The large, windowless and wood-panelled room has long since lost its lustre. But this week this unremarkable location in the heart of Geneva will play host to 32 officials and diplomats who will gather to make a decision which could reverberate across the globe.
They will decide whether or not the world should have a plan for tackling its greatest health hazard -- obesity.
All eyes will be on William Steiger, a youthful Yale graduate who is also the godson of George Bush senior. Steiger is special assistant to the US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson and a rising star of the Bush administration. At the executive board meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, he will attempt to pull apart the world's only realistic attempt so far to help poorer nations avert the looming public health disaster threatened by the growing burden of heart disease and diabetes.
The target of Steiger's attack will be the WHO's roadmap for action, known as the Global Strategy on Diet, Nutrition and Physical Activity. In a fiercely controversial 30-page document which came to light last week, Steiger, on behalf of the George W. Bush administration, argues that there is little robust scientific data on which to base its broad range of suggestions on how to prevent obesity. And if America has its way, then the goals of the past 18 months, involving an effort by many hundreds of public health experts and doctors worldwide to come up with workable initiatives, will slip further out of reach.
Britain, in the form of its chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson, is fighting to keep the policy alive along with other countries, but the Americans -- and more particularly, their food lobbyists -- have used different tactics to undermine anything that would affect their lucrative food industry. The sugar barons who pour so much into the presidential coffers before elections have hired lobbyists and used senators to threaten to pull funding away from the WHO.
In April last year the WHO, along with the Food and Agriculture Organization, published a report spelling out the dangers of sugar, fat and salt. The combination of sedentary lifestyles and processed food, experts warned, meant that countries such as Brazil and India were soaring up the obesity league.
The developing regions, even more than the western world, are at risk from junk food because their populations carry more of the "thrifty genes," the DNA which predisposes people to putting on weight quickly after centuries of living through periods of starvation and then periods of plenty. The scientific report, which was put together by 36 of the world's leading nutrition and activity experts, warned that by 2025, India would have one of the highest rates of Type 2 diabetes.
The report, which became known by its technical number, 916, looked at the strength of evidence on how to prevent and control the major diet-related diseases, including diabetes, obesity, some cancers, cardiovascular and dental disease. But the clause that created most angst was the one suggesting that only 10 percent of average energy intake for an adult should come from added sugar.
As Ellen Ruppel Shell points out in her groundbreaking book Fat Wars, the average American consumes 34 teaspoons of sugar a day in their diet, a 30 percent increase from just 15 years ago. The annual consumption of sweeteners -- not just the sugar but the high-fructose, corn syrup, dextrose and glucose -- has leapt by 14.5kg since 1970, mostly because of soft drinks. In a 355ml can of a fizzy drink there will be about ten teaspoons of sweetener.
Bush, under pressure at home to do something about the fact that two-thirds of Americans are now overweight or obese, has announced initiatives to encourage fitness, but argues that it is an individual's responsibility to keep their weight down. The president himself, a former jogger, likes to use exercise machines and claims that he has no problem fitting workouts into his life.
However, that is not Bush's only reason for arguing against any kind of social policy or public measure to prevent weight gain. There are enormous financial interests tied up in "Big Sugar." The sugar industry has strong connections to the highest levels of the US government through its lobbying firms, which have aggressively targeted politicians and government officials. One of the strongest factors in its favor is that much of US sugar production is based in Florida, a state that was vital in the 2000 presidential election and is likely to be key this year too.
One of the sugar magnates close to