OBESITY TASK FORCE GROWS FAT WITH DRUG COMPANY CASH

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OBESITY TASK FORCE GROWS FAT WITH DRUG COMPANY CASH

 

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/332/7555/1412-a

 

Ray Moynihan reports in the British Medical Journal that the drug

companies Roche and Abbott Laboratories provide approximately

two-thirds of the funding of the International Obesity Task Force

(IOTF), which has over £1m in cash reserves.

 

Roche makes the

anti-obesity drug Xenical while Abbott Laboratories makes Reductil.

 

Dr. William Dietz, a senior member of IOTF and " well respected

authority on obesity " from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, is also a member of a U.S.-based committee reviewing

definitions of childhood overweight and obesity. Dietz, Moynihan

writes, is " one of the driving forces " behind the redefinition of

obesity " which some researchers believe may exaggerate the problem

and unnecessarily label children as diseased. " Dietz declined to

comment to the journal.

 

SOURCE: British Medical Journal (sub req'd), June 17, 2006

 

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