China bans promoting infant formula in hospitals

November 2, 2013 Leave a comment

China bans promoting infant formula in hospitals

Staff Reporter

Infant formula producers have been forbidden from promoting their products in hospitals and to the families of newborn babies in China, reports the official English-language China Daily. Chinese authorities announced the ban on Tuesday after French food giant Danone was found bribing hospital workers to feed babies their products under another brand name — Dumex — in September. The National Health and Family Planning Commission has issued a similar ban.The Tianjin government has confiscated the money that the brand paid to 116 workers at 85 local hospitals and penalized 13 of the workers.

A head nurse at a hospital in Beijing said bribes were not an issue in the capital since many local hospitals follow regulations that have prohibited infant formula companies from sending samples, gifts or offering products with discounts to hospitals, expectant mothers and families with a newborn since 1995. Other nurses from her own and from other hospitals attended lectures held by infant formula companies but that did not mean they endorsed the companies’ products, she said.

A mother who gave birth in September at a hospital in the central province of Hubei said she took samples from infant formula companies and other products such as diapers and photos after a lecture held for pregnant women and new mothers at the hospital. She said she did not mind that a representative of an infant formula company talked about the firm’s products for 20 minutes during the lecture as long as she was not forced to use the products and that infant formula companies do not feed her baby their products without her consent.

Filed under Macro Trends

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