The Connection Between Big Food / Big Pharma and Nutrition Policy

The Connection Between Big Food / Big Pharma and Nutrition Policy

Dees Illustration

Karen De Coster, Contributor
Activist Post

I've explored and written on food politics for years, using articles and
direct links back to my sources to show evidence that the Big
Agra-Big-Food-Big Pharma-Big Government complex is a pernicious
corporatocracy with various satellites in place to conduct its dirty
work of politicking, plundering, deceptive marketing, and purposefully
miseducating the masses. I long ago declared that the food
corporatocracy's nutritional-food satellites such as the two ADAs
(American Dietetic Association and the American Diabetes Association),
the USDA, and the FDA are criminal organizations. The American Dietetic
Association recently changed its name to the Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics (AND).

Michele Simon, president of Eat, Drink, Politics, a watchdog organization, has produced a useful 50-page report titled, And Now a Word from Our Sponsors: Are America’s Nutrition Professionals in the Pocket of Big Food? This is from her executive summary:
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Against this backdrop, we must ask: what is
the role of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND)—the nation’s
largest association of nutrition professionals—in preventing or at least
stemming the tide of diet-related health problems? What responsibility
does this influential group of registered dietitians bear to be a
leading advocate for policy changes to make eating healthfully more
accessible? Does forming partnerships with the food industry compromise
such a group’s credibility? And what does the food industry gain from
such partnerships? </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Why does it
matter? As this report will show, the food industry’s deep infiltration
of the nation’s top nutrition organization raises serious questions not
only about that profession’s credibility, but also about its policy
positions.</blockquote>
The report is another in a long chain of scathing indictments against
the corrupt corporate state that has turned a mostly healthy populace
into a sickly and obese society that has become disgustingly dependent
on the pharmaceutical-psychiatric-medical machine that has long
neglected unprofitable preventative care measures in favor of profitable
standard medical protocols that address symptoms in the short term so
as to make people patients for life.

You'll note that Simon, in her study, points to her friend Marion Nestle,
a writer and author and long-time antagonist of Big Food, and a
dissector of all things food politics unless it indicts government as
one of the culprits. Make no mistake - both Simon and Nestle are
statists to the core. Neither of them have challenged how the Big Food
corporate state became so omnipotent in the first place. The entire
world of food politics in which they live, breathe, and swim is littered
with the carcasses of government policy and dictocrat decrees. Still,
they refuse to acknowledge the depth of the food politics for which they
claim expertise, and they consistently maintain a position that their
roles are to influence and change policy. Yes, policy = politics. They
are self-declared politicians and they make a financial living off of
politicking.

On
page 23 of the report, Simon describes how the annual AND meeting was
akin to a junk food industry showcase. Then she goes on to say the
"positive" aspects of the annual meeting were the folks hawking
"Meatless Mondays" and the American Cancer Society. The American Cancer
Society is another corrupt satellite of the
government-pharmaceutical-medical establishment, and its mother ship, Big Cancer,
is another quasi-governmental machine that profits immensely off of
keeping people sick and uninformed. Apparently, while carefully studying
the AND's long list of Big Food and pharmaceutical sponsors, Simon
neglects to mention the similar sponsors of the American Cancer Society.
Additionally, Meatless Monday is a statist concept with
government-public health influence, and various local governments often try to ram this down the throat of their local constituency.

Near the end of the report (page 38), Simon backpedals and waxes
poetically about personnel changes at the AND that are moving the
organization along a path to change. She is setting the stage for the
notion that the AND can revive its tarnished reputation (page 38).
Statists like Simon are fond of revealing the evidence of gross
misconduct and then ramping up an opposition cloaked in apparent
principles, but always, they leave the door open for a future alliance
and a potential consulting gig. This report has a lot of valid bark and
recites much useful evidence, but there exists no bite whatsoever.

Due to the prodigious influence of Big Food and its cornucopia of
marketing lies, the entire Registered Dietician profession is made up of
legions of hypnotized automatons who have been reciting the standard,
politicized text for decades, while their helpless victims - uneducated,
sick people - have paid the price in terms of their lives, whether it
be quality or quantity. Don't expect the self-declared soldiers of food
politics, like Simon and Nestle, to strike at the root of the problems
anytime soon.

Source:-
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/01/the-connection-between-big-food-big.html