Promoting baby formula prohibited in hospitals

Hospitals are banned from accepting gifts, sponsorship or kickbacks from baby formula companies, authorities said on Tuesday.

Companies producing baby formula are also prohibited from promoting their products in hospitals.

The decision was jointly made by the China Food and Drug Administration, the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.

Hospitals and their members of staff are also banned from promoting baby formula to families of newborn babies, said the statement issued on the website of the China Food and Drug Administration.

The move came more than a month after the National Health and Family Planning Commission issued a similar statement in response to a scandal in which Danone was discovered to have bribed medical workers in hospitals in Tianjin to give babies its infant formula products under the brand of Dumex.

On Oct 14, the Tianjin government said that Dumex China paid 116 workers in 85 hospitals in the city to promote their infant formula by handing out pamphlets and giving lectures to parents.

The government said it has confiscated the money these medical workers received and 13 were penalized.

Dumex apologized for the incident.

Liu Fengling, head nurse at the obstetrics and gynecology department of Xuanwu Hospital in Beijing, denied that any of the nurses in her department had taken kickbacks from dairy companies.