Sugar Interests Sour on New WHO Report

Sugar Interests Sour on New WHO Report
Jim Lobe - IPS - 4/24/03

WASHINGTON, Apr 24 (IPS) - The Sugar Association, the major industry lobby group, tried to block the report's release, called it "misguided and misleading," although it denied reports that it would press for changes to the U.S. contribution to the WHO. Washington currently provides some 406 million dollars annually, or about 25 percent of the Geneva-based agency's budget.

The association's director, Andrew Briscoe, instead said it wants Congress and the administration of President George W. Bush to insist that all WHO reports in future be ''supported by the preponderance of the scientific evidence'' and include a full analysis of their economic impact on its 192 member countries.

''We haven't ever called for a reduction in the U.S. contribution,'' Briscoe told IPS Thursday. ''Our objective is to get accountability.''

The group, which represents 16 sugar-producing companies and cooperatives around the United States, has strong backing from other major agricultural interests, as well as two powerful senators from sugar-producing states - Republican Larry Craig of Idaho and Democrat John Breaux of Louisiana.

Co-chairmen of the Senate sweetener caucus, they urged the Bush administration's secretaries of agriculture and health and human services to intervene with both WHO and FAO to halt their promotion of the report, which was officially released in Rome on Wednesday.

The report, 'Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases', is the result of a two-year FAO-WHO consultation designed to help tackle the rapidly rising global toll of cardiovascular diseases, several forms of cancer, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis and dental disease.

The diseases - all of which are associated with diet - contributed almost 60 percent of the 56.5 million total reported deaths in the world in 2001, more than half of them in poor countries that can ill afford the costs of treating these diseases.

"We have known for a long time that foods high in saturated fats, sugars and salt are unhealthy, that we are, globally, increasing our intake of energy-dense, nutritionally poor food as our lives become increasingly sedentary," said WHO director Gro Brundtland Wednesday in Rome.

"And that these factors - together with tobacco use - are the leading causes of the great surge we have seen in the incidence of chronic diseases. What is new is that we are laying down the foundation for a global policy response."

The recommendation that most angered the sugar industry calls for consumers to limit their daily added sugar intake - sugar that does not occur naturally in food, such as in fruits, to 10 percent of total calories. The report linked sugar consumption, in particular, to a number of problems, including obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.

Such a recommendation, if followed, would have a huge impact on the U.S. sugar industry. Added sugar currently accounts for more than 15 percent of the daily caloric intake of people here, according to the Agriculture Department.

The industry has attacked the report, arguing that at least one of the studies that it is based on is outdated and failed to take into account a 2002 National Institute of Medicine report on Macronutrients based on 279 published studies that concluded that diet quality was not impaired by sugar intake of as much as25 percent of all calories.

"While we applaud WHO and FAO in their concern regarding the obesity crisis, well intended but unfounded recommendations of this nature confuse the public, mislead the press and generally forestall the science-based solutions we all seek," wrote the Sugar Association, along with six other major lobby groups in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson last month.

The groups have received support from the government. After the report's release at FAO headquarters in Rome, U.S. Ambassador Tony Hall told reporters the study "falls short of presenting the comprehensive body of evidence and rigorous conclusions necessary to serve as a basis for WHO and FAO policy recommendations."

He declined to comment on whether Washington would reduce its support for either agency.

But Brundtland on Wednesday rejected the demands, insisting that, "the report has a scientific basis." She said the document would be submitted to the World Health Assembly, the WHO's governing body, for ratification next month.

At her side in Rome was Shiriki Kumanyika, a University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine professor who endorsed the report's findings and noted that a 1990 U.N. paper had made the same recommendation about sugar intake.

But Briscoe charged that Kumanyika had been ''hand-picked'' by WHO to go to Rome to counter the industry's position, noting with some exasperation that ''Kumanyika was on the (review) board (of the 2002 Macronutrients report) that came out with the 25 percent figure''.

He also complained that the report was released before it was presented to the WHO's executive board or the World Health Assembly (WHA). ''There is a due process issue here,'' he said.

For her part, Brundtland stressed that she will be meeting with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and industry representatives in coming weeks about the report before the SHA's annual meeting at the end of May.

While Briscoe stressed that his association had never contemplated lobbying Congress to reduce the U.S. contribution, a letter he sent to Brundtland last warned that, ''We will exercise every avenue available to expose the dubious nature of the ... report, including asking congressional appropriators to challenge future funding of the U.S.' ... contributions (including both regular and voluntary funding) to the WHO''.

But consumer health groups objected strongly to the Association's reaction. Gary Ruskin, direct of Commercial Alert, an Oregon-based group that promotes good nutrition for children, called it "outrageous and especially repugnant given the alarming incidence of marketing-related and diet-related chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes".

''Naturally, the sugar lobby would reflexively oppose any suggestion that sugar contributes to obesity and dental disease,'' said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest.

"But we're shocked by the bluntness of the Sugar Association's thuggish threats. There's nothing sweet about Big Sugar's blackmail campaign, and we applaud WHO and FAO for resisting it."