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Nestle-free Week 2010 gets off to a Tweeting good start

25 October, 2010 - 10:35 — Webmaster
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It is International Nestlé-Free Week from 25 - 31 October 2010 (press release). A week for people who boycott Nestlé over its baby milk pushing to do more to spread the word and for those who don't boycott to give it a go. This year people are being asked to email Nestlé over its last baby milk marketing strategy: it is claiming its formula 'protects' babies despite the fact that babies who are fed breastmilk substitutes are more likely to become sick than breastfed babies and, in conditions of poverty, more likely to die.

Boycotters in the United States started the ball rolling yesterday with a Twitter Party. Thousands of tweets were entered on the Twitter site using the #noNestle hashtag. People shared information about how Nestlé violates the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and other measures adopted by the World Health Assembly; how right now Nestlé is undermining breastfeeding by promoting its formula as 'The new "Gold Standard" in infant nutrition'; how Nestlé denies information to parents who use formula that would help them to reduce risks - Nestlé refuses to warn them that powdered formula is not sterile and may contain harmful bacteria. Some people tweeted about the different brands that Nestlé owns. Part of the purpose of the week is to persuade people who think it is too hard to give up Nestlé products to look for alternatives and some tweeters made suggestions of other products to use when boycotting Nestlé. Nestlé-Free Week includes Halloween and campaigners have produced 'Nestlé Free' bags for giving out candy to children knocking on their doors.

The discussion continues on the #noNestle hashtag during International Nestlé-Free Week and beyond. We have adopted a Tweet Ribbon produced last year by a boycotter, which people can add to their Twitter avatar. See:

http://twibbon.com/join/Nestle-Free-Week

Nestle-Free TwibbonNestle-Free Twibbon

 

 

People are also spreading the word on Facebook by inviting friends to join the event page:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=161402963879234&index=1

Comments

25 October, 2010 - 13:10 — ssarles

Not still? Wow! when my

Not still? Wow! when my daughter was a baby, we were boycotting Nestle then. We heard of thousands of baby bottles on hillsides of graves in Africa. My daughter is in her 30s now.  I thought Nestle had wised up and was not pushing their formula on the thrid world before my daughter went to elementary school! I sure didn't appreciate their insistence that I take formula home, along with a romance novel, from the hosptial. Of course I threw both away. I had a fine time nursing my baby -- even though that was not common back then. It was just so obvious to me as the best way -- the way God made and the way that had triumphed for generation. Wow! that is a great memory. I am SO GLAD I did the best for my child! Something went really right at that point and I can be satisfied about it now. And often that is the way it has been for me: do what I know is right, step aside from the commercial lemming culture. But boycotts ... well, power to you girls... but Nestle has not learned. How about this: why not go evangelize your peers. Let them know they need to do the best for their babies, and research or think for themselves, and not let people who want profits over well-being sell them.

Bless you for working for others.  I know it is tough when you also have childcare duties. Bless you. May you be able to do it with joy, peace, and success.

Sharon Sarles

www.greatshalom.org