How Lobbying Works
Dr Vernon Coleman
The food industry was, I suspect, one of the first big international industries to realize that you can buy any number of apparently reputable medical experts with a few grants and a fistful of airline tickets to conferences in the Bahamas. And few industries do more harm with their lobbying. Between them these very professional lobbyists must have been responsible for thousands of avoidable deaths.
To give a more specific example take the case of animal fat. The way in which our awareness of the importance (and danger) of animal fat has been confused highlights the awesome power, enviable effectiveness, and disastrous consequences of this type of enthusiastic, no-holds-barred commercial lobbying. This isn't just a case of large companies fighting for a larger slice of the commercial cake. It is big business ruthlessly distorting the truth and callously exposing millions to a dangerous and potentially lethal lifestyle.
Look at the independent scientific evidence about animal fat and there is no doubt that animal fat is the one foodstuff of which most of us eat too much. In an editorial in Update in June 1987 Dr Geoffrey Rose, Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, pointed out that 'the amount of fats - especially saturated fats - consumed by the average British person is highly dangerous. The World Health Organization, the British Cardiac Society, the Royal College of Physicians, the British Heart Foundation, the British Nutrition Foundation, and the DHSS all agree that our present national diet is an unhealthy one'. Back in 1953 it was shown that there was a convincing correlation between a high intake of animal fat and the development of heart disease. Over twenty independent, major scientific and medical committees around the world have agreed that we should eat less fatty meat, less butter, less cream, and fewer eggs. I don't know of any independent expert group or committee which disagrees with that conclusion. In 1982 even the World Health Organization, a bureaucratic beast which lumbers slowly towards conclusions, published a recommendation of its own advising people to cut down on fat. And in many countries around the world a reduction in the consumption of animal fat has led to a noticeable reduction in the incidence of heart disease.
But in Britain confusion and chaos have remained. The consumption of animal fat has remained high. And the incidence of heart disease has not fallen. Indeed, Britain, where animal fat consumption is high, has now got one of the worst heart-attack rates in the world. Every year thousands of young men and women in their thirties and forties die prematurely because they have been encouraged to eat unlimited quantities of fat. The credit for this mass annual slaughter must go to the farmers and food manufacturers who have between them organized a powerful and effective lobby to disguise and distort the truth about animal fats.
Since they have an obvious commercial interest in ensuring that we all continue to eat lots of butter, lots of eggs, and lots of fatty meat, and to wash it all down with lots of full-cream milk British farmers and food manufacturers have joined together to pay for a number of extremely effective and cruelly ruthless propaganda organizations. These organizations do their work in a number of ways.
They bombard doctors with a seemingly endless series of booklets and leaflets written and prepared by their own hired experts. The Butter Information Council has in recent years, for example, hired such eminent and well-known science writers as Dr Clive Wood and Dr Malcolm Carruthers to prepare material for them. Journalists are also bombarded with this material and with the names of experts who can be quoted or interviewed.
In addition, of course, these lobbying and public-relations groups also buy huge amounts of advertising space to put forward their views. In 1985, for example, the National Dairy Council-promoting milk - spent more on advertising than any food company. Their account for the year came to £8,765,400. The Butter Information Council spent just under £3,000,000.
Spending money like this on advertising gives the food lobby groups a chance to use their wealth and spending power to try and suppress the views of those who would argue a different, more independent line. So, for example, after I appeared on TV AM and gave my opinion that a high fat diet containing too much butter and 'milk could lead to heart disease, the Head of Features at the television station received a letter from a Mr Christopher Bird, Chief Executive of the Butter Information Council.
After commenting on my remarks about butter, Mr Bird wrote, 'On the day that this was transmitted the Butter Information Council was about to commit £54,372 to a burst of advertising on TV AM. I think that you can probably well imagine that this decision came under review in the light of such remarks.' Fortunately, in that instance the lawyer for TV AM wrote back to point out to Mr Bird that 'the placement of advertising spots is quite separate to the editorial content of the programme items'.
After that particular programme the Director of Programmes at TV AM also received a letter about my contribution. His letter came from a Dr Alexander L. Macnair who has an address in Wimpole Street and who described himself in his letter as an independent consultant. Dr Macnair, who disagreed with my conclusions about butter, did not mention that his work has included advising both the Butter Information Council and the Eggs Authority. Neither did Dr Macnair mention these commercial links when, a few months later, he wrote to The Times about diet and heart disease.
Over the last few years I have received or been the subject of countless letters and telephone calls from the Butter Information Council, the Eggs Authority, the Milk Marketing Board, and other similar powerful pressure groups.
It is my experience that any newspaper, magazine or television company that includes material suggesting that there is a link between fat consumption and heart disease will be bombarded with material proposing an opposite point of view. There is nothing at all wrong with this, of course, when the letters and phone calls are clearly seen to come from a pressure group. But it is frightening that the large commercial pressure groups should be able to find apparently 'independent' consultants to write on their behalf. And it is also frightening to realize that these pressure groups are not averse to using what seems to me to be lightly veiled commercial blackmail in their attempts to suppress what the majority of truly independent experts see as the truth.
NOTE
This essay is taken from Vernon Coleman’s book The Health Scandal which was first published in 1988. To find out how to purchase a copy please Click Here
Copyright Vernon Coleman June 2025
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