[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Big Food Is Copying Big Tobacco's Disinformation Tactics

[Bill Totten]

How Many Will Die This Time?

by Fen Montaigne, Yale Environment 360

AlterNet (April 11 2009)


Increasingly, the question of what we eat and how it affects our health
is a subject that is important not just to those concerned about
nutrition but to environmentalists. Kelly D Brownell, a psychologist who
is director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale
University, has been a leading researcher into America's obesity
epidemic and its links to the practices of the food industry. Author of
the 2004 book, Food Fight, Brownell has recently become interested in
the connections between obesity, the environment, and hunger, believing
that sustainably growing and producing more nutritious foods can help
solve each of these challenges.

Recently, Brownell and Kenneth E Warner - a prominent tobacco researcher
who is Dean of the University of Michigan's School of Public Health -
met at a conference and began discussing the similar legal, political,
and business strategies traditionally employed by "Big Tobacco" and the
tactics now being used by "Big Food". Struck by the common playbook that
both industries have used and concerned about the public health impacts
of industry actions, Brownell and Warner decided to explore the topic
more deeply. The result was a paper published earlier this year in the
health policy journal, the Milbank Quarterly: "The Perils of Ignoring
History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar Is Big
Food?"

As Brownell explained in an interview with Yale Environment 360 senior
editor Fen Montaigne, many of the tactics currently being used by Big
Food now mirror those used by US tobacco giants as they successfully
fought off regulation for decades, thereby contributing to the deaths of
millions of Americans. According to Brownell and Warner, the common
strategies include dismissing as "junk science" peer-reviewed studies
showing a link between their products and disease; paying scientists to
produce pro-industry studies; sowing doubt in the public's mind about
the harm caused by their products; intensive marketing to children and
adolescents; frequently rolling out supposedly "safer" products and
vowing to regulate their own industries; denying the addictive nature of
their products; and lobbying with massive resources to thwart regulatory
action.

Fen Montaigne: Can you tell me about the genesis of the paper?

Kelly Brownell: It came about as a result of a meeting I went to on
cancer, where I met Ken Warner, an economist who's done a lot of
interesting work on things like tobacco taxes. We talked about the
similarities between food industry behavior now and tobacco industry
behavior over the last four decades or so and it started to look as if
there were a script or a playbook that industry was following.

By any definition, the tobacco industry script had been deadly - and
successful for them because they forestalled government action. They had
convinced the public that tobacco wasn't as bad as it really was. They
fought off lawsuits. They got government to delay many (actions).

We simply didn't want the food industry to be able to get away with some
of those same tactics. The public has become skeptical of food industry
behavior and a great deal of concern has been raised about things like
marketing to children, selling unhealthy foods in schools. That means
the industry is at a crossroads. They can behave as tobacco did, which
is lie about the science, distort the truth, and buy up the scientists.
Or they can come face-to-face with the reality that some of their
products are helping people and some are hurting, and we need to shift
the balance.

There are some differences in the industries. Tobacco was one product -
cigarettes - and about half a dozen big companies that sold it. With
food, there are hundreds of companies and many thousands of products.
But the behavior of the industry shows some pretty striking similarities.

FM: I'd like to have you take us through some of those.

KB: Well, one is distorting the science and denying the health effects
of their products. (Recently) a study was done showing that how close
people lived to fast food restaurants predicted their likelihood of
obesity. The study was really quite well done. So the National
Restaurant Association then came out with their own statement that
basically trashed the study and more or less called it junk science.

Now, this is a perfect repeat of what tobacco did for many years. They
said smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. There is not definitive
evidence. There aren't good-enough studies. It's junk science. It's just
the advocates out to get us. And then they denied that second-hand smoke
was killing people. They denied that nicotine was addictive. You can go
on and on and on. Well, so here comes a (food) study that's pretty
persuasive. It certainly supports other studies showing a link between
fast food consumption and obesity, and what did they do? They trashed
the science. They deny it's the case. In all likelihood, they will pay
scientists who they know to produce results favorable to them to
disprove this finding. It's all part of the same script.

FM: You gave another example in your paper of a study about obesity and
consumption of sodas. How did the industry react to that?

KB: The results couldn't have been more clear that the more sugared
beverages you're consuming, the more likely you are to have weight
problems, the higher your risk for diabetes, and the less likely you are
to be eating a healthier diet.

The day the study came out, the trade association for the beverage
companies, the American Beverage Association, trashed the study, said it
was biased, accused us of cherry-picking only the studies that were in
support of our position. And this study was published in the American
Journal of Public Health, a good peer-reviewed journal. So attacking it
was the first strategy that they used. Then the next strategy they used
is they went and they paid some scientists who have produced in the past
studies that are favorable to industry positions. They go and they
review the literature, and then they do a study that says, "Oh, what do
you know? There's no link between soft drink intakes and these bad
outcomes".

