Archive site - new site at www.babymilkaction.org

Professor Michael Latham, a longtime friend of Baby Milk Action, IBFAN and WABA,  and one of the giants in the long struggle to protect breastfeeding  from commercial misinformation,  died in Boston on Friday 1st April at 82. 

Patti Rundall said "Michael was a total inspiration to so many people and continued to be incredibly active and focused on the latest threats to infant health,  right up to the end, co-authoring a key article about the risks of reliance on  fortified foods just a few months ago.  I will truly miss his guidance and his friendship.  He was a wonderful, warm, wise and generous man and it was a priviledge to have known him."

Michael directed the Program in International Nutrition at Cornell University for 25 years, first encountered the problems of nutrition in the developing world while practicing medicine as a young doctor for the British colonial service in Tanganyika (now Tanzania).   

In his 1976 report,  written with Ted Greiner  he said: “the media onslaught is terrific, the messages are powerful and the profits are high.” “High also is the resultant human suffering.”

See article in the New York Times - which sadly repeats misinformation, saying that Nestlé  "agreed in 1984 to abide by the marketing code." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/health/14latham.html?_r=2

 Tibutes can be found on the WABA website:

http://www.waba.org.my/news/michael-latham.htm