Whats Hot Mama

Here's an interesting fact not many people know about and one that I find particularly ironic given this magazine cover and the story behind it which largely focuses on the so-called "Father of Attachment Parenting", American paediatrician, Dr William Sears. In 2002, it was revealed that Dr Sears had financial ties to the infant formula industry. Breastfeeding and parenting groups around the world were outraged, expressing their feelings of betrayal in thousands of protest letters and messages on the Internet. Dr. Sears had long been noted and admired for his staunch advocacy of breastfeeding and his strong, outspoken criticism of the infant formula industry. In early 2002 however, financial connections between him and the infant formula industry were revealed. His popular educational web site on the Internet suddenly sported a banner advertisement for infant formula. In addition, the site was linked directly to the Store Brand Infant Formula site with his endorsement of their product to bottle-feeding mothers. Furthermore, it also happens that Store Brand Infant Formulas are manufactured by Wyeth Nutritionals and distributed by PBM Products, a Virginia company that launched generic brand formulas in 1999. PBM Products underwrote the cost of developing and designing Dr. Sears' web site, which opened in November 2000. In addition, he was a paid adviser to, and stockholder of, Martek BioSciences, which has funded studies of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), a fatty acid present in high concentration in the brain and retina; the company is lobbying the United States Food and Drug Administration to require DHA supplementation in all infant formulas, a move that Dr. Sears firmly supports. The web site did not acknowledge the industry source for financial backing.
The outcry persuaded him to correct some of the World Health Organisation’s [I]International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes [/I](more commonly referred to as[I] “The [/I][I]Code[/I]”) violations, such as removing the banner advertisement and the link to Store Brand Infant Formula from the web site. He also publicly admitted he had made some mistakes, and posted a letter on the web site to answer the e-mails from all his critics, whom he referred to as the “mad mommies.” His letter endeavored to explain his actions and the need to cover the high expenses of forming and running his web site. The letter fueled more protest. A conflict of interest was clear and the damage was done.
La Leche League International (LLLI), which had long supported Dr. Sears, immediately removed their link to his web site and asked him to remove their banner from his site.
To breastfeeding advocates around the world, Dr. Sears crossed the line. How interesting that everyone seems to have forgotten the great Doctor’s very public fall from grace.