As the conventions have almost finished and the 2016 general election comes ever nearer, sometimes it is necessary to take a break from the political rhetoric. After all, hearing Republican nominee Donald Trump discuss building a wall on the Mexican-American border and banning all Muslims from entering the country is downright terrifying.
Thus, in search of a brief respite, I searched through my immigration archives and happened upon an article I had saved from the Los Angeles Times. Dated May 7, 1980, the article discusses U.S. Health and Human Services involvement in World Health Organization (WHO) Code of Ethics surrounding baby formula. I remembered that I saved this article because, as a WHO intern at the time, I drafted the WHO baby formula code! This code is critical to assure quality manufacture and instructions for use of baby formula. It addressed the problem of dilution of formula, for example, by the poor, which leads to malnutrition and illness in babies.
I have embedded a copy of the article into this blog post, and the language of the article is transcribed below. There’s your Throw Back Thursday!
“Patricia Roberts Harris, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Resources, said the United States wanted government representatives to be fully involved in drafting a baby food marketing code now being drawn up by the World Health Organization. She said formal government participation is necessary to win consensus support of a code in the 155-member WHO assembly. She expressed the hope that baby food companies will support voluntary guidelines designed to stop misuse of powdered milk in developing countries and to promote breast feeding.”
