Eating Away at Science

[Guest guest]

Volume 2, Issue 23 | June 7, 2004

 

F R O M T H E E D I T O R

 

Earlier this year, the Bush administration took an extraordinary step to defend

the interests of U.S. sugar producers and the packaged-food industry, both of

which count top executives among the president's biggest fundraisers.

 

Chris Mooney reports that in January the Department of Health and Human Services

sent a letter to the World Health Organization objecting to the scientific

findings underlying WHO's effort to issue anti-obesity guidelines -- most

notably a dietary recommendation to limit consumption of sugar.

 

The industry associations say the WHO's global strategy fails to recognize that

personal lifestyle choices are as much a cause of obesity as diet.

 

Not coincidentally, the HHS letter to WHO raises exactly those objections. With

obesity closing in on tobacco as the nation's leading cause of preventable

death, sugar producers and the packaged-food industry have a big economic stake

and liability risk in the outcome of this debate.

 

But with a number of Bush " Rangers " and " Pioneers " among their executives, the

groups are clearly well positioned to make their views known to the president

and his top advisers.

 

Read: Eating Away at Science

 

MotherJones.com / News / Outfront

 

Eating Away at Science

 

The sugar industry is fighting findings that link its product to obesity. And

U.S. officials are echoing the companies' line.

 

Chris Mooney

 

May/June 2004 Issue

 

The Bush administration took an extraordinary step early this year to defend the

interests of U.S. sugar producers and the packaged-food industry, both of which

count top executives among the president's biggest fundraisers.

 

In January, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent a letter to

the World Health Organization with dozens of objections to the scientific

findings that underlie the WHO's effort to issue anti-obesity guidelines. Only

eight months earlier, U.S. sugar manufacturers and other food industry groups

had called for " the personal intervention " of HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and

urged him to challenge the WHO's scientific findings about obesity—most notably

a dietary recommendation to limit consumption of sugar.

 

 

Sugar producers and the packaged-food industry have a big economic stake and

liability risk in the outcome of this debate. Obesity-related medical costs

totaled $75 billion in 2003 in the United States alone, according to the Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and obesity is closing in on tobacco

as the nation's leading cause of preventable death. Meanwhile, diet-related

chronic conditions like heart disease and type II diabetes have overtaken

infectious diseases as the leading cause of death worldwide. If obesity is

deemed as merely the result of an individual's lifestyle choices, then companies

involved in producing unhealthy foods are off the hook. But if such products are

seen as causing obesity, then the sugar and packaged-food industries could be in

trouble. The draft version of the WHO's anti-obesity strategy, for instance,

recommended taxing junk food and providing government subsidies for healthier

products.

 

 

The final WHO guidelines are scheduled to be approved this summer, and before

drafting them the WHO produced a summary of the scientific research, which finds

a connection between obesity and unhealthy diets, including too much consumption

of sugar and fatty foods. In April 2003, after this report was released, the

Sugar Association and the Corn Refiners Association (which makes high-fructose

corn syrup, the leading soft-drink sweetener) mobilized to have the findings

revised. Not only did they call on HHS to take action, but the Sugar Association

also wrote to the WHO threatening to have its allies in Congress eliminate the

organization's U.S. funding if the WHO didn't rethink its anti-obesity work.

 

 

The industry's leaders and representatives are certainly well positioned to make

their views known in Washington, particularly to the president and his top

advisers. The Bush campaign acknowledges, for instance, that its

" Rangers " —fundraisers who bundle at least $200,000 in donations—include the

sugar magnate Jose " Pepe " Fanjul Jr.; Richard F. Hohlt, a 2003 lobbyist for

Altria, which owns Kraft Foods; and Robert Leebern Jr., a lobbyist who last year

represented Coca-Cola. And in the campaign's class of " Pioneers " --bundlers of a

minimum of $100,000; there's Robert A. Coker, a United States Sugar Corp. senior

vice president; Barclay Resler, Coca-Cola's vice president of Government

Relations; and Joe Weller, the chairman and CEO of Nestlé USA.

 

 

The sugar and food industry associations contend that the WHO's global strategy

fails to recognize that personal lifestyle choices are as much a cause of

obesity as diet. And in January, when the Bush administration sent its comments

to the WHO, it raised exactly those objections, echoing the industry's mantra of

individuals taking " personal responsibility. " In a 28-page letter, the HHS

Office of Global Health Affairs director William R. Steiger, who happens to be

George H.W. Bush's godson, notes that the administration " supports personal

responsibility to choose a diet conducive to individual energy balance, weight

control, and health. " The letter goes on to criticize the WHO scientific

report's " linking of fruit and vegetable consumption to decreased risk of

obesity, " along with many of its other scientific findings. In response to these

and other objections, the WHO decided to revise its guidelines.

 

 

HHS spokesman Bill Pierce denies that industry groups helped in drafting the

department's criticisms. But, nonetheless, its January letter to the WHO

discusses the value of industry input. " HHS would encourage the WHO to add more

language on the role of industry and/or trade groups in addressing diet and

nutrition, " the critique says, " especially those representing the food and

beverage industries. "

 

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This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the

Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

© 2004 The Foundation for National Progress

 

 

 

 

 

 

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