george monbiot on the g8:
It is time once again for that touching annual ritual, in which the world’s most powerful people move themselves to tears. At Heiligendamm they will emote with the wretched of the earth. They will beat their breasts and say many worthy and necessary things – about climate change, Africa, poverty, trade – but one word will not leave their lips. Power. Amid the patrician goodwill, there will be no acknowledgement that the power they wield over other nations destroys everything they claim to stand for.
(...) They refuse to acknowledge that what the rich nations give with one finger they take with both hands.
(...) Look at what is happening, right now, in the Philippines. This country has many problems, but one stands out: just 16% of children between 4 and 5 months old are exclusively breastfed(1). This is one of the lowest documented rates on earth, and it has fallen by a third since 1998(2). As 70% of Filipinos have inadequate access to clean water, the result is a public health disaster. Every year, according to the World Health Organisation, some 16,000 Filipino children die as a result of “inappropriate feeding practices”(3).
(...) A summary of peer-reviewed studies compiled by the campaigning groups Infact and Ibfan suggests that breastfeeding also reduces the incidence of asthma, allergies, childhood cancers, diabetes, coeliac disease, Crohn’s, colitis, obesity, cardiovascular disease, poor cognitive development, ear infections and poor dentition(4). Switching from bottle to breast could prevent 13% of all childhood deaths(5): a greater impact than any other measure. Panaceas are rare in medicine, but the mammary gland is one.
(...) Both the government of the Philippines and the UN blame the manufacturers of baby formula for much of the decline in breastfeeding. These companies spend over $100m a year on advertising breastmilk substitutes in the Philippines, which equates to over half the department of health’s annual budget(6). Those who appear most susceptible to this advertising are the poor, who are also the most likely to be using contaminated water to make up the feed. Some spend as much as one third of their household income on formula. Powdered milk now accounts for more sales than any other consumer product in the Philippines(7). Almost all of it is produced by companies based in the rich nations.
(...) Last year, in the hope of arresting this public health disaster, the Philippines Department of Health drew up a new set of rules. It prohibited all advertising and promotion of infant formula for children of up to two years old. It forbade the formula companies from giving away gifts or samples or from providing assistance to health workers or classes to mothers(13). The new rules seem stiff, but they all come straight from the WHO’s code. PHAP, whose members include most of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies(14), went to the supreme court to try to obtain a restraining order. When it failed the big guns arrived.
(...) The US embassy and the US regional trade representative started lobbying the Philippines government. Then the chief executive of the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington – which represents three million businesses – wrote a letter to the president of the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo. The new rules, he claimed, would have “unintended negative consequences for investors’ confidence”. The country’s reputation “as a stable and viable destination for investment is at risk.”(15) Four days later, the Supreme Court reversed its decision and imposed the restraining order PHAP had requested. It remains in force today. The government is currently unable to prevent companies from breaking the international code.
(...) The pressure to which the US government and the US Chamber of Commerce have subjected the government of the Philippines is at odds with almost everything the G8 now claims to stand for: the millennium health and education goals, the eradication of poverty, fair terms of trade. But the G8 nations will pursue their stated objectives only to the point at which they collide with their own interests. Away from their sentimental summits, they pull down everything they claim to be building.
(...) The question is no longer whether the undemocratic power the G8 nations exert over the rest of the world can be used for good or ill. The question is whether it will cease to be used.