Nestlé in fresh baby milk row over ‘research fraud’

Nestlé has run into trouble again with lobby groups, which are calling for baby milk formula Nan HA2 to be taken off UK shelves following allegations that some of the research the company relies on to justify product claims may be fraudulent.

A documentary aired last week on Canadian television channel CBC claimed research commissioned by Nestléinto the effects of its “Hypoallergenic” formula during the 1980s never took place. The programme suggested the research’s author, Dr Ranjit Chandra, once a world-renowned authority on nutrition and immunology, made up the results.

The calls to ditch the product come from the Baby Feeding Law Group, which includes representatives of the Royal College of Nursing, the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association and Baby Milk Action – the UK lobby group co-ordinating the ongoing boycott of Nestlé over its marketing tactics in the Third World.

Patti Rundall OBE, policy director of Baby Milk Action, says: “We would like to see the hypoallergenic claims withdrawn – they’re misleading.”

Dr Chandra resigned from his professorship at a Canadian university in 2002 after the British Medical Journal rejected an article he had written, questioning his data. It led to the university launching an investigation.

It appears an earlier 1994 investigation into Dr Chandra’s research concluded that at least one research project for Nestlé was flawed.