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From the study summary: We combine birth record data from over 2.6 million infants across 38 countries in the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) with reconstructed historical data from annual investor reports on the timing of Nestlé entrance into infant formula country markets. Consistent with the hypothesis that formula mixed with unclean water could act as a disease vector, we find that 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. https://haas.berkeley.edu/ibsi/research/mortality-from-nestles-marketing-of-infant-formula-in-low-and-middle-income-countries/
Seems pretty damning to me, but will it have any consequences for Nestlé or any of the big honchos at Nestlé from that time? Probably not as usual, since corporations are apparently allowed to kill people as long as they do it in an obfuscated way.
To play (actual) devil's advocate ... Is it Nestle's fault the drinking water was unclean that was mixed with the formula?
That's where I would say the whole, who's responsible part of the equation gets fucky. To be clear, nestle should have done more to combat this and not have pushed formula feeding where they knew the water could be bad.
I'm not a fan of them by any means and would definitely need to read more and definitely know they're evil (fuck I mean I'm pretty sure every large enough corp is evil, hell most of the small ones too) but it still gives me pause when it's presented.
Just so I'm unequivocal here - nestle is bad and fuck them.
Access to safe drinking water was a known issue in loads of places at that time, not just in developing countries. My dad grew up in the 1950s and still drank table beer in his elementary school. There's no way that a 1960s food scientist would have been so incompetent, to not know that not everyone had access to clean drinking water. We can also know that they weren't acting in this way out of ignorance, because they continued with their unethical practices for years after the consequences became public knowledge. They only stopped because of the world wide consumer boycott. And only a few years after they promised to do better, they started rule dodging again. They simply don't care about people, only profits matter.
Mega corps like Nestle pay a fortune for whole PR departments to advocate for them- don't do it for free.
I did say fuck Nestle, didn't I? I'm not really trying to advocate for them just from reading that excerpt I would be interested to know how much the company and its reps really knew about the drinking water situation.
Like, I'm very certain they didn't do anything to help or to combat the problem, just curious if it was something they knew about and how it was handled. I can say for sure they're evil and should have helped. It's just I am thinking about who knew what and how much.
I guess it's more of a thought and less of a defending them because I am not a big nestle fan. Although I do love their chocolate milk mix, reminds me of my childhood so I occasionally buy it because I'm a bad guy.
I was replying directly to your post. You said you were playing devil's advocate. I was saying, you don't need to.
Probably a retirement bonus