U.S. Government Reportedly Disapproves of Breastfeeding Resolution, and Threatens Ecuador To Do The Same?
This is absolutely crazy and a News Story that's completely under the radar. How that is remains baffling to me as it seems women are very unified and vocal regarding Women's Rights and Equality ... even the abortion argument had it's sides with some women feeling as though their body is their own and they should be able to choose what's best for them.
What am I talking about? I'm referring to the recent decision by our U.S. Government to oppose a Breastfeeding Resolution that would have encouraged Breast Feeding as opposed to any other substitutes. The New York Times reported that:
A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.
The Breast Feeding Resolution was based upon many years of research which concluded that a Mother's Breast Milk is the healthiest option for babies and that all Countries should
strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.
However, according to the New York Times article / News Story:
the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.
According to the New York Times Report, American Officials changed the some of the statements in the resolution by actually removing some of the wording in the resolution which proposed that Countries “protect, promote and support breast-feeding”. The New York Times article also claims that the current American Government Administration altered another part of the resolution
that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.
Those changes did not reportedly work, according to the News Story, so the current U.S. Government Administration did the following:
When that failed, they turned to threats, according to diplomats and government officials who took part in the discussions. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.
The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.
Here's what the New York Times article goes on to say:
The showdown over the issue was recounted by more than a dozen participants from several countries, many of whom requested anonymity because they feared retaliation from the United States.
Health advocates scrambled to find another sponsor for the resolution, but at least a dozen countries, most of them poor nations in Africa and Latin America, backed off, citing fears of retaliation, according to officials from Uruguay, Mexico and the United States.
“We were astonished, appalled and also saddened,” said Patti Rundall, the policy director of the British advocacy group Baby Milk Action, who has attended meetings of the assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, since the late 1980s.
All of this is absolutely amazing to me despite all of the research that's been done regarding Breast Feeding not only being the healthiest option for babies, as opposed to Breast Milk manufactured substitutes, but also because research has shown Breast Feeding beneficial for women in that it reduces the risk of Breast Cancer as well as diabetes...which are both extremely important aspects of health concerning African-America women, due to the fact that African-American women are more likely to develop diabetes and more likely to die from Breast Cancer because they suffer from a form of Breast Cancer earlier in life than White Women, and a form of Breast Cancer that's more deadly.
Here's what the Resolution would have supported:
...BUT WAIT!!! Despite everything the New York Times printed, President Donald Trump is saying the New York Times News Story is... 'FAKE NEWS':