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Concerns about food cos’ fronts bagging roles in FSSAI std-forming areas
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Thursday, 18 April, 2019, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Ashwani Maindola, New Delhi
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Concerns were raised over the food companies’ frontal organisations getting key roles in the areas related to formation of regulations and standards for food industry at FSSAI.
Amit Srivastava, civil right activist and coordinator, India Resource Centre, an international campagining organisation, has written to the country’s apex food regulator, seeking answers as to what has led to inclusion of two representatives who also sit on the boards of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), which he stated was a non-profit organisation founded by Alex Malaspina, former senior vice-president, Coca-Cola, and until December 31, 2015, was led by Rhona Applebaum, Coca-Cola’s chief health and science officer at the time.
Srivastava added that the board members of ILSI–India included Debabrata Kanungo, who is also on the scientific panel on pesticide residues at FSSAI. Another ILSI-India board member, B Sesikeran, is also a member of the regulator’s scientific panel on functional foods, nutraceuticals, dietetic products and other similar products.
The letter by Srivastava stated that Sesikeran was also on the Board of Trustees of the global ILSI (based in Washington, D C), and served on the board of ILSI, alongside representatives of PepsiCo, Danone, Ajinomoto, Monsanto, Cargill, Dupont, and others. It added that he was the only board member listed with a government affiliation.
“Not surprisingly, ILSI has organised conferences in India downplaying the role of sugar and diet, and promoting increased physical activity as the solution to obesity,” the letter read.
Srivastava, in his letter, also referred to a Harvard study published in the BMJ and the Journal of Public Health Policy, which found that Coca-Cola and other companies worked through the China branch of ILSI to influence China’s public health policies, including a shift aligned with Coca-Cola’s message that it is activity, not diet, the claim few public health scholars accept.
Influencing food labelling laws?
Srivastava stated that quite alarmingly, ILSI could have a significant say on what labels on packaged foods in India revealed.
India is in the midst of revising its labelling laws, and in April 2018, FSSAI released the draft Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2018, which included a rule that stated that the labels on packaged foods should state in the colour red if the product contained high levels of fat, sugar or salt (generally considered as junk food).
The draft rules were put on hold after some stakeholders raised concerns, and FSSAI constituted a three-member committee to look into the issue of labelling once again.
The expert committee is headed by Sesikeran, member of the board at both ILSI global and ILSI-India.
“Individuals who play a significant part in protecting and regulating India’s food safety should not be allowed to also occupy central roles with ILSI, a front organisation for companies that essentially peddle junk food and use front organisations to muddle science,” said Srivastava.
“Such dual roles constitute a serious conflict of interest, and if left unattended, can have the very real consequence of the food industry defining India’s policies on nutrition, food safety and obesity – as has been the case in China,” he added.
The India Resource Centre has written to FSSAI and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare asking that the two regulators with conflicts of interest be replaced with independent experts with no conflicts of interest between private corporations and public health and safety.
When asked if any reply was given by FSSAI, Srivastava stated that they had not received any reply from the regulator to the letter dated February 5, 2019.
He added that this was a clear case of conflict of interest. “By conflict of interest, I mean that there is a conflict between the interest of ILSI (a front group for food industry) and FSSAI (a government agency tasked with protecting India’s food so that it is safe and nutritious).”
“Take Sesikeran for example. He is on the board of ILSI and also on a committee in FSSAI, as well as the head of the three-member committee to FSSAI has constituted to look into the issue of labelling once again,” he added.
ILSI stated, “Board members have a fiduciary duty to conduct themselves without conflict of the interests of ILSI. In their capacity as board members, they must subordinate personal, individual business, third-party and other interests to the welfare and best interests of ILSI.”
The question that is relevant, then, is whose interest in Sesikeran upholding first? The interest of ILSI, which is a front group that promotes the consumption of processed foods, including junk food, or that of FSSAI, which is to protect the Indian public from the potential harms that these processed foods, including junk foods, can cause?
Srivastava said, “According to ILSI’s statement, Sesikeran’s job is to promote its interests, and subordinate those of others (which would include FSSAI). This is a conflict of interest that the Indian government must not accept, and should immediately end the relationship with Sesikeran.”
“As we have stated in the letter, ‘ILSI represents the food industry – whose sole purpose is to increase shareholder profits by selling more products, however unhealthy or unsafe; whereas FSSAI, as the primary government regulator of the food industry, is tasked with safeguarding the public from harm from the food industry’,” he added.
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