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Big Sugar
Obesity is now considered the worlds
leading health hazard, but the Sunday Observer reports
that an international plan to combat it may be
scuttled this week by the Bush administration, acting
for powerful US sugar interests.
Obesity is a leading
cause of heart disease, diabetes, and a variety of
other illnesses, and its growth has reached epidemic
proportions. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or
obese, but the Observer notes rates are shooting up
fastest in poorer countries like Brazil and India,
where historically ill-nourished populations are
genetically predisposed to rapid weight gain.
The
World Health Organization has adopted a comprehensive
strategy to reduce global salt, fat and sugar
consumption, but the Bush administration,
characteristically, is now challenging the WHO study
on scientific grounds on behalf of its food industry,
spearheaded by the Florida sugar lobby, which has
especially close ties to the White House. As in the
earlier case of tobacco, any offset to the industry s
influence will likely be the result of spiraling
obesity-related health costs. (See article below).
Supporting facts
America stirs up a sugar rebellion
By Jo Revill and Paul Harris
Sunday Observer
January 18 2004
The large, windowless and wood-panelled room has long
since lost its lustre. But this week this unremarkable
location in the heart of Geneva will play host to 32
officials and diplomats who will gather to make a
decision which could reverberate across the globe.
They will decide whether or not the world should have
a plan for tackling its greatest health hazard -
obesity.
All eyes will be on William Steiger, a youthful Yale
graduate who is also the godson of George Bush senior.
Steiger is special assistant to the US Health
Secretary Tommy Thompson and a rising star of the Bush
administration. At the executive board meeting of the
World Health Organization on Tuesday, he will attempt
to pull apart the world's only realistic attempt so
far to help poorer nations avert the looming public
health disaster threatened by the growing burden of
heart disease and diabetes.
The target of Steiger's attack will be the WHO's road-map
for action, known as the Global Strategy on Diet,
Nutrition and Physical Activity. In a fiercely
controversial 30-page document which came to light
last week, Steiger, on behalf of the Bush
administration, argues that there is little robust
scientific data on which to base its broad range of
suggestions on how to prevent obesity. And if America
has its way, then the goals of the past 18 months,
involving an effort by many hundreds of public health
experts and doctors worldwide to come up with workable
initiatives, will slip further out of reach.
Britain, in the form of its chief medical officer Sir
Liam Donaldson, is fighting to keep the policy alive
along with other countries, but the Americans - and
more particularly, their food lobbyists - have used
different tactics to undermine anything that would
affect their lucrative food industry. The sugar barons
who pour so much into the presidential coffers before
elections have hired lobbyists and used senators to
threaten to pull funding away from the WHO.
Many compare it with the battles which were fought in
the early nineties over the tobacco industry.
This
time round, the fight is over what goes on our plates.
In April last year the WHO, along with the Food and
Agriculture Organization, published a report spelling
out the dangers of sugar, fat and salt. The
combination of sedentary lifestyles and processed food,
experts warned, meant that countries such as Brazil
and India were soaring up the obesity league.
The developing regions, even more than the western
world, are at risk from junk food because their
populations carry more of the 'thrifty genes', the DNA
which predisposes people to putting on weight quickly
after centuries of living through periods of
starvation and then periods of plenty. The scientific
report, which was put together by 36 of the world's
leading nutrition and activity experts, warned that by
2025, India would have one of the highest rates of
Type 2 diabetes.
The report, which became known by its technical number,
916, looked at the strength of evidence on how to
prevent and control the major diet-related diseases,
including diabetes, obesity, some cancers,
cardiovascular and dental disease. But the clause that
created most angst was the one suggesting that only 10
per cent of average energy intake for an adult should
come from added sugar. Currently, 13 per cent of
calories in the British diet come from added sugar,
which would be around 60 to 70 grams a day per adult.
In America, the public health guidelines are more lax,
and state that added sugar can provide as much as 25
per cent of your intake.
As Ellen Ruppel Shell points out in her groundbreaking
book Fat Wars, the average American consumes 34
teaspoons of sugar a day in their diet, a 30 per cent
increase from just 15 years ago.
