ads raised the profile

of breast-feeding while following the scientific evidence available

then -- which they say did not fully support the claims of the

original ad campaign.

 

But other current and former HHS officials say the muting of the ads

was not the only episode in which HHS missed a chance to try to raise

the breast-feeding rate. In April, according to officials and

documents, the department chose not to promote a comprehensive

analysis by its own Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Agency+for+Healthcare+Research+a\

nd+Quality?tid=informline

of multiple studies on breast-feeding, which generally found it was

associated with fewer ear and gastrointestinal infections, as well as

lower rates of diabetes, leukemia, obesity, asthma and sudden infant

death syndrome.

 

The report did not assert a direct cause and effect, because doing so

would require studies in which some women are told not to breast-feed

their infants -- a request considered unethical, given the obvious

health benefits of the practice.

 

A top HHS official said that at the time, Suzanne Haynes, an

epidemiologist and senior science adviser for the department's Office

on Women's Health, argued strongly in favor of promoting the new

conclusions in the media and among medical professionals. But her

office, which commissioned the report, was specifically instructed by

political appointees not to disseminate a news release.

 

Wanda K. Jones,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Wanda+K.+Jones?tid=informline

director of the women's health office, said agency media officials

have " all been hammering me " about getting Haynes to stop trying to

draw attention to the AHRQ report. HHS press officer Rebecca Ayer

emphatically told Haynes and others in mid-July that there should be

" no media outreach to anyone " on that topic, current and former

officials said.

 

Rest of story on website below:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/30/AR2007083002198.\

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