khaosworks | Making the world safe for tooth decay and obesity

Sugar industry threatens to scupper WHO
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Monday April 21, 2003
The Guardian

The sugar industry in the US is threatening to bring the World Health Organisation to its knees by demanding that Congress end its funding unless the WHO scraps guidelines on healthy eating, due to be published on Wednesday.

The threat is being described by WHO insiders as tantamount to blackmail and worse than any pressure exerted by the tobacco lobby.

In a letter to Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO's director general, the Sugar Association says it will "exercise every avenue available to expose the dubious nature" of the WHO's report on diet and nutrition, including challenging its $406m (£260m) funding from the US.

The industry is furious at the guidelines, which say that sugar should account for no more than 10% of a healthy diet. It claims that the review by international experts which decided on the 10% limit is scientifically flawed, insisting that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar.

"Taxpayers' dollars should not be used to support misguided, non-science-based reports which do not add to the health and well-being of Americans, much less the rest of the world," says the letter. "If necessary we will promote and encourage new laws which require future WHO funding to be provided only if the organisation accepts that all reports must be supported by the preponderance of science."

The association, together with six other big food industry groups, has also written to the US health secretary, Tommy Thompson, asking him to use his influence to get the WHO report withdrawn. The coalition includes the US Council for International Business, comprising more than 300 companies, including Coca-Cola and Pepsico.

Downing huge amounts of sugar will make you overweight. In other news, watching paint dry is really boring.

Levity aside, soft drinks are serious business. Coca-Cola^® dominates much of Latin America. As mentioned in this report, a can of Coke costs between 40 to 70 cents, and in a region where the average worker only makes $5 or less, this can add up, especially since the consumption rate is close to one serving a day. And of course, like most American corporations abroad, Coke is seriously anti-union and has been linked to the assassinations of union leaders in countries like Colombia.

And lest you think it's just the Real Thing^™ who are the bad guys, here's a little detour and history lesson: PepsiCo was part of the group of corporations (including ITT, Anaconda Copper and Citibank) that was jockeying for market share in Chile in 1970. In fact, the plot to prevent the socialist Salvador Allende, the new Chilean President-elect, from taking office late that year was supplied with CIA guns and ammunition and was a direct result of two phone calls made by Donald Kendall, president of PepsiCo, to the corporation's former lawyer - then President of the United States and not-a-crook Richard M. Nixon, who then passed the assignment to genocidal warrior Henry Kissinger.

(I'm not making this up, believe me. It's all documented. And the CIA admits it, so there.)

However, the plot eventually failed due to the CIA-backed conspirators botching it. The kidnapping and killing of General Rene Schneider, the pro-democracy Chilean army chief led the Chilean Congress to confirm Allende's election. Allende then began to nationalize the country's industries that had been gobbled up by the corporations under the previous, US-backed Eduardo Frei administration. No fear - three years later, Allende committed suicide while his palace was under bombardment from rebel forces led by General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, who then began a 17-year reign of terror and gutted the Chilean economy via the miracle of privatization and corporatization... but that's another story.

And you thought all this was to keep the world safe from the Commies. Don't say I never teach you anything. But I digress, of course. End of detour. Back to the very serious business.

In 2001 alone, Americans spent $61 billion on soft drinks. 15 billion gallons of the sugary stuff produced. 587 12 oz. servings a year per person. More stats here, including an amazing $6.8 billion spent on advertising in 2000. And the industry was one of those that was actually showing growth despite the recession. Total world production? 1.79 billion hectoliters(PDF).

I mean, bloody hell - until today, I didn't even know there was a measure called a hectoliter. That's 1 hectorliter = 100 liters to you. However, the industry growth in 2002 was only about 0.8%, with per capita consumption dropping, so you can understand the lobby's trepidation when the WHO comes out with this report.

So the next time you crack a can, drink to the health of the Carbonated Soft Drink giants. Because Lord knows, while you're enjoying that sugar rush, they only have their own best interests at heart. And I'm sure the congressmen they're lobbying to cut off the US funding to WHO feel exactly the same way.