General correspondence

I cringed when I opened the August 2008 edition of Internal Medicine Journal and found a full page advertisement sponsored by Nescafé. While any contribution to reducing diabetes is welcome, I’m sure the role of caffeine will prove to be a minor player compared with weight reduction and exercise. Readers should be aware of the health ramifications of another line of Nestlé products; infant formula. It smacks of hypocrisy that the Nestle corporation should be advertising in a medical journal, when they consistently contravene World Health Organisation policy on breast milk substitutes, contributing to the deaths of possibly millions of infants each year in third world countries. Additionally, there are well established links between infant formula feeding and the development of both type I diabetes and childhood obesity, and breast-feeding is associated with a lower risk of developing type II diabetes later in life. Readers should not form the impression that Nestlé is a benevolent company, motivated to improve health. I urge the IMJ to consider the background of sponsors with great care.