Stop Big Food From Using the Playbook of Big Tobacco

On June 12, 1957, Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney stated that "evidence pointed to a causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer," thereby changing the official position of the United States Public Health Service. This small but significant move opened the door to regulation of Big Tobacco, beginning a battle that came to a head last week with the FDA being granted the most power over the industry to date.

Now, more than a half a century after that first declaration, that same date brought the movie Food, Inc. to theaters, a film that reveals the dysfunction of our food system. With obesity rates at the highest point in history, contaminated food regularly sickening thousands, and government estimating we will continue to spend 6.2% more on healthcare annually (this year, an additional $200 billion, more than our annual economic growth of 4.1%), it is clear that we have a problem as big as smoking: an addiction to cheap, unhealthy food perpetuated by an industry intent on maximizing profits at the expense of our health and our land. It is time to regulate Big Food by changing the culture in Washington that allowed it to proliferate.

According to a recent study [pdf] by Kelly D. Brownell and Kenneth E. Warner at Yale University, the food industry is using "similar legal, political, and business strategies" that were once employed in tobacco, including dismissing peer-reviewed studies that make a connection between their product and disease, paying scientists to produce pro-industry studies, denying the addictive nature of their products to create doubt in the minds of consumers, and advertising heavily to children. A powerful lobby also ensures that agribusiness as usual is maintained in Washington.

But we know the food system as it stands right now isn't working, and that it isn't sustainable. Cheap processed food requires commodities like corn, soy, wheat, and rice. The production of these crops currently depends on industrial-scale, acreage-intensive monoculture that is in turn not feasible without surplus water, cheap oil and fertilizer, and a stable climate, all of which are at risk for becoming scarce.

Instead of taking a seat at the table, Big Food has renounced as "junk science" peer-reviewed studies showing the correlation to obesity with the proximity to a fast food restaurant. It has actively denied the science proving the relationship between soda consumption and weight problems and diabetes. Big Tobacco spent years insisting that there wasn't enough evidence that smoking caused lung cancer. The results were that millions of people had to die before the government acted.

Good health, food safety and sustainability will never exist in our current food system. Big Food is standing in the way of change with agribusiness campaign funding and corporate ties moving through the Washington revolving door that brings lobbyists, consultants and strategists to high level positions. Historically, thirty-two members of the Senate Agriculture Committee and fifty of the House Agriculture Committee have had these ties to industry.

We were able to rattle the grip of Big Tobacco loose and we can start to do so now with Big Food by tightening campaign finance reform. Agribusiness is one of the largest lobbying interests in the capital, spending nearly 140 million in 2008 according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In creating a system based on public financing, their power could be greatly diminished. Food production is controlled from seed to supermarket shelf by a handful of companies [pdf], who are in effect deciding what we can and cannot access to eat. 83.5% of all beef-packing was controlled by 4 companies in 2007, while the numbers for pork-packing (66%), chicken processing (58.5%) and turkey (55%) reflect the same lack of competition. This extends to soy bean crushing (80%) and wet corn processing (74%), both sectors producing many of the ingredients in the processed foods we consume. President Obama has promised to take a hard line on anti-trust regulations, including those impacting agricultural companies. This would be a great start to building a better food system.

In addition, our government should fully fund unbiased studies assessing the long term sustainability of our food system. Most food research is funded by industry, and therefore focuses on biotech and other subjects that favor its development, rather than forming true assessments of the safety of our food and the lasting health impacts of our current food system. We can also change the incentive structure by incentivizing better farming practices like crop rotation, intercropping, smaller-scale food and animal operations that improve the air, water and land quality of the local environment.

President Obama can also nominate a Surgeon General who could set the tone for a better food system. A strong Surgeon General should warn Americans about the longterm health effects of consuming fast foods, and educate and advise the public about the outcomes of unbiased government studies. He/she should also oversee the labeling of foods for their possible detrimental health effects. The tobacco industry no longer has the power to advertise wherever it pleases, nor can it advertise to children; cigarettes are properly labeled with health advisories. A similar tack needs to be taken with unhealthy food.

