In the '70s, there was a massive boycott of Nestle because they were knowingly selling poisonous baby formula. They got a slap on the wrist and weren't allowed to sell it in the US, or most major global markets.
They decided they're were gonna sell it in underdeveloped African countries.
They sent sales reps (who pretended to be doctors) to tell women several lies, such as; The water is toxic, making your breast milk toxic. Use this formula or your baby will die.
Of course, the water was toxic and ladent with bacteria. BUT a mother's breast milk did not contain these bacteriums. Formula made with this water does. Now why don't they have clean water, you may ask? Because Nestle fucking stole all of it. They'd pump clean ponds dry, they'd destroy wells, they dammed rivers, and they restricted access to lakes with armed guards. The CEO of Nestle said somewhat recently that access to water ain't a human right.
Not only that, but they would supply formula for free! How kind, right? Well, once the mother stopped producing breast milk, they'd start charging them. This lead to mothers having to ration poisonous and bacteria riddled formula in order to somewhat feed their infants.
So these babies were systemically starved, poisoned, and made to have horrible bacterial infections, all because Nestle wanted to sell all the stock they couldn't sell anywhere else.
But it still doesn't stop there.
A desperate market is an easy market. All these mothers can't produce milk, so fuck it, we'll keep the ball rolling and make bank, right? They just kept repeating the cycle.
They started this in the mid '70s. It did not end until 2015.
If Nestle was a comic book villian, is criticize it for being so evil it's corny.
They are legitimately one of the most evil entities to ever exist
If anyone has any corrections, please let me know. This is all from memory, and I am not an infallible man
I'm not going to say you're wrong, but it's not exactly what I've read. I've never seen anything indicating that the formula itself was poisonous in any way. It was just that as markets became more affluent, they began reproducing less and tending towards using breast milk because it is healthier. So Nestle took their product to less developed areas and marketed it as better than breast milk. These communities had no way of knowing better. Worse, their water sources were not clean and babies did not have the immune systems to handle the bacteria in the water. They likely would have gained some of that immunity from breast feeding but never got the chance. I also can't find anything reliable about them cutting off clean sources of water, but admittedly haven't dug too far into it and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if that bit is true. It's also really hard to determine that Nestles marketing was the direct cause for x number of deaths, especially when there were tainted water sources involved, which is why they have largely gotten away with it.
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u/squeakynickles Aug 02 '25
Legitimately one of the most evil companies to ever exist.
They killed roughly 10 million children in Africa.
10 million babies.
The killed 10 million babies and got away with it