Now, I think if I were them, I would say that's not how we're going to
behave. When we hear studies that are contrary to our interests, we're
going to say, "Well, we'll take this seriously and we'll do what we can
to change our products and change our marketing, and we'll work with the
scientists". But that's not what they're doing, for the most part.

FM: You also pointed out the link between what big tobacco did and what
big food is doing, trying to sow doubt and confusion in the public's mind.

KB: What the tobacco industry and other industries have done, they
realized that if you can instill just enough doubt or impugn the
integrity of the people who produce the science or get people
second-guessing, then people will say, "Well, we're not sure if this is
the case, so we're not going to go through with a public policy. We're
not going to sue the industry or come down hard on them for anything."
And so it basically does enough to stall action. And I imagine that's
what the food industry is seeking here. Again, the food industry has
some players who are quite progressive and others who are less so.

FM: Tell us about some of the other similar strategies between tobacco
and food in terms of trying to keep selling their product.

KB: One is the introduction of what the industry will call safer
products. And the classic example in tobacco was the introduction of
filtered cigarettes. Now, the food industry has done this a lot. They've
introduced and reformulated products. In some cases, it's exactly what
public health people have been calling for - take out some of the fat,
take out some of the sugar, take out some of the salt. But sometimes,
they take a little of these things out, but they make it sound as if
they've taken a lot out. And so the health benefits that get promoted in
the marketing aren't in concert with the actual benefits that have been
achieved from reformulating their products.

FM: You mention in your paper the example of a Kentucky Fried Chicken
advertisement.

KB: Right. Well, KFC is owned by a large parent company called Yum!
Brands. And they own Taco Bell and Pizza Hut and some other restaurants.
They were very resistant early on to taking the trans fats out of their
food and then they got sued by an advocacy organization, and it got to
the point where competitors were starting to take out the trans fats and
they looked pretty bad for not doing it.

So then they did take out the trans fats reluctantly but started this
campaign that inferred that you can now eat this chicken with impunity
because the trans fats had been removed. There is one advertisement
where the husband came in and the mother and children were sitting there
in the counter. The husband looked at the chicken and the wife said,
"Guess what?" in words to this effect, "KFC is now free of trans fats".
And so, he lets out a yelp of glee and starts gorging on the chicken.
And so, somebody could look at that advertisement and say, "Okay. Well
now it doesn't have trans fats, it means it's okay to eat it".

Well in fact, if you swap out trans fat for another kind of fat, there's
no calorie advantage at all. It's better for your heart because it's a
healthier fat, but there's no calorie advantage. I like the fact that
they took out the trans fat and we need more of that kind of thing
happening. But if they oversold the benefits, this could be an example
of introducing what the industry could call a safer product but
consumption patterns wouldn't lead it to actually be safer.

FM: What about the similarities of Big Food hitting this theme of
personal responsibility?

KB: People believe that personal responsibility should be the way we
address problems. I don't have any quarrel with that. It's probably not
a bad place to start, but when this industry behaves in a way that
undermines personal responsibility, then we've got problems and that's
usually a place where people feel government intervention is warranted.

So with tobacco, you had a clearly addictive substance. So, people would
start when they were teenagers. Their ability to behave in a responsible
way was being undermined by the marketing and of course the addictive
nature of the product. So, that means government could step in and so
what do we do? We pass clean air laws, we tax the heck out of
cigarettes, we sue the tobacco industry. And society now accepts that as
responsible behavior on the part of government because personal
responsibility was being eroded.

So the question is, in food, does that same set of conditions exist and
does that warrant government response? Well, everybody comes down in a
different place, but there certainly are similarities, including very
heavy duty marketing of these products, especially to children.

I don't want to say that personal responsibility is not important,
because it certainly is. But in some cases we've decided that's not
enough and then government gets involved. With tobacco, with drugs, with
alcohol, with immunizations for children, with fluoride in the water,
with mandatory airbags in cars, we've decided that if we're serious
about these public health things, the government should be involved.

In the food arena, a great example of this would be in New York City,
where the health department has banned trans fats in restaurants. So if
you go to New York now, you can't get trans fats in the restaurants. Now
you could try to solve that problem of people eating trans fats, and
having heart disease as a consequence of it, by personal responsibility.
You could say, "Okay, well, let's educate people about trans fats". But
it's a pretty hard concept to understand. Restaurants would have to
label them. People would have to have options within restaurants, trans
fat versus no trans fat. And you see you'd have this complex, burdensome
system that would never work. And so, that would be an example where
personal responsibility wouldn't get the job done but government
intervention would. And so, in New York City, they've decided that we
can't default to personal responsibility there, we need to take action.
And that would be an example of a real success story from a public
health point of view.

FM: Of course, with tobacco very clearly there was an issue of
addiction. But one interesting point you raised is the addiction
triggers in substances like caffeine and sugar?

