Corporate "Partnerships" Steadily Increasing Percentage Of World Health Organization Funding
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As evidence of harm piles up, the industry is only accelerating its effort to keep government action at bay. Back in April, a Reuters investigative report found that the food industry had "more than doubled" its annual lobbying spending under Obama and had successfully pursued a strategy of "pledging voluntary action while defeating government proposals aimed at changing the nation's diet."
But the food industry isn't satisfied with just keeping the US safe for its junk products. As a new Reuters report shows, the industry is also actively seeking influence at the global level by cozying up to the World Health Organization, the public-health arm of the United Nations. The WHO is most known for its efforts to fight communicable diseases like malaria and AIDS. But the UN has recently charged it with focusing on chronic, diet-related ailments like heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
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At the organizational level, that doesn't mean accepting industry funds—Geneva-based WHO and five of its regional outposts have been barred from taking cash from the food and soda industries. But as the agency's funding dwindles and Western-style maladies like heart disease and diabetes spread to the developing world along with processed food, Reuters showed, the WHO is increasingly pushing industry-friendly, "voluntary" approaches.
And one regional office, the Washington-based Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), operates under different rules than the WHO's other regional offices—and it has begun accepting industry lucre, Reuters reports: "$50,000 from Coca-Cola, the world's largest beverage company; $150,000 from Nestle, the world's largest food company; and $150,000 from Unilever, a British-Dutch food conglomerate whose brands include Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Popsicles."
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And cash isn't the only thing the Pan-Am office is taking from Coke and other sugary-foods providers; it's also soliciting policy advice. In the appeal to businesses to joint the Pan American Forum on Non-Communicable Diseases, the Pan-Am office lists "avoid regulation," "reinforce the positive connection between their brand and healthy, active living," and "reduce risk and avoid future litigation" as "benefits of membership." So far, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Unilever, Nestle, and drug giant Merck have heeded the call.
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http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/10/junk-food-industry-buys-influence-global-level-too
