The “systemic” interventions of the agrifood industry in public health are denounced in two works, one of the professor in nutritional epidemiology Serge Hercberg, the other of sociologists Daniel Benamouzig and Joan Cortinas Muñoz.
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Books. To say that the Nutri-Score nutrition label gave rise to a Lobbies battle is euphemism. Before this logo of five colors, informing the nutritional quality of a food, was adopted at the end of 2017 by France as an official logo (although not compulsory), large agrifood groups fought a bitter fight against this label, deploying all The palette of possible influence strategies: Maintenance of doubt on the scientific validity of the system, proposal for counter -logo, multiplication of exchanges with the political sphere -official and unofficial -, denigration of teams that have designed and tested the logo, personalization Stakes … A real case of lobbying school led by a sector, decrypted in two recent works.
The first, eat and shut up, from Serge Hercberg, is a personal story of the many pressures received by this professor in nutritional epidemiology, who presided over the National Nutrition Health Program in France from 2001 to 2017; A striking dive behind the scenes of decision -making in public health. The second, lobbies on the menu, written by Daniel Benamouzig (Center for Sociology of Organizations, CNRS and Sciences Po) and Joan Cortinas Muñoz (Researcher associated with the Health Chair of Sciences Po), is a sociological survey on the different types of Intervention of the food industry in the public sphere. A research carried out over two years, which demonstrates, beyond conflicts of individual interests, the existence of activities of “systemic” influence.
These two books are full of examples. Serge Hercberg thus remembers an emblematic fight, that of the ban on automatic distributors of snacks in schools in 2004, which had earned the professor to receive many hostile letters, until an anonymous telephone call. >
Daniel Benamouzig and Joan Cortinas Muñoz relate another episode: during the examination of the 2015 health bill, in which was discussed the implementation of nutritional labeling, a public affairs director of the sector complains to the Elysée Palace not to succeed in meeting the Minister of Health. “We got a little annoyed with the Elysée and Matignon, saying:” Listen, we do not understand, we manage to see the President of the Republic, we manage to see the Prime Minister, we manage to see almost all the government ministers (…). It is not normal, “says this manager. The Elysée ends up forcing Marisol Touraine to meet us, and she sulks us and sends us her chief of staff.” Renowned more hermetic to the private sector, the Ministry of Health Present Nevertheless a main gap, according to Serge Hercberg: his “low weight (…) in the government hierarchy in the face of ministries weighing much heavier, like that of agriculture or that of the economy”.
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