CMAJ • May 11, 2004; 170 (10). doi:10.1503/cmaj.1040495.
© 2004 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association.
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Letters
Correspondance

Food fights: common good versus individual interests

Riccardo Baschetti

Medical Inspector (retired), Fortaleza, Brazil

It is likely that the "food fights" discussed in a recent CMAJ editorial1 will easily be won by the food industrialists. Given that their political lobbies obfuscate government messages on healthy eating2 and stop government agencies from advising people to eat less,3 it can reasonably be predicted that those lobbies will also successfully undermine the attempts of the World Health Organization (WHO) to improve diet,4 especially when US congressmen "recruited by the food industry" have urged the secretary of health to cut off that country's US$406-million annual contribution to the WHO.4

The CMAJ editorial1 appropriately mentioned the "detailed list of quibbles" put forward by the US Department of Health and Human Services,5 questioning the scientific basis of the new WHO strategy on diet and physical activity.6 As Dyer4 has pointed out, "[w]henever you hear the government or the industry talking about scientific rigour . . . it's code for self interest." Food fights, therefore, constitute an unequal struggle between the common good, represented axiomatically by public health, and the individual interests of food manufacturers, who are so powerful as to influence and shape government policies.2,3,4

Morality, in its original meaning,7 suggests that the individual interests of food industrialists should no longer be privileged over the innumerable human lives that could be saved by preventing obesity and its tragic consequences.8 Strict regulations on food production and its advertising are urgently needed worldwide and should be respected by market forces. Otherwise, to contain increasingly catastrophic epidemics of nutrition-related disorders, many governments will probably be compelled to turn food companies into nationalized, nonprofit organizations.

Riccardo Baschetti Medical Inspector (retired) Fortaleza, Brazil

Footnotes

Competing interests: None declared.


References

  1. Food fights [editorial]. CMAJ 2004;170(5):757. [Free Full Text]
  2. Marwick C. Food industry obfuscates healthy eating message. BMJ 2003;327:121. [Free Full Text]
  3. Elliot A. US food industry ensures that consumers are not told to eat less. BMJ 2003; 327: 1067.[Free Full Text]
  4. Dyer O. US government rejects WHO's attempts to improve diet. BMJ 2004;328:185. [Free Full Text]
  5. Integrated prevention of noncommunicable diseases. Draft global strategy on diet, physical activity and health [doc no EB113/44 Add.1]. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2003 Nov 27. Available: www.who.int/gb/EB_WHA/PDF/EB113/eeb11344a1.pdf (accessed 2004 Apr 7).
  6. US Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture. Review of Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases. Rockville (MD): US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Global Health Affairs; 2003 Jan 2. Available: http://cspinet.org/new/pdf/steigerltr.pdf (accessed 2004 Apr 7).
  7. Baschetti R. Ethical analysis in public health [letter]. Lancet 2002;360:416.
  8. Mokdad AH, Marks JS, Stroup DF, Gerberding JL. Actual causes of death in the United States, 2000. JAMA 2004;291:1238-45. [Abstract/Free Full Text]



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