How Nestle Caused the Deaths of Millions of Infants
In 1974, War on Want (a British NGO) was one of the first to launch an investigation into the mysterious and rapid increase in infant mortality rates in third world countries. What they found was horrific and utterly shocking. Many third world countries do not have good access to clean water. Baby formula requires water as one of the main ingredients to turn the formula powder in milk for infants. Water contaminated with all sorts of diseases, pollution and parasites were being given to babies to drink. Babies that didn’t have strong immune systems as adults do. The damage was extensive, significant and heart-breaking.
Over 11 million infants died and it's not just them. It’s 11 million mothers, 11 million fathers and 11 million brothers and sisters, aunties, uncles and grandparents that had to witness the death of someone so precious and vulnerable as those babies. Mothers, yearning for the best for their children, fell prey to the promises of ‘nutritional’ baby formula. This wasn’t just a nutrition crisis — it was a tragedy fuelled by corporate greed and misplaced trust.
The scandal emerged as Nestlé aggressively marketed its infant formula in developing nations, particularly in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The company employed tactics such as sending sales representatives dressed as nurses, known as "milk nurses", to promote formula as a superior alternative to breast milk. This marketing strategy was particularly harmful in regions with poor sanitation, where mothers often mixed the formula with contaminated water, leading to severe health issues, including diarrhoea and malnutrition.
Infant mortality increased in households with unclean water sources by 19.4 per thousand births following Nestlé market entrance but had no effect among other households. This rate is equivalent to a 27% increase in mortality in the population using unclean water and amounts to about 212,000 excess deaths per year at the peak of the Nestlé controversy in 1981. Following this, the World Health Assembly developed the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (the Code) in 1981 and several subsequent resolutions. However, intensive marketing of infant formula continues largely unabated, with sales from these products now approaching US$ 55 billion a year.
The Lancet, which is a British medical journal, produced a series of documents on the subject which explored the misleading marketing claims that directly exploited parental anxieties around normal infant behaviours, suggesting that commercial milk products alleviate fussiness or crying, or for instance, that they help with colic, or prolong night-time sleep. The authors stress that, when mothers are appropriately supported, such parental concerns can be managed successfully with exclusive breastfeeding.
“The formula milk industry uses poor science to suggest, with little supporting evidence, that their products are solutions to common infant health and developmental challenges,” says Professor Linda Richter from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. “This marketing technique clearly violates the 1981 Code, which says labels should not idealise the use of formula to sell more product.”
The series explains how formula milk marketing exploits the lack of support for breastfeeding by governments and society, while misusing gender politics to sell its products. This includes framing breastfeeding advocacy as a moralistic judgment, while presenting milk formula as a convenient and empowering solution for working mothers.
Across all countries surveyed in the series, women expressed a strong desire to breastfeed exclusively that ranged from 49 per cent in Morocco to 98 per cent in Bangladesh.
Yet the WHO/UNICEF report details how a sustained flow of misleading marketing messages is reinforcing myths about breastfeeding and breast milk, and undermining women’s confidence in their ability to breastfeed successfully.
Some of the myths around breastfeeding include the inadequacy of breastmilk for infant nutrition; that infant formula improves development or immunity; and that the quality of breast milk declines with time.
According to the data, breastfeeding within the first hour of birth, followed by exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued breastfeeding for up to two years or beyond, offers a powerful line of defence against all forms of child malnutrition.
Breastfeeding also acts as babies’ first vaccine, protecting infants against many common childhood illnesses while also reducing future risks of diabetes, obesity, and some forms of cancer in nursing mothers.
According to WHO, breastfeeding is the best way of providing infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development and can prevent 13 per cent of child deaths.
In 1977, The Nestlé boycott can be seen as special in a sense that it linked human rights regulations and humanitarian activism with corporate responsibility and market capitalism. Consumers were basically acting as global citizens by aiding people in need outside their close communities – mothers in developing countries – “using the marketplace not as a way of generating revenue, but rather as a space for protest”. Advocacy groups and charities have accused Nestlé of unethical methods of promoting infant formula over breast milk to poor mothers in developing countries. For example, IBFAN claims that Nestlé distributes free formula samples to hospitals and maternity wards; after leaving the hospital, the formula is no longer free, but because the supplementation has interfered with lactation, the family must continue to buy the formula.
The boycott is on-going as of 2025, Nestlé also officially states on their website that it "follows the WHO Code as implemented by national governments everywhere in the world". The company states that it updates its marketing policy, that it reports on compliance on an annual basis, and that it set up a whistleblower scheme. Nestlé states that it is "committed not to interfere with mothers' desire to breastfeed and to protect them from inappropriate marketing practices by actively supporting breastfeeding". Critics state that Nestlé continues to be accused of malpractice.
Daya Sangha
Sources:
https://waronwant.org/sites/default/files/THE%20BABY%20KILLER%201974.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestl%C3%A9_boycott
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24452/w24452.pdf
