Broken promises, false advertisements about formula milk

Report Issue

Please complete the required fields.

Your Name

Email

Reason (required)
This post contains broken linksPost has incorrect informationPost has spamCopyright IssueOther

Description

Submit

Formula milk, like many other consumer products, uses science to sell itself. Some of the most frequent attributions are that they benefit the development of the baby’s brain or immune system or that they promote their growth.
However, according to an article published today in the BMJ magazine, most of those health benefits that appear on the packages or in advertisements of breastmilk replacers have little or no scientific evidence.
The researchers analyzed the websites or ways of selling formula products in 15 countries between 2020 and 2022. Of 608 products chosen, over 53% of the products were said to help with the development of the brain or nervous system, a 39% that strengthened the immune system and 37% that favored the growth and development of the baby. However, when the authors, led by Daniel Munblit of Imperial College London, checked these claims, they found that half of them were made without identifying the beneficial ingredient and 74% of the products did not offer any scientific reference to justify the advertised attributes.
In the case of the slogans that did offer reference to clinical trials, 90% of those chosen had a high risk of being biased and in 88% of the registered trials, their authors had received funding from companies that produce dairy milk. formula or were employed by these companies.
The authors believe their results suggest that “the regulatory framework for breastmilk substitutes needs to be reviewed to better protect consumers and prevent harm associated with aggressive sales tactics for these products.” However, the regulatory frameworks are not the same in all the countries studied, which include European countries, India, Russia or Nigeria.