KB: We don't know the answer yet to the question about whether food can
trigger an addictive process in the brain. But it's a darn important
question that we need to know. Some addiction researchers have started
studying this, including a few animal researchers in the obesity field.
And the studies are pretty amazing so far. There are animal studies in
the labs and there are brain imaging studies in humans. And what's been
studied the most is sugar, which looks like it has effects on the brain
like classic substances of abuse. Now, the magnitude of the effect, the
addictive effect isn't that strong, but it does seem to exist.

Why do we need to know this? Well, people are eating in ways that would
suggest that addiction might be a possibility. I mean, people know it's
bad for them to overeat these kinds of foods. But people do this anyway
at great peril to their health. And if these foods are behaving on the
brain in an addictive way, if that happens, even to a small extent, it
could have pretty important public health consequences.

Caffeine becomes a real issue because caffeine is addictive. And some
people drink a little of it through beverages, some people drink a lot
of it, but so much of it is added to foods now, in things like energy
drinks. And now people are putting it in candy bars and in potato chips
and jelly beans and selling it as energy versions of things. There's a
version of Butterfinger candy bar out now that's called Butterfinger
Buzz. And it says on the back, "Not recommended for children". But I
mean, who's buying these things? Caffeine, because it's so often coupled
with calories, could become a real player here that if you're consuming
calories in something that has caffeine in it and the caffeine keeps you
coming back for more because of its mildly addictive nature then, again,
you've got enough to create real issues of health.

FM: You mentioned with big tobacco that there was a massive lobbying
effort spending countless millions of dollars to stifle government
action. Could you describe the parallels, the efforts to undermine state
and local efforts to crack down on fast food and trans fats?

KB: There's a remarkable history there. As you might imagine, the food
industry is enormously powerful. And the industry speaks as individual
players but also through their trade associations. They have their
lobbyists in Washington. They have a lot of money to use for this
purpose, and they're effective. But does this help public health?

New York City was the first city to pass a regulation that restaurants
had to post calories on their restaurant menus, or on menu boards in the
case of fast food restaurants. How did the restaurant industry respond
to this? Well, they responded by lobbying heavily against it, but that
didn't work. Then sued New York City, and finally lost. And so, the
regulation is now in effect. When it looked like legal action wasn't
going to help them so much, then they tried to weaken the legislation.

A lot of other places around the country are now passing menu labeling,
so the industry has managed to get several legislators in Washington to
introduce a national bill that would override anything that can be done
at local levels by having a weak national standard. So, there's a script
that tobacco followed that food is following. If there's no threat, you
ignore it. But then when it becomes a reality, you sue. When that
doesn't work, you preempt it nationally.

FM: In order for the food industry not to go down the same deadly path
that tobacco went down, could you go into what you might call a good
playbook for the food industry?

KB: One is to stop playing the personal responsibility card as much as
they have. That doesn't mean that they have to ignore personal
responsibility, but they can't act as if that's the only reason that
people are eating and developing nutrition and weight problems.

Lying about the science, distorting scientific findings, and trashing
the messenger, which they very often do - I think that should stop. I
believe they should also stop paying scientists to do studies that
almost 100 percent of the time favor industry. Marketing unhealthy
products to children should stop instantly. And we know what some of
these products are that are hurting the health of children.

FM: Can you list a few?

KB: Well, sugared beverages would be at the top of the list. Fast foods
would be second on that list. Sugared cereals, candy. There's just no
reason at all to market those things to kids. It's not helping them,
it's hurting them and it shouldn't be done. There are a number of other
issues about responsible marketing practices: not overstating the health
benefits, not implying that something is healthier than it really is,
not marketing in ways that undermine the parental ability to moderate
the health of their children.

Most of all, they should reformulate their products and market the
healthier versions as aggressively as possible, I think.

FM: You say that it would be a trap to give the food industry the
benefit of the doubt given their past behavior. Why?

KB: Well, the tobacco history was so riddled with disaster and we gave
them the benefit of the doubt and look at the millions of people that
died as a consequence. Why are the motives of the food industry going to
be any different? They want to sell as much as they can of their
products. But on the other hand, the public is watching them now and
government is watching them, plus some of them really may see that
selling healthier products is in their best long-term interest.

But it seems to me that defaulting to trusting the industry without any
oversight is really a bad idea. And so, at the very least, we should
have a set of conditions that we agree on that says, "If industry is to
be proven trustworthy, if we're to grant them self-regulatory authority
instead of government coming down on them, then they have to do these
things". Like, for example, they have to work with the public health
community to make business priorities. If they make self-regulatory
promises like, "We're going to market less to kids", there has to be
objective evaluation of that and there has to be some effect if they
don't comply.

(c) 2009 Yale Environment 360 All rights reserved.

http://www.alternet.org/story/135965/


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