Baby Formula

Baby Rachael Catherine Rother's death from starvation earlier this year is her mother's fault, a judge ruled Tuesday. Superior Court Judge Allan L. Steele took no time in convicting Pamela Rother, 32, of felony child neglect after attorneys wrapped up the three-day trial with brief closing arguments. Rother burst into tears after Steele announced his decision seconds after Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Frawley concluded his argument. She faces up to 10 years in prison when she is sentenced Sept. 7.

The Pamela Rother trial starting this morning could put more than the mother accused of starving her baby to death on trial, with her defense attorney planning to call about a dozen county officials to the stand. But prosecutors will ask a judge to limit the defense's evidence and keep the testimony focused on the Ojai Valley woman's alleged negligence--not the government's response to her case.

Abbott Laboratories this week won an antitrust case brought by Nestle Food Co. when a federal jury concluded that Abbott did not conspire to block competitors from the U.S. market for baby formula. The verdict marks Abbott's second victory during the past year in its battle to fend off a variety of charges related to its dominance of the U.S. baby-formula market.

A Mission Viejo man was arrested Friday in an investigation of counterfeit Similac baby formula that turned up on Northern California store shelves last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said. Ivy K. Ong, 52, was arrested on suspicion of trafficking in counterfeit goods, and a warrant was out for a second person, the FDA said in a news release. The counterfeit manufacturing operation was also seized, the FDA said.

U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, endorsing a global campaign to reduce reliance on baby formula, urged U.S. health providers to take steps to increase the percentage of mothers who breast-feed to 75% by the turn of the century. Elders, appearing at Georgetown University Hospital's maternity ward, said that she wants U.S. hospitals and physicians to educate women about the advantages of breast-feeding and to stop distributing baby formula or literature promoting its use to new mothers.

At first, retired schoolteacher Betty Mitchell thought she had the wrong car. It was Monday evening, and she had just returned to the parking lot after shopping for Christmas decorations at a Torrance crafts store. There, on the front seat of her station wagon, was a newborn baby, lying in a brown wicker basket. Diapered with damask cloth held together by a safety pin, the baby boy was dirty and crying. A handwritten note gave the time and date of his birth--Nov. 28 at 10:15 a.m.

For all its conservative Swiss heritage, Nestle USA has hardly played it safe when marketing baby formula. The Glendale-based unit of the giant Swiss food company entered the U.S. infant formula market in late 1988 with its Carnation brand and took the audacious step of pitching its product directly to consumers with television and print advertising. All of the other baby formula makers promoted their products through doctors and hospitals.

After 4 1/2 years of disappointing results in thS. baby-formula market, Nestle U. S. A. Inc. alleges in a lawsuit that the American Academy of Pediatrics conspired with the nation's two dominant formula makers to stop Nestle from getting a bigger piece of the market. The Glendale-based unit of the giant Swiss food company, Nestle S. A., contends the medical group helped Abbott Laboratories and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.

Three truckloads of supplies for Florida hurricane victims boomed out of an Air Force facility in the Antelope Valley on Tuesday night and hurtled eastward into the dark on the start of a nonstop 60-hour mercy mission. The relief convoy, kicked off by Federal Aviation Administration employees and boosted by military and civilian personnel at Air Force Plant 42, was forced to use trucks when the Pentagon said it could not spare any cargo planes.