LEGAL MEASURES CONCERNING MARKETING OF BREAST-MILK SUBSTITUTES IN THAILAND

Abstract

It is widely accepted that mother’s breastfeeding is one of the best ways to ensure child health growth and survival. WHO and UNICEF recommended that “mothers worldwide should exclusively breastfeed their infants for first six months to achieve optimal growth, development and health. Thereafter, they should be given nutritious complementary foods and continue breastfeeding up to the age of two years or beyond.”

Even though we have known numerous benefits of breast milk for infants and young children, however the rate of breastfeeding are low, one among factors that causes to the declination of breastfeeding is marketing of breast-milk substitutes. Breast-milk substitutes are marketed directly to consumer via mass media and advertisement and indirectly via incentives, free samples, donation of formula, promotional gifted to new mothers and gifted given to health workers. The design, packaging and labeling of milk for older children, milk for mother and related products are packed and designed to look closely resemble with breast-milk substitutes and promoted in ways that cross-promote its formula product. This leads to confusions as the purpose of the product. The promotion of breast-milk substitutes and marketing influences and induce mother to believe that breast-milk substitutes are equivalent or better than to human breast-milk and finally decide to stop breastfeeding.

                   In 1981, the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes’ was developed and adopted by WHO and UNICF as a ‘minimum standard’ to help protect and promote breastfeeding and to ensure breast-milk substitutes are used safely when necessary. Furthermore, in 2016 WHA 69th has adopted the ‘Guidance on Ending the Inappropriate Promotion of Foods for Infants and Young Children’ which aims to promote, protect and support breastfeeding, prevent obesity and non-communicable disease, promote healthy diets, and ensure that caregivers receive clear and accurate information on feeding.

In Thailand, the directly regulation controlling the marketing of breast-milk substitute is the Regulation of Marketing of Foods for Infants and Young Children and Related Products 2008. However, this regulation is not legislative or statutory law that can be enforced against the marketing of breast-milk substitutes.  In addition, the Announcement of the Food and Drug Administration Criteria for Food Advertisement B.E.2551 and revision (No.2) B.E.2555 (2012) under the Food Act B.E.2522 laid down prohibitions related to advertisement. However, the announcement and its revision can restrict only an advertisement of food for infant and young children. As a result, those prohibitions do not cover the promotion and marketing instrument. 

In order to comply with the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, the Ministry of Public Health has been pushing forward the drafts of “Legal Control of Marketing of Food for Infant and Young Children” into the national legislation to improve the measures to control the marketing of breast-milk substitutes. Currently, there are two drafts regarding the Department of Health and the Council of State no.1087/2559.

Thus, this thesis aims to study the situation and the current legal measure in Thailand concerning the marketing, advertising and labelling of breast-milk substitutes, including both of the drafts of legal control of marketing of food for infant and young children. Simultaneously, the thesis also studies the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes as the minimum requirement for all governments and the foreign law of the European Union, the United Kingdom and the Philippines in order to compare and seek appropriate legal measures to control the marketing of breast-milk substitutes in Thailand.