Office, Editorial $85-2131

SUNDAY

Carol Crenna on
the January sales

| a | Fashion: 14

NEWS photo Nail Lucente

LITTLE CYNTHIA Isabel! Perrett gets a New Year's kiss from mom Laurie who gave birth to her
daughter at 2:12 a.m. on Jan. 1. Cynthia, born at Lions Gate Hospital, was the first baby to

arrive on the North Shore in 1992. Laurie and husband, Duane Per

t, live in Squamish and

Cynthia is their first child. In honor of being the North Shore’s first 1992 baby, Cynthia
received a car seat from the B.C. Medical Association.

Shoppers Drug Mart decides to pull
plug on free infant formula gift pack

A LOCAL pharmacy chain will not pursue promoting free
gift packs of infant formula in its stores after a six-month
Lower Mainland pilot project showed the give-aways were

unpopular.

Greg Harmeson, Shoppers Drug
Mart vice-president of marketing
for Western Canada, said Shop-
pers launched the test project at
approximately half a dozen stores,
including the Park Royal and
Lynn Valley outlets, to increase
sales of increasingly expensive
formula, he said.

Greg Harmeson, Shoppers Drug
Mart vice-president of marketing
for Western Canada, said Shop-

REACHING

By Elizabeth Collings
News Reporter

pers launched the test project at
approximately half a dozen stores,
including the Park Royal and
Lynn Valley outlets, to increase
sales of increasingly expensive
formula, he said.

“No one is making any money
on the stuff anymore,’ he said.

EVERY DOOR

“We are obviously running a
business and for the best interest
of our business we do what we
have to do.”’

However, the gift promotion
was unsuccessful, leading Shop-
pers to its decision recently to pull
the promotion.

“f believe we hardly went
through any gift packs at all,’
Harmeson said.

But local breastfeeding advocate
Renee Hefti said Shoppers’ deci-
sion is based on fear of media
publicity.

A registered nurse and a lacta-
tion consultant with the Van-

couver Breastfeeding Centre, Hefti
first noticed the Ross Laboratories
gift packs on display at the Shop-
pers pharmacy in Park Royal in
November.

“Is a marketing technique to
get a woman using formula,”
Hefti said.

Ten years ago Canada became a
signatory of the World Health
Organization (WHO) international
code of marketing of breast milk
substitutes. Code principles state
that formula should not be adver-
tised nor should it be given out.

In 1990, the provincial ministry
of health sent a letter to all B.C.
hospitals voicing support for the
WHO code and stressed that giv-
ing out infant formula to mothers
leaving hospital ‘‘can lead to the
cessation of breast feeding before
six months of age.”

A former nurse at Lions Gate

P

Hospital, Hefti said the gift packs
are the same ones that LGH stop-
ped giving out to new mothers
approximately five years ago.

The gift pack contains formula,
a baby bottle and breastfeeding
information in a package emboss-
ed with the message that ‘‘Ross
Laboratories joins your doctor,
nurse and hospital’’ in wishing the
gift pack recipient and baby good
health in the years ahead.

Hefti said that the message
gives the impression that the hos-
pital and medical staff support
formula, while, in fact, LGH,
Grace Hospital, and St. Paul’s no
jonger hand out free formula to
new mothers.

Harmeson said that while
Shoppers ‘‘sympathized"’ with
Hefti’s position, it was ‘‘more of
a business decision’’ not to pursue
the gift pack promotions.

ON THE NORTH SHORE SINCE 1969