Concerns about Family Medicine Forum

I am writing to congratulate the College of Family Physicians of Canada on a very successful 50th-Anniversary Family Medicine Forum that included many inspiring high-profile speakers and useful workshops. However, I must also register my protest on the disproportionate exposure of certain companies that have poor public health track records. I will cite two examples.

I suspect that you have already received this feedback regarding McDonald’s fast-food restaurants. Their very recent efforts to improve their image as more health conscious (through increased labeling of their products, expanded menu selections, and initiatives such as distributing free pedometers) can be compared with their disingenuous efforts to appear child friendly (through distribution of toys, alluring commercials, and a [proportionally small] budget for a children’s charity)—something that they are clearly not, at least on a population health scale. I believe that physicians should not promote fast-food restaurants. These companies have the right to compete in a free marketplace, but they have no place at a health conference.

It could be less obvious to attendees, however, that the Nestlé food company also has a dubious public health record, especially regarding the inappropriate promotion and distribution of infant formula, notably in Africa.¹ In fact, as recently as 2003, Nestlé published a statement that “fortified complementary foods play an important role in maintaining adequate micronutrient status of small children in developed countries and are likely to play an increasing role in developing countries in the near future.”² It is for this reason that I was discouraged to learn that during 1 day at the conference they welcomed more than 100 delegates, whereas my poster dealing with poor breastfeeding rates in Ontario’s James Bay region—which unlike the Nestlé booth was quite invisible in a dark recess of the exhibit hall—attracted at most a dozen. We must be careful with the information we make accessible to our health professionals, lest urgent public health concerns (such as the current 5% exclusive breastfeeding rate in Kenya) be minimized or ignored.

I sympathize with the very difficult task of balancing the need to secure funding for our national conference with the need to ally with companies truly motivated to contribute to our patients’ health. I suspect, however, that considering the above information, most delegates would vote for a more frugal conference in the future.