The same company that gave out free baby formular to poor African families and then, after a couple of months, went "nuh-uh you now have to pay so your babies don't die lol"? Surprising.
If we didn't live in corporatocracies masquerading as "democracies" the execs and managers who pulled that shit would be serving life in prison.
Edit: Note that Nestle did this so the mothers would stop producing milk and their babies survival would become dependent on Nestle — pure unadulterated psychopathy!
Thank you. I've been trying so hard to figure out exactly what's going on in the world and the "democracy is best no matter what" mentality a lot of useful idiots seem to believe.
Democracy IS best. We arguably don't have it because capitalism is pay to play and money equals speech = the orgs and individuals with the most money have the most influence over politics and government; so much so that wealth essentially controls policy — note that despite the USA being one of the most obvious and egregious examples, the problem is not isolated in any way shape or form.
If there were hard limits on individual wealth, every business was a co-op owned by the workers, and their influence on society was properly regulated, maybe we would have much more egalitarian democracies, but individuals and orgs will always strive to corrupt the system for their own power/wealth advantage (incl under any other system e.g. socialism).
Not sure about scientifically, but anecdotally as we’re currently in Asia on vacation, even the cheap 7-11 sunscreen works better than anything in the US: It feels lighter and it seems you need a lot less to be effective.
We went on a two hour hike and thought we’d just sweat away all the sunscreen but we were fine afterwards. The US sunscreen would’ve had to be reapplied to be as effective.
Well, what's preventing the corporations from lobbying to change the rules to benefit them, just like every other time? I'm not going to cry because corpos haven't bought enough congresscritters.
a 1938 U.S. law that requires sunscreens to be tested on animals and classified as drugs, rather than as cosmetics as they are in much of the world.
companies are wary of the FDA process because of the cost and their fear that additional animal testing could ignite a consumer backlash in the European Union, which bans animal testing of cosmetics, including sunscreen.
Won't someone think of the poor corpos! Corpos like BASF and L’Oréal, which only had profits last year of €225,000,000 and €32,000,000,000!
The "poor corpos" are saying the benefit of adding another market isn't worth the expense, and the risk of reducing their sales in established markets, so they are unwilling to jump through the hoops to enter that new market.
...and the hoop in question is animal testing. Of products that have been used by humans for decades.
That skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the US and yet a dumb almost 100-year old rule means that Americans have less effective sunscreen - a key cancer prevention tool - than many other countries is pretty wild. Do any of the industrial/governmental players involved actually care about reducing cancer risk in their population?
I agree with your answer. People who are sick or have chronic conditions are lifelong customers. There's one version of corporate regulation and paternalism for tobacco, and all other industries get a free pass to drum up business I'd say
Regulating sunscreen as a drug seems fairly reasonable to me. Sunscreens should be required to be effective and proved to be so before being on the market. Cosmetics don't have that requirement. Maybe they should make the process easier and relax the animal testing requirement in cases where it's been used on humans for decades. But I still want corporations to jump through some hoops proving something I'm trusting my health to actually works.
This really doesn't have much to do with Nestlé.
This is about the purchasing habits of consumers in different markets as influenced by global wealth inequality, lacking education, and inadequate access to healthcare.
While large corporations absolutely have certain influence on those factors, this issue of more sugar in some products is so far downstream from the real problems that it's just a useless distraction.
Nestlé isn't the only brand of baby food available in those markets, they sit right next to products that do have that "no added sugar" label.
But that healthier alternative is not what sells better, the cheaper ones do, why? Because the consumers in those markets either can't afford the healthy food or they lack the education to know the importance of a good diet.
What products are available on a market is a reflection of the purchasing habits of the consumers in that market, and those habits are a result of the macro socioeconomic factors of the region. If Nestlé changed all their products to be "no added sugar" right now then the prices of those products would need to be bumped up slightly which would mean the consumers would shift to another brand that's cheaper which has the same issue and hey presto nothing has changed.
Nestlés products having added sugar is not the problem it is a symptom.
So what do we do if we want to solve these big problems? Well that's not easy, it largely depends on the governments and people of those regions, but we can help. There are charities like plan-international.org which tries to directly tackle inequality and education, but driving economic activity can also help, maybe next time you go grocery shopping you buy a Senegal peanut oil or a pack of batteries from The Philippines.
These are big hard problems that won't be easily solved, but if we are to have any chance to fixing them we need to be able to identify what the problem is, getting mad at a brand is a lot easier than recognizing the underlying issues.
Artists from 37 countries across Europe and beyond will perform original songs — ranging from soaring power ballads to the bombastically ridiculous — to compete for the public’s vote, before a winner is chosen in a high-drama Grand Final.
“If you haven’t seen it or heard of it, you’re probably living in a sad world,” Silvester Belt, this year’s entrant from Lithuania, told NBC News.
Seven decades later, Eurovision is more beloved than ever, moving beyond TV to spawn a vast ecosystem of superfan blogs and social media accounts breathlessly covering its every development.
Iconic performances of past decades have included a group of Russian babushkas, a Finnish heavy metal band dressed as monsters, and a bearded Austrian drag queen singing what could have been a James Bond theme song.
“I think that the majority is in it to win it,” Eurovision co-host Petra Mede said, but some countries focus less on sending a strong singer, and more on a memorable performance that will have people talking, providing a “spectacular entry.
Klein performs in a blue suit with exaggerated pointy shoulder pads, with backup dancers who include a person in a bird costume wearing an E.U.-logo tie.
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