Food and beverage industries’ participation in health scientific events: considerations on conflicts of interest (original) (raw)
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Postura de la Sociedad Latinoamericana de Nutrición (SLAN) sobre el manejo de conflicto de intereses
Salud Pública de México, 2018
There is solid evidence documenting relationships between the food and beverage industry and academia that shows that industry sponsored research is likely to bias results in favor of industry. In Latin America, examples of these situations have been documented in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador, among others. Due to the urgent need for studying and managing relationships between the food and beverage industry and the field of health and nutrition research, in 2017, the President of the Latin American Society of Nutrition (SLAN) appointed a Conflict of Interest Committee (CCI). The CCI was charged with the development of a proposal of a position for the management of conflict of interest (COI) for consideration by SLAN. This document details the work of CCI, and the position adopted by SLAN.
Corporate sponsorship and health halo for ultra-processed products
World Nutrition, 2020
Objective To describe the characteristics of corporate sponsorship during the 21st International Congress of Nutrition provided by food companies, and to analyse the measures proposed by the organizers to deal with prospective conflicts of interest. Design Qualitative study based on participant observation and document analysis. Setting 21st International Congress of Nutrition, Buenos Aires, October 2017. Analysis The nutritional profile of the products advertised in the area of commercial exhibition was analysed according to the PAHO Nutrient Profile Model. The document analysis was based on the grounded theory to propose conceptual categories that organize the narratives on the aforementioned products. Results Large food corporations sponsoring the Congress advertised a selection of their products to health professionals and other participants attending the event. 92% of the exhibited food products were ultra-processed. 85% were high in added sugars, sodium, and/or saturated fats....
Revista de saúde pública, 2011
The growing evidence on the association between consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, obesity and other chronic diseases has highlighted the need to implement policy actions that go beyond programs exclusively focused on individual responsibility. In order to protect their commercial goals in Latin America, the sugar-sweetened beverage industry practices intense lobbying at high government levels in several countries across the region. This strategy is accompanied by corporate social responsibility programs that fund initiatives promoting physical activity. These efforts, although appearing altruistic, are intended to improve the industry's public image and increase political influence in order to block regulations counter to their interests. If this industry wants to contribute to human well being, as it has publicly stated, it should avoid blocking legislative actions intended to regulate the marketing, advertising and sale of their products.
International Journal of Health Policy and Management
Lacy-Nichols and Williams’ examination of the food industry illustrates how it altered its approach from mostly oppositional to regulation to one of appeasement and co-option. This reflection builds upon this by using a commercial determinants of health lens to understand, expose and counter industry co-option, appeasement and partnership strategies that impact public health. Lessons learned from tobacco reveal how tobacco companies maintained public credibility by recruiting scientists to produce industry biased data, co-opting public health groups, gaining access to policy elites and sitting on important government regulatory bodies. Potential counter solutions to food industry appeasement and co-option include i) understanding corporate actions of health harming industries, ii) applying mechanisms to minimize industry engagement, iii) dissecting industry relationship building, and iv) exposing the negative effects of public private partnerships. Such counter-solutions might help ...
Health promotion policies and potential conflicts of interest involving the commercial private sector abstract This study analyzed potential conflicts of interest regarding the commercial private sector and health promotion policies, particularly their interface with the food and nutrition field in Brazil. The paper addresses the influence of international ideas in this process. The study analyzed the two separate publications of the Brazilian National Health Promotion Policy – of 2006, and of 2014 – and the international agreements that supported them. The method used was analysis of documents, with a categorization into the following dimensions and categories: In the dimension of the Ideas of health promotion, the focus items were the principles and the strategies proposed; In the dimension of conflicts of interest, these aspects were identified: the approach in the documents , relationships with the commercial private sector, and proposals referred to as 'public-private partnerships'. It was concluded that these policies still adopt a fragile approach in terms of conflict of interest. The debate is de-politicized when the asymmetries of power between the sectors involved in the public-private relationships are not made explicit, or when the practices of the commercial private sector that harm objectives, principles and values of health promotion policies are left out of account.