Kantian and Utilitarian Theories and the Nestle Moral Issue Term Paper

Kantian and Utilitarian Theories and the Nestle Moral Issue - Term Paper Example It is evidently clear from the discussion that Nestle is a corporation engaged in home products processing and marketing worldwide. In the mid-1860s, it developed an infant-food formula as a supplement and/or substitute to breastfeeding. It then claimed humanitarian achievement after the formula was used by relief organizations such as the Red Cross to feed starving infants in refugee camps. In third world countries, the Nestle product has also been used as an alternative to less nutritious local infant feeding substitutes. And today, Nestle is the third largest home food company in the world with gross sales of nearly US$39 billion a year. But the Nestle success story is marred by controversy as the company has been charged for gross violations of a World Health Organization Code that affected both first world and third world countries. The controversy first emerged when in 1970, during a UN-sponsored Bogota meeting on infant feeding, a Protein Advisory Group (PAG) expressed concern about a worldwide decline in breastfeeding. PAG also sought examination of undue marketing-and-advertising of infant formula, which may have been the cause of this decline. Taking the cue for a sensational story, media made follow-up reports on unfair, dishonest and deceptive advertising by Nestle (village visits by health care dressed representatives, free samples to new mothers, free or low-cost products, improper labels) allegedly designed for the adoption of bottle-feeding instead of breastfeeding by mothers. Outrage against Nestle came to a high point when a Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute attested that millions of infants suffered ailments or death due to bottle-feeding. The institute, however, did not clarify whether the cause was the infant formula or improper sterilization-and-storage of baby bottles and feed.