PHA-Exchange> Sugar and WHO

[claudio]

From: "Ted Greiner" <ted_greiner at hotmail.com>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,940287,00.html
> Sugar industry threatens to scupper WHO
> Sarah Boseley, health editor
> The Guardian

> The sugar industry in the US is threatening to bring the World Health
> Organisation to its knees by demanding that Congress end its funding
unless
> the WHO scraps guidelines on healthy eating, due to be published on
> Wednesday.
> The threat is being described by WHO insiders as tantamount to blackmail
and
> worse than any pressure exerted by the tobacco lobby.
> In a letter to Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO's director general, the
Sugar
> Association says it will "exercise every avenue available to expose the
> dubious nature" of the WHO's report on diet and nutrition, including
> challenging its $406m (£260m) funding from the US.
> The industry is furious at the guidelines, which say that sugar should
> account for no more than 10% of a healthy diet. It claims that the review
by
> international experts which decided on the 10% limit is scientifically
> flawed, insisting that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food
> and drink intake can safely consist of sugar.
> "Taxpayers' dollars should not be used to support misguided,
> non-science-based reports which do not add to the health and well-being of
> Americans, much less the rest of the world," says the letter. "If
necessary
> we will promote and encourage new laws which require future WHO funding to
> be provided only if the organisation accepts that all reports must be
> supported by the preponderance of science."
> The association, together with six other big food industry groups, has
also
> written to the US health secretary, Tommy Thompson, asking him to use his
> influence to get the WHO report withdrawn. The coalition includes the US
> Council for International Business, comprising more than 300 companies,
> including Coca-Cola and Pepsico.
> The sugar lobby's strong-arm tactics are nothing new, according to
Professor
> Phillip James, the British chairman of the International Obesity Taskforce
> who wrote the WHO's previous report on diet and nutrition in 1990. The day
> after his expert committee had decided on a 10% limit, the World Sugar
> Organisation "went into overdrive", he said. "Forty ambassadors wrote to
the
> WHO insisting our report should be removed, on the grounds that it would
do
> irreparable damage to countries in the developing world."
> Prof James was called in by the American embassy in Geneva "to explain to
> them why they were suddenly getting an enormous amount of pressure from
the
> state department to have our report retracted". The sugar industry, he
> discovered, had hired one of Washington's top lobbying companies.
> The sugar lobby was unsuccessful that time, but now, he says, "we are
> getting a replay, but much more powerfully based, because the food
industry
> seems to have a much greater influence on the Bush government".
> Since his 1990 report, the International Life Sciences Institute, founded
by
> Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, General Foods, Kraft and Procter and Gamble, has
also
> gained accreditation to the WHO and the UN's Food and Agriculture
> Organisation.
> At one point, says Prof James, "I was asked not to send any more emails
> about any of the dietary aspects of health that related to sugar. I was
told
> that within 24 hours of my sending a note, the food industry would be
> telephoning and arranging dinners."
> Aubrey Sheiham, professor of dental public health at University College,
> London, Medical School, said he also encountered the strength of the sugar
> lobby when he was one of the experts involved in putting together an EC
> guideline called Eurodiet.
> "I wrote the sugar part of that," he said. "When we met in Crete [in June
> 2000], the sugar people said if the 10% [limit] was in, the whole report
> would be blocked. I remember we went into a huddle with various people and
> some of the diplomats, and we were meeting in people's bedrooms and
saying,
> how can we work around this?"
> In the end, he said, they worked out that a recommendation that nobody
> should eat sugar more than four times a day was equivalent to a 10% limit.
> But he considered the committee had been bullied.
> The Sugar Association objects to the new report having been published in
> draft on the WHO's website for consultation purposes, without what it
> considers "a broad external peer-review process". It wants a full economic
> analysis of the impact of the recommendations on all 192 member countries.
> In the letter to Dr Brundtland, it demands that Wednesday's joint launch
> with the Food and Agriculture Organisation be cancelled.
> The report, Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases, has
> already been heavily criticised by the soft drinks industry, whose members
> sell virtually everywhere in the world, including developing countries
where
> malnutrition is beginning to coexist with the obesity common in affluent
> countries.
> The industry does not accept the WHO report's conclusion that sweetened
soft
> drinks contribute to the obesity pandemic. The Washington-based National
> Soft Drink Association said the report's "recommendation on added sugars
is
> too restrictive". The association backs a 25% limit.
> The WHO strongly rejects the sugar lobby's criticisms. An official said a
> team of 30 independent experts had considered the scientific evidence and
> its conclusions were in line with the findings of 23 national reports
which
> have, on average, set targets of 10% for added sugars.
> In the letter to Mr Thompson, the sugar lobby relies heavily on a recent
> report from the Institute of Medicine for its claim that a 25% sugar
intake
> is acceptable. But last week, Harvey Fineberg, president of the institute,
> wrote to Mr Thompson to warn that the report was being misinterpreted. He
> says it does not make a recommendation on sugar intake.