US corporate lobbying, on a global scale

A consortium of large US corporations is attempting to monster the World Health Organisation over its latest health guidelines. Their objection? WHO says that excessive sugar consumption contributes to obesity, and that a healthy diet shouldn't be more than 10% sugar. Their response? Threatening to lobby their tame lawmakers in Congress to cut off US funding for WHO.

Their tactics are reminiscent of those used by American religious conservatives to cripple the UN Pupulation Fund. But in this case it's not a matter of misguided moral beliefs - it's just that proper health advice threatens their bottom line. If people got the outrageous idea that sugary foods made them fat, they might stop eating them - and then where would Coca-Cola, Pepsico, and all the other producers of crap junk food be?

If you want to express your disgust at the sugar association, you can email them. Ditto the US Council for International Business. The latter also has a dandy membership list, if you want to figure out who to send a shit-o-gram to.

(Obviously, the thought that the above email addresses would be harvested by scumsucking spammers has never entered my head)