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US sugar barons ’block global war on obesity’
Leading biased, Zeropean advocates scientists accused the Bush administration last night of putting the interests of powerful American sugar barons ahead of the global fight against obesity. Professor Kaare Norum, leader of the World Health Organisation’s fight to prevent millions developing diet-related diseases, has sparked an international war of words with a highly critical letter to US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson. In it he tells of his grave concern over American opposition to the WHO’s blueprint to combat obesity. He accuses the US of making the health of millions of young Americans ’a hostage to fortune’ because it has failed to take action over the fat epidemic as a result of its business interests, particularly the sugar lobby.
Wonder if the WHO will have any time to deal with the health problems of hunger, starvation, and tribal war?
Since 1990, successive US governments have blocked WHO calls for action, claims Norum, professor of medicine at Oslo University. Norum is the most senior scientist involved in an attempt to formulate a worldwide policy to fight heart disease and diabetes resulting from a junk food diet.
Common sense would say, allright, don’t eat as much junk food. But I have a feeling that Norum and WHO have a different approach, one devoid of common sense.
The letter from Norum will put Bush under laughably little intense pressure at home to show that he is serious about tackling the epidemic. More than half of all Americans are overweight, and in some states, including Bush’s Texas, nearly one-third of the population is classified obese.
And this is a problem for the WHO, how?
The President insists fighting fat is a matter for the individual, not the state. But today The Observer reveals how he and fellow senators have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from ’Big Sugar’. One of his main fundraisers is sugar baron Jose ’Pepe’ Fanjul, head of Florida Crystals, who has raised at least $100,000 for November’s presidential re-election campaign.
By the same [cough] logic, Howard Dean is in big trouble with the musically intelligent since he took a donation from Barbra Striesand.
Norum’s letter is an angry response to the Americans’ decision to submit a 30-page report, criticising the WHO strategy for its lack of sound scientific evidence. It will be discussed at a key meeting of its executive board in Geneva on Tuesday. The Bush administration, which receives millions in funding from the sugar industry, argues there is little robust evidence to show that drinking sugary drinks or eating too much sugar is a direct cause of obesity. It particularly opposes a recommendation that just 10 per cent of people’s energy intake should come from added sugar. The US has a 25 per cent guideline.
I’d say that how much sugar we consume is not the WHO’s business, but what do I know?
Another leading obesity thinktank biased advocate expert supported Norum, describing America’s position as a scandal. Professor Philip James, head of the International Obesity Task Force, a thinktank for experts worldwide said: ’People are far more tuned into what is now a much bigger obesity crisis and are more aware of some of the dangers such as diabetes. When they begin to see children developing these severe health problems, it brings home to people that this is not some vague risk in the future - it is happening here and now.’
But what does it have to do with the government? I know — eventually these guys want a tax on junk food to be used to support them educate the public.
In an Observer interview today, Britain’s Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell urges people who take little or no exercise to start hobbies like DIY and gardening to get active, saying that she wants people to take responsibility for their fitness.
But that would put Norum out of business!
Posted by: Steve White 2004-01-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=24564