While millions still die of smoking related illness every year, it's not too late to lift the veil from Big Food, and in doing so, save lives and public health for years to come.

Originally published on Civil Eats

 

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Comments

[Rhetticent]

Thank god. The government is now going after Cheerio's as a drug. We are saved. Don't you guys feel better now?

Our tax dollars at work.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/19/fda-takes-cheerios-task-boastful-labels/

[johnsopinion]

Of course you can find a 'causal relationship' between pretty much anything
that exists on this planet and death. All you have to do is LOOK for it! It's really
that simple. Pick an object and just start tabulating.

Here's an example: When you go to a heart doctor do you think he's gonna
check your feet to see if your shoes are too tight or ill fitting or ride with you
to work to see how you react to other &@)8%#09(^&% drivers or check your
family to see if your kids are stealing you blind or see if your neighbors are
throwing their empty beer cans into your back yard?
No. He's gonna (surprise!) run blood tests, x-rays and a whole slew of tests
to FIND whats wrong with your heart--what the problem is -- inside YOU!
THAT'S WHAT HE DOES. AND HE WILL FIND SOMETHING, even if it's
just something that 'needs to be watched!'

Health (mental, physical and spiritual) and death are two separate issues,
and the sooner that is accepted, the sooner people can start getting, feeling
and living healthy.

[Indra]

Big food is going to be very hard to take down. People need to do watch groups and publish info on a regular basis.

[BULLSTONE]

We should also demand gov't accountability:
I have been fighting to have millions of pounds of contaminated meat recalled that was produced using a warehouse facility that makes the PBA facility look like the Ritz. The pictures I gave to the USDA and the FDA showed RAT fecal matter and rodents nests on food ingredients and materials, I submitted documents to the USDA proving the use of this contaminated warehouse for years and was denied a recall of my own products .Why –to protect a State institution that was contracted to produce this meat for my company.
Agencies state the manufacturer must generate the recall and the FDA and USDA not having the authority to initiate this action as the reason bad food gets into the system . Even when the USDA went and found this contaminated warehouse with live rodents they never tested any product for salmonella and co-operated with the state of Florida to use possible contaminated ingredients in further meat processing.
visit my blog site http://bullstone-larrym.blogspot.com/ . I have been battling with the USDA to recall millions of pounds of meat the State of Florida produced under contract for my company. This meat was distributed nation wide to schools, supermarkets and institutions. When we discovered that this Florida State division was storing food supplies and edible ingredients in a rat infested warehouse we began our quest to get this information to the public and get accountability placed on those who allowed this to happen.

[Rhetticent]

Next year, after the democrats fix the environment with a new tax, they should support health care by creating a uniform national menu that every restaurant would have to use, with uniform national recipes. Every citizen will have to weigh in once a month at federal weight regulatory centers, and anyone over the federally mandated weight standard will be taxed, because after all the fatties are destroying our roads and bridges, and public toilets, and contributing far more to global warming than normal skinny people. Anyone not reaching the federally mandated weight standard wthin five years will lose the federally provided health care, because we can't afford to subsidize other people's bad choices.

Then, the year after that, we can go after people who talk too much.

This totalitarianism stuff is GREAT FUN!!!!

[bunnyv]

Soooooooo, someone posts a personal and relevant story, and your response is to go off on a ridiculous rant (inspired by Glenn Beck by the looks of it) about totalitarianism. A rant that doesn't even relate at all to the post you attached your post to.

Exactly how does public health care lead to the scenario you describe? Out of all the civilized nations across the globe that have a public system in place, in which country has it lead to totalitarianism? Turn off Fox News and watch a different point of view for once.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

That is a great piece on the different countries that have PH and the pros and cons of each.