Event: Webinar series: Health professionals and formula milk marketing
Webinar 1: An unhealthy influence on health professionals?
Date: Thursday 8 September 2022
Time: 2:00-3:15pm BST (London)
 
For decades, the formula milk industry has aggressively marketed their products – despite the negative impact on child and maternal health and human rights, and despite an International Code agreed by all countries to restrict this marketing. Formula milk companies don’t just target parents in their marketing. They also systematically target the people parents often trust the most – their health professionals – to influence their beliefs, training and advice. This webinar, the first in a series on health professionals and formula milk marketing, was brought to you by the World Health Organization (WHO), The BMJ, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH) and Children in All Policies 2030 (CAP2030).

Welcome and introduction

Chris van Tulleken (Infectious Disease Doctor, University College London, Hospital and Broadcaster)

Summarizing the issue

• How marketing works (Katie Gilbert, Managing Director, M&C Saatchi World Services)
• How industry targets health professionals (Dr Nigel Rollins, Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing, WHO)

Reflections from health professionals

1. Dr Maeve Kelleher (Consultant in Pediatric Allergy, Children’s Health Ireland)
2. Professor Caroline Homer (Co-Program Director, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, Burnet Institute)
3. Dr Melis Pehlivantürk Kızılkan (Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Hacettepe University Children's Hospital, Ankara)

What can be done? An agenda for action

Rapid-fire ‘elevator pitch’ presentation of solutions following same format (what can be done, who can do it, what would it take)
1. Better utilizing the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) (Kelley Khamphouxay, Head of Health and Nutrition, Save the Children International)
2. Opportunities through medical education (Dr Haroon Saloojee, Professor, Community Paediatrics, University of Witwatersrand)
3. Health professionals register (Rebecca Coombes, The BMJ)

Thanks and close

Chris van Tulleken