Sarah Boseley, health editor16 January 2004
The US was accused yesterday of trying to scupper the World Health Organisation's guidelines designed to curb the rising epidemic of obesity and disease, which could be damaging to its food and drink corporations.
The WHO's executive board is to approve a global strategy on health next week, which will spell out to all member governments the links between a bad diet and disease.
Among the recommendations are that governments should act on TV advertising to children and should urge people to cut down on fats and sugars in their diet.
In a confidential letter to Lee Jong-Wook, the director general of the WHO, which the Guardian has seen, the US department of health and human services makes it clear that it disputes some of the scientific evidence on which the proposals are based.
That evidence was collated by experts in a technical report published in April, known as Report 916.
The letter, dated January 5 to Mr Lee, says the document is not a "credible report". There is, says the letter signed by William R Steiger, special assistant to the secretary for international affairs, "an unsubstantiated focus on 'good' and 'bad' foods, and a conclusion that specific foods are linked to non-communicable diseases and obesity (eg energy-dense foods, high/added sugar foods and drinks, meats, certain types of fats and oils and higher fat dairy products).
"The US government favours dietary guidance that focuses on the total diet, promotes the view that all foods can be a part of a healthy and balanced diet, and supports personal responsibility to choose a diet conducive to individual energy balance, weight control and health."
Critics said these were the arguments continually cited by the food industry: that all food is good in moderation and that exercise matters at least as much as diet.
Kaare Norum, a professor at Oslo University who headed the group of scientists advising the WHO on diet and health, said: "I think it is tragic that the US is opposing this because the problem is very, very serious in the US. I think it is the multinational companies who are mainly behind this attack on the science."
Food industry trade groups including the Sugar Association and the Grocery Manufacturers Association disputed the links between certain food types and obesity and disease in their response to the report during the consultation period and said anything could be eaten as part of a balanced diet.
Commercial Alert, a US-based non-profit organisation, condemned the US government for attempting to "head off" the WHO initiative.
Gary Ruskin, its executive director said: "The Bush administration is putting the interests of the junk food industry ahead of the health of people - including children - on a global scale.
"The administration's arguments border on the ludicrous. Does anyone outside the administration and the junk food industry truly doubt that the consumption and marketing of high-calorie junk food plays a role in obesity and other chronic diseases?
"Why would this administration - or any administration - invoke the moral authority of the United States on behalf of the junk food and the obesity lobby?
"If the Bush administration is successful in halting the WHO's initiative, in the long term it could potentially cost millions of lives in terms of needless deaths due to obesity, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases."
Prof Norum said he was surprised at the offensive launched against the technical report, because the global strategy, which is a policy document, was not wholly based on it. The executive board would also have the advice of the reference group of scientists in making its decision next week.
"We know much more about the science than is in the technical report," he said.
The British government is known to be supportive of the global strategy. The Food Standards Agency produced a report linking children's diets to TV advertising. Tessa Jowell, the culture minister, has asked the advertising industry to consider its position while the Department of Health wants better labelling of foods high in fat, sugar and salt.
http://society.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4837500-110259,00.html
