Part B In the following article some paragraphs have been
removed. For questions 66—70, choose the most suitable paragraph from the lists
A—F to fit into each of the numbered gaps. There is one paragraph which does not
fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
The ten-year battle over baby-milk that has pitted the
champions of breast feeding against more than a dozen powerful multinational
companies will reach its climax next week. At a meeting of the
World Health Organization, 157 governments will vote on a code backed by
consumer groups, churches and health experts — which would prohibit companies
from all direct advertising and promotion of baby milk, from issuing samples and
gifts to health workers, from using company "nurses", and even from paying sales
commission to their staff. Almost certainly, the code will be passed.
The result, its backers hope, will reverse the trend away from
breastfeeding — especially in the Third World, where it is reckoned that more
than a million lives could be saved each year if mothers abandoned artificial
substitutes. 66.____________ In the United
States, they argue that a ban on advertising would be contrary to constitutional
freedoms — which, they say, includes the "freedom of Commercial speech." But
even the companies no longer dispute the medical facts. Infant
formula — a powered mixture based on cow’s milk — is indisputably inferior to
human milk because it lacks the natural antibodies, which protect babies against
many common diseases including measles and diarrheas. In Third World countries,
where mothers without refrigerators or detergents are diluting the mixture with
polluted water, baby milk is a risk to children’s health. A
leading world paediatrician, Dr. Derrick Jeliffe, estimates that about 10
million cases a year of infants malnutriton and infectious diseases can be
attributed to improper bottle-feeding. The companies emphasize that baby milk
has an important role for working mothers and for women who cannot
breastfeed. 67.____________ The poorest are in
any case those least able to afford commercial substitutes. For a typical Third
World agricultural worker, feeding one child on baby milk requires between 20
and 50 percent of the family budget. The result, often, is that older children
go hungry. For the companies, baby milk is big business. The
Third World market, growing at 15 percent a year, is already worth about 700
million — double the sales in the US. For the poor countries the trade is a
multimillion dollar drain on their foreign exchange, and the avoidable child
diseases caused by baby milk increase the strains on the health
services. 68.____________ They have used
aggressive marketing throughout the Third World — creating, their critics claim,
a "need" which in all but a handful of cases does not exist.
Advertising is the central target of the Geneva code. It makes no attempt
to ban the sale or use of baby milk, or to resist sales to chemists or
government-controlled outlets. The companies say the code is therefore
unnecessary, because in October 1979 their umbrella organization, the
International Council for Food Industries, agreed on a voluntary code which
included the adandonment of direct advertising in developing
countries. Since that date, however, the International Baby Food
Action Network claims to have documented more than 1,000 violations of the
voluntary code. 69.____________ Some companies,
including Cow & Gate, support the WHO code. But most of them resist it
because it would crack down on these practices. US companies have mounted a
powerful lobby, preying on the Reagan administration’s distaste for
international regulation. The government is divided; and the US could still vote
against the code. Above all, the companies fear that the code
will apply equally to the lucrative Western market. This is far from certain
because the WHO bowing to pressures from some industrialised countries and
milk-surplus producers in the Common Market, has presented its code as a
recommendation, not a legally-binding regulation. 70.
____________ [A] This means that it is up to individual
governments whether or not to apply it. [B] The companies
disclaim responsibilities for the misuse of their products and for their use in
dangerous conditions. [C] The companies are lobbying strongly
against the code because it would virtually eliminate legitimate competition and
because it pays no attenion to different countries’ conditions.
[D] But detailed and international restrictions cannot be the answer.
National measures based on a set of internationally agreed general principles is
the realistic approach and one which has already been shown to work in countries
like Malaysia and Singapore. [E] Besides, medical sales workers
still do the rounds of hospitals and clinics, leaving piles of booklets, posters
and free samples. [F] Yet recent research shows that only a
minute percentage of mothers are unable to feed their babies, even among the
badly under-nourished.