The annual
consumption of sweeteners - not just the sugar but the
high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose and glucose - has
leapt by 32lbs since 1970, mostly because of soft
drinks. In a 12oz can of a fizzy drink there will be
about ten teaspoons of sweetener.
President Bush, under pressure at home to do something
about the fact that two-thirds of Americans are now
overweight or obese, has announced initiatives to
encourage fitness, but argues that it is an
individual's responsibility to keep their weight down.
The President himself, a former jogger, likes to use
exercise machines and claims that he has no problem
fitting workouts into his life.
However, that is not Bush's only reason for arguing
against any kind of social policy or public measure to
prevent weight gain. There are enormous financial
interests tied up in 'Big Sugar'. The sugar industry
has strong connections to the highest levels of the US
government through its lobbying firms, which have
aggressively targeted politicians and government
officials. One of the strongest factors in its favour
is that much of US sugar production is based in
Florida, a state that was vital in 2000 presidential
election and is likely to be key this year too.
One of the sugar magnates close to President Bush is
Jose 'Pepe' Fanjul, president of giant Florida sugar
firm Florida Crystals Corp. He is one of Bush's top
fundraisers, and enjoys access to senior officials
close to the president. His brother Alfy Fanjul deals,
meanwhile, with the Democrats. Their access is seen as
unmatchable - Bill Clinton famously took a phone call
from Alfy Fanjul while entertaining intern Monica
Lewinsky.
Experts say that anyone hoping to raise political
money in Florida will have to pay attention to its
sugar industry. This is particularly true of the
current administration as Florida's governor is Jeb
Bush, the brother of the President. There have been
other sugar contributions too. In 2000 J. Nelson
Fairbanks, chief executive of US Sugar Corp, became a
'Pioneer', a special status among fundraisers, for
raising at least $100,000 for Bush's campaign. Warren
Staley, chief executive of Cargill, which has a large
sugar trading operation, is a Pioneer in 2004.
Sometimes the money has come directly from the
lobbyists themselves. Alan Feld pledged to raise
$100,000 for Bush in 2000. He is employed by a
lobbying firm which works for the Grocery
Manufacturers of America. The industry has also
created its own lobbying instruments. In 1978 the
International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) was
founded in Washington by the Heinz Foundation, Coca-
Cola, Pepsi-Cola, General Foods, Kraft and Procter and
Gamble. Despite once being headed by Alex Malaspina,
vice-president of Coca-Cola, the body has gained
accreditation to the WHO and the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization.
The food corporations also appear to have been
vigorously lobbying the sugar exporting countries such
as Mauritius, Brazil and French Guyana. All of them
have already expressed reservations about the WHO
strategy, fearing that a curb on consumption may mean
a decline in their sugar exports. A letter sent by
French Guyana is remarkably similar to one mailed
early last year by the Sugar Association.
One of those who saw the intensive lobbying efforts at
first hand is Dr Pekka Puska, who was head of non-communicable
diseases at the WHO until he left to run Finland's
leading public health institute.
'After we produced the 916 report, the lobbying was
quite extraordinary, particularly when they threatened
to withdraw US financial support to WHO,' recalled
Puska.'
We had done everything possible to be transparent, to
be fair and rigorous, and we held meetings around the
world on it. Ours was a balanced road-map to help
individual nations decide how they could combat this
trend. Every third person in the world has
cardiovascular disease - how can we stand by and not
try to do something?'
The decision by the US government to fight the global
strategy has come as a major shock to many experts in
the field. Bruce Silverglade, of the US health
campaign group Centre for Science in the Public
Interest, said that the influence of 'Big Sugar' in
the about-turn was obvious.
Steiger himself comes from a family with long-standing
connections to the Bush family. His father, also
called Bill Steiger, was a senator and close friend of
Bush senior and also of vice-president Dick Cheney.
Steiger's mother, Janet, was appointed by Bush senior
to chair the Federal Trade Commission.
As the WHO prepares to meet this week to thrash out a
possible solution to the global obesity crisis, many
believe they face a formidable opposition. Or as
Silverglade puts it: 'The sugar industry has its hands
wrapped around the political system.'
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