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GENEVA — Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) today hailed
the adoption of a World Health Organization (WHO) Executive
Board resolution recommending that the 57th World Health Assembly
in May 2004 endorse a Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity
and Health. However, public interest NGOs also raised concerns
about ongoing attempts by the food industry to undermine the
Global Strategy, and about broader questions of conflicts of
interest within the world's foremost health body. Such concerns
are also emerging in the Executive Board's debate on a new WHO
policy for relations with NGOs.
Industrialized
and developing countries are grappling with a growing burden
of noncommunicable diseases, including an epidemic of obesity.
The WHO's proposed Global Strategy creates a framework for member
states to inform consumers about the dangers of foods high in
sugar, salt and fat; curtail promotion of unhealthy food; and
institute price policies to encourage healthy eating. The strategy
has come under attack by food corporations, industry associations
and the US government. US officials have even denied any connection
between unhealthy foods and obesity, as the US faces the highest
rates of obesity in the world.
Infact,
a US-based corporate accountability organization active in negotiations
on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and the
International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN),
which supports governments worldwide in protecting infant health
and promoting breastfeeding, have long been watchdogs of industry
influence at WHO. In statements delivered to the Executive Board
this week, Infact and IBFAN highlighted lessons from the tobacco
control movement, the FCTC process and the infant feeding debates.
The FCTC was unanimously adopted by the WHA in May 2003, and
will take effect as international law once 40 countries have
signed and ratified it. To date, more than 80 countries have
signed and five have ratified.
"As
in the FCTC negotiations, the US is taking positions that benefit
a powerful industry at the expense of the public interest,"
says Infact Executive Director Kathryn Mulvey. "While
our government's representatives defy logic in focusing solely
on individual responsibility and denying the harmful effects
of corporate marketing, people are fed up with the extent of
corporate influence over the Bush Administration, and questioning
the corporate connection between big food and big tobacco,"
she continues. The transnational now known as Altria owns Philip
Morris, the world's most profitable tobacco corporation, and
Kraft, one of the world's largest food corporations.
The
resolution on the Global Strategy was strengthened with a provision
requesting the WHO Director-General to ensure avoidance of potential
conflicts of interest in WHO's cooperation with the private
sector in implementing the strategy. The WHO has set positive
precedents in resolutions on infant feeding, and throughout
the FCTC process. Tobacco corporations, their subsidiaries and
affiliates were excluded from the negotiations on the grounds
that their aims run counter to those of the treaty.
However,
NGOs and some member states remain concerned about WHO's lack
of safeguards to insulate health policy-making and standard-setting
from industry interference. WHO's proposed new policy for relations
with NGOs, slated for adoption at this year's WHA, still blurs
the distinction between public interest NGOs and those linked
to commercial interests. Public interest NGO representatives
have established a new council to focus on these issues and
enhance their working relationship with WHO.
"While
we welcome steps taken by WHO to simplify and accelerate its
process for accreditation of and collaboration with NGOs, we
caution that the draft presented to the Executive Board could
be a Trojan horse for business interests to swarm the WHO in
the guise of NGOs," says Lida Lhotska of IBFAN.
"It is essential that WHO provide workable mechanisms for
busy delegates to distinguish between NGOs representing the
public interest and those linked to commercial interests,"
she notes. WHO's Guidelines for Interactions with Commercial
Interests, noted by the Executive Board in 2000, provide a basis
for the organization's relationship with the private sector.
These Guidelines have been used by IBFAN and other NGOs to stop
inappropriate funding and influence of bodies such as the Codex
Trust.
"Transparent
and efficient safeguards against conflicts of interest are decisive
to the future of WHO and international health policy, and will
be a defining issue for the term of WHO Director-General Jong-wook
Lee," concludes Mulvey.
Notes
Since
1977, Infact has been exposing life-threatening abuses of transnational
corporations and organizing successful grassroots campaigns
to hold corporations accountable to consumers and society at
large. Infact is an NGO in Official Relations with the World
Health Organization (WHO). For more information visit www.infact.org.
IBFAN
was founded in 1979, after the Joint WHO/UNICEF Meeting on Infant
and Young Child Feeding. The Network has grown to more than
200 member groups in over 100 countries. IBFAN works worldwide
to protect, promote and support breastfeeding against the harmful
marketing practices of the baby food industry. For more information
visit www.ibfan.org. Also
see Strategies used by industry
to undermine WHO marketing requirements exposed in new IBFAN
report
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