"Big Sugar Takes on the World Health Organization"
The World Health Organization recommends
we reduce our consumption of salt, trans fats,
saturated fats and added sugars. Why?
Because consumption of such foods is the cause
of at least 14 million deaths every year from chronic diseases.
Several decades ago, it was heresy to talk about
an impending global pandemic of obesity,
but now we’re seeing chronic disease rates
skyrocket around the world.
We have exported our Western diet
to the far reaches of the planet,
with white flour, sugar, fat, and animal-source foods
replacing beans, peas, lentils, other vegetables, and whole grains.
Understanding the reasons underlying this trend
toward increased consumption of animal products, oils, and sugar
and the reduced consumption of whole plant foods
begins with understanding the purposeful economic manipulations
that have occurred since World War II
relating to agricultural policies around the world.
For example, the U.S. government, since early in the last century,
has supported food production through subsidies and other policies,
resulting in large surpluses of food commodities, meat, and calories.
In this artificial market, large food producers, and corporations
– Big Ag and Big Food –
became very profitable.
And that may be part of the problem.
Last year, Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the World Health Organization
gave the opening address at the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion.
One of the biggest challenges facing health promotion worldwide, she said,
is that the efforts to prevent our top killers
go against the business interests of powerful economic operators.
It is not just Big Tobacco anymore.
Public health must also contend with Big Food, Big Soda, and Big Alcohol.
All of these industries fear regulation,
and protect themselves by using the same tactics -
front groups, lobbies, promises of self-regulation, lawsuits,
and industry-funded research that confuses the evidence
and keeps the public in doubt.
And they should know.
In 2003, the World Health Organization released a draft report
outlining a global strategy to address issues of diet,
making a series of rather tame recommendations,
but six words in that report, “limit the intake of ‘free’ sugars,”
stimulated a remarkable series of events
(free sugars means added sugars).
The food industry went to work.
Within days the sugar industry, through the Sugar Association,
enlisted the support of officials high in the U.S. government
and led a vigorous attack on both the report and the World Health Organization itself,
culminating in a threat to get Congress to withdraw
U.S. funding to the W.H.O,
you know, the organization that deals with AIDS, malnutrition,
infectious disease, bioterrorism, and more,
threatened because of its stance on sugar,
just as the U.S. went to bat for U.S. tobacco companies
and led the charge against the World Health Organization’s
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
But the threat from the sugar industry
was described by WHO insiders as worse
than any pressure they ever got from the tobacco lobby.
As revealed in an internal memo,
the U.S. government apparently had a list of demands.
Deletion of all references to the science
they had experts compile on the matter,
and having dietary guidelines are fine,
as long as there are no reference to fat, oils, sugar or salt.
The threats failed to make the WHO withdraw their report.
Entitled "Diet, Nutrition And The Prevention Of Chronic Disease",
it formally launched and concluded that a diet
low in saturated fat, sugar and salt and high in fruit and vegetables
was required to tackle the epidemic rise in chronic diseases worldwide,
though they did end up watering it down.
Gone was reference to the comprehensive scientific report
and gone was its call for recommendations
to actually be translated into national guidelines.
History has since repeated.
At the last high level UN meeting to address chronic diseases,
we helped block a consensus on action
after lobbying from the alcohol, food, tobacco, and drug industries.
When asked why Michelle Obama’s successful
childhood obesity programs in the US
should not be modeled around the world,
a US official responded that they might harm American exports.