Drug-makers 'push obesity agenda'
By Tamara McLean
June 17, 2006
AN Australian academic said drug companies were behind a push to expand the definition of obesity and label more American children overweight to help frame the problem as a "serious medical condition".
Ray Moynihan, an author and honorary lecturer at the University of Newcastle, has raised concerns about a US move to reclassify children who are currently called "at risk of overweight" and refer to them instead as "overweight".
The American Medical Association and federal government agencies have formed an expert committee to consider the changes, which would label 25 per cent of toddlers and almost 40 per cent of children aged 6 to 11 years as having a medical condition called "overweight and obese".
Some public health researchers have criticised the relabelling as misleading, inaccurate and unnecessary.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, Mr Moynihan said one of the "driving forces" behind the expert committee was William Dietz, a senior member of the drug company-funded International Obesity Task Force.
"The International Obesity Task Force has relied heavily on funding from the drug industry for a decade, despite being widely seen as an independent think tank and having ties to the World Health Organisation," he wrote.
Mr Moynihan, author of Selling Sickness: How drug companies are turning us all into patients, said the taskforce was set up in the mid-1990s with help from grants from three drug companies.
"The taskforce aims to portray obesity as a `serious medical condition' and to promote better prevention and management strategies," he wrote.
"It has a high media profile and is highly influential."
He said it had close ties with the World Health Organisation but also had primary sponsorship – possibly into the millions – from two drug companies Roche and Abbott, which both make weight loss medication.
"Although the taskforce has at times disclosed the names of drug company sponsors, the exact amount of that sponsorship remains secret."
The companies have not disclosed how much money they had provided to the task force but say they adhered to guidelines and did not get involved in its work, he wrote.
Dr Dietz, an official with the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, declined to comment to the journal.
A decision on changes to the obesity definition would be made in September.
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