Pharmaceutical and Weight Loss Industry Driving
Hysteria Over Obesity for Taxpayer-Funded Profits
WASHINGTON, July 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Hysteria over obesity -- largely
driven by an industry looking for a massive payday -- has led the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services to open the door for Medicare to treat
obesity as if it were a disease. The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) noted
today that the $40 billion weight loss industry is putting enormous resources
behind research and lobbying efforts that grossly exaggerate the costs of
being overweight.
"The pharmaceutical and weight loss industry has manufactured an
'epidemic' to have the cost of its weight loss drugs and treatments
underwritten by taxpayers," said CCF executive director Richard Berman.
"An Epidemic of Obesity Myths," a recently released CCF report, highlights
the pharmaceutical industry's influence in the obesity debate. Citing a wide
array of health, exercise and nutrition experts at leading universities, as
well as the former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, the
report also challenges popular obesity statistics, including:
Obesity causes 300,000 deaths each year
This statistic comes from a study by David Allison, who has received
funding from at least 20 companies involved in weight loss products. Among
many other flaws, Allison's study used data from as long ago as 1948 and
failed to account for any of the improvements in medical treatments over the
last 50 years.
65% of American adults are overweight or obese
Xavier Pi-Sunyer, who has also received significant funding from the
makers of anti-obesity drugs, chaired a key National Institutes of Health
obesity panel, which in 1998 instantly cast 30 million Americans into the
"overweight" category by changing the government's definition. That group
includes presently "overweight" celebrities like Will Smith, Pierce Brosnan,
Michael Jordan, Cal Ripkin, and even President Bush.
Obesity costs the United States $117 billion each year
Graham Colditz, co-author of a 1998 study that is the single source for
this figure, has received funding from Roche Laboratories, maker of the anti-
obesity drug Xenical. His study acknowledged "double-counting of costs" which
"would inflate the cost estimate."
"Obesity is not a 'disease' if it can be cured by taking regular walks and
eating less," Berman said. "We need to be careful not to dumb down the
definition of the term disease at the expense of taxpayers."
The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition supported by
restaurants, food companies, and consumers, working together to promote
personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.
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