In its August Issue of World Nutrition (Vol 4, no 7), the World Public Health Nutrition Association has published a letter from Arun Gupta, Patti Rundall and Urban Jonsson. This highlights the speech of WHO’s Director General in which she warns about the tactics of Big food and its front groups who lobby governments with ” promises of self-regulation, lawsuits, and industry-funded research that confuses the evidence and keeps the public in doubt. In the view of WHO, the formulation of health policies must be protected from distortion by commercial or vested interests.”
The letter exposes some of the conflict of interests apparent in the global nutrition system using as an example some of the authors and advisors of the recently published Lancet series on nutrition, who are linked to large food corporations and also GAIN and SUN. The letter finishes with an invitation to the scientists currently advising Big Food and Big Snack and associated organisations to resign these positions.