Dumex 'shocked' at probe into formula promotion
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, September 17, 2013
French infant formula maker Dumex is launching an investigation into claims that parents in some hospitals are being forced to feed their newborn babies the company's products.
A China Central Television report alleged that Dumex staff bribed Chinese hospital officials to provide its products to newborns.
Dumex China said it was "extremely shocked" by the report on the promotion of infant formula in hospitals in north China's Tianjin City.
The CCTV program claimed that producers, including Dumex, were targeting newborn babies by reaching deals with hospitals in a bid to stand out in the fiercely competitive infant formula market.
Doctors and nurses are feeding babies with specific brands for the sake of getting kickbacks, the program claimed. As a result, the babies were becoming addicted to the taste of formula and rejecting their mothers' milk.
Childcare experts say that such practices deprive babies of the chance to build up their immune systems and deny them the benefits of the more nutritious breast milk.
In one hospital in Tianjin, newborn babies spend most of their time in the nursery, away from their mothers, according to CCTV.
Parents are not given the option of breastfeeding and are not told which brand of formula is being used, it said. Neither are they allowed their own choice of brand.
An insider told CCTV that it wasn't unusual for formula producers to conspire with hospitals to ensure that babies became "addicted" to certain brands. When a new mother is discharged from the hospital, she will be given a can of the formula to feed her baby at home.
A woman who said she was a former sales manager with Dumex China told CCTV: "Every year we send money to hospitals, about tens of thousands of yuan. It's kind of tacit agreement. If you didn't offer a proper sum of money, hospitals would change to another brand the next month."
She showed CCTV a detailed payment account that appeared to indicate that Dumex spent an average of 300,000 yuan (US$49,020) on some hospitals in Tianjin every month between January and July.
The document appeared to detail payments ranging from hundreds of yuan to 10,000 yuan to doctors and nurses.
The former sales manager said one doctor received a payment every month and added that the company always said the payments were for other reasons, such as support for hospital expansion.
In 2011, the former Ministry of Health ruled that producers were not allowed to promote formula to babies up to six months old except that mothers suffered from serious diseases.
In 2008, the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate specified that medical workers would be guilty of taking bribes if they took advantage of their positions to make money.
The Shanghai Red House Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital said it always advocated that mothers breastfeed their children.
If there were problems with producing enough milk, it said, relatives were advised to choose from the variety of brands available in local supermarkets.
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