- © 2004 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
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
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Competing interests: None declared.