"While issuing warnings that obesity has become an 'epidemic', he has been the leading researcher in trials of weight-loss drugs and has been paid fees by pharmaceutical firms that stand to make billions of pounds from slimming pills and potions."Great Britain's Daily Mail reported in March 2005: "The Government's anti-obesity guru was at the centre of a sleaze row last night after it was revealed he has been paid undisclosed consultancy fees by makers of weight-loss drugs." The paper was referring to International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) chairman Philip James, who has had significant influence in setting obesity policy in America and Europe. As the Daily Mail explained:
-The Daily Mail, 2005
"While issuing warnings that obesity has become an 'epidemic', he has been the leading researcher in trials of weight-loss drugs and has been paid fees by pharmaceutical firms that stand to make billions of pounds from slimming pills and potions ... Prof James's task force receives 75 per cent of its £626,000 annual income from drug companies, including international pharmaceutical giants F. Hoffman-La Roche and Abbott Laboratories, which are thanked in its annual report for their 'generous contributions.' The IOTF has also received contributions from Servier, the pharmaceutical company that produces the weight-loss drug Redux."James was a principal researcher of Knoll's weight-loss drug Meridia and Roche's weight-loss drug Xenical. Roche turned to James to present the Roche Gulf Journalism Awards for Obesity Reporting, awarded by the company to continue "its campaign to raise awareness of the disease by encouraging the media to tackle the topic in a responsible manner." According to one British watchdog organization, James "is regularly engaged in what can only be described as PR activities for Roche."
In June 2005 The Seattle Times reported of IOTF:
"An international group of obesity experts, with financial backing from drug companies, works to 'convince WHO [World Health Organization] that obesity had become a global issue that could be ignored no longer.' At WHO headquarters in Geneva, they lay the groundwork for an official definition of obesity based on BMI. Task-force members include doctors who are heading clinical trials of weight-loss drugs …WHO declares obesity a pandemic after an expert consultation funded by members of the International Obesity Task Force."In fact, as a key advisor to the World Health Organization regarding obesity, James's IOTF has encouraged "fat taxes" and marketing restrictions on some foods. The IOTF not only drafted the WHO's original report, but the group also funded the project with, according to James, a "substantial grant."
As a principal architect of Britain's Select Committee on Health, James had great sway in drumming up obesity fears. And at a 2004 conference intended to encourage obesity lawsuits,58 James took credit for helping industry-funded researcher Xavier Pi-Sunyer lower the American government's body mass index threshold for being "overweight." James has also advocated lowering the BMI threshold for Asian populations, a plan that would further increase the world's "overweight" population.
