Health experts are wrong to claim that sugar is as dangerous as smoking, the former health secretary Andrew Lansley has said as he clashed with one of his old advisers on obesity, Professor Simon Capewell, reports the Guardian. Lansley, a senior Conservative and now leader of the house, said people would not accept a rapid reduction in the sugar content of familiar foods, as he rejected calls from the Action on Sugar group for a 20% to 30% drop in the amount added to products. “Sugar is the new tobacco. Everywhere, sugary drinks and junk foods are now pressed on unsuspecting parents and children by a cynical industry focused on profit not health,” Capewell said.
China Cities to Report Live Air Quality Data
ChinaDaily USA reports that 87 Chinese cities will begin releasing hourly updates on air quality from New Year’s Day, taking the total number doing so to 161, the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced. Data from 449 monitoring stations across the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta will provide real-time updates on levels of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and PM2.5 — particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter that can damage the lungs. The move is a response to complaints by experts and citizens about pollution, ministry spokesman Tao Detian said.
Improper Use of Biocides in Food Industry Poses Risk to Public Health
Biocides used in food production at sub-lethal doses may be endangering public health by increasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria and enhancing their ability to form harmful biofilms, reports a new study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Researchers found that biofilms boosted the risk of food contamination by providing a reservoir of microorganisms. They concluded that biofilm formation is a major virulence factor in human infections.
Auto Industry Should Embrace Mileage and Emissions Standards
In a commentary in Poststar.com, Dan Becker and James Gerstenzanga from the safe Climate Campaign note that one year after automakers began building cars to meet tough new mileage and emissions requirements, it is clear the new standards are working. They report that an in-depth assessment by the Environmental Protection Agency found manufacturers are on track to deliver a fleet by 2025 that will cut in half the global-warming pollution of cars and save Americans billions of dollars at the pump.
Lessons from UK News Coverage of Alcohol Minimum Unit Pricing Advocacy
In May 2012, Scotland passed the Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) Bill. A new report in Social Science and Medicine examines the dynamic interplay between alcohol industry and advocacy claims-makers in this campaign. The study offers several lessons for promoting policies in the media. First, it may be useful to shift focus away from young binge drinkers and heavy drinkers, towards population-level over-consumption. Secondly, advocates might focus on presenting the policy as part of a wider package of alcohol policies. Thirdly, emphasis on the success of recent public health policies could help portray the UK and Scotland as world leaders in tackling culturally embedded health and social problems through policy.
How Trade Policy Gives Companies Tools to Delay Measures to Protect Public Health
Earlier this month, two members of the European Parliament hosted a debate in the Parliament on the 514 cases that corporations have brought against governments. Some of the examples presented were the international tobacco giant Philip Morris suing the governments of Uruguay and Australia for introducing plain cigarette packaging. This debate also considered current negotiations between the EU and the US, Thailand and India, as well as the recently agreed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Canada. Presentations are available here.
The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
The New York Times reports that the number of children on medication for attention deficit disorder has soared to 3.5 million from 600,000 in 1990. The rise of AHDH diagnoses and prescriptions for stimulants has coincided with a remarkably successful two-decade campaign by pharmaceutical companies to publicize the syndrome and promote the pills to doctors, educators and parents.
Can Big Auto Build the Car of the Future?
In WIRED, Jason Fagone describes a car competition that led to new car model that achieved 207 mpg, using EPA standard test procedures. But, he argues, even “with new government targets looming … the automakers are still resisting radical change…They’re not rethinking the automobile from scratch, from the ground up, like the successful prize teams did. And with a few exceptions,…the automakers are also failing to make significant investments in bringing down the cost of advanced composite materials that are light, strong, and durable. One Nissan executive recently “quipped” to Green Car Reports that the company doesn’t want to make cars out of carbon fiber because it’s too durable: “We don’t need such a material,” the executive said. “That means we cannot sell a new car in 30 years.”
Diet Sodas’ Glass Is Half Empty
The Wall Street Journal reports that sales of low-cal carbonated drinks falling faster than other types. Coca-Cola Co. and rivals had hoped zero-calorie recipes would lift the $75 billion U.S. soda industry after Americans began scaling back on full-calorie soda in the late 1990s amid obesity concerns. For a while they helped: Diet soda’s share of consumption rose from 26% to 31% between 1990 and 2010. Now diet soda is the industry’s weightiest problem. Store sales of zero- and low-calorie soda plunged 6.8% in dollar terms in the 52 weeks through Nov. 23, while sales of regular sodas dropped 2.2%. As a category, diet soda has contracted more than regular soda for three straight years.
New Soda Tax Makes Mexico a Leading Guardian of Public Health
In a Huffington Post commentary on Mexico’s new soda tax, Larry Cohen from the Prevention Institute calls the Mexican legislation “one big step towards slowing and reversing the epidemic of unnecessary and preventable disease.” In a New York Times op ed, Mark Bittman notes that the new taxes result from “an increasing awareness that Mexico’s accelerating public health crisis could hurt its economy, and that only prevention would make practical the universal, single-payer health care system instituted last year.”
Corporations and Health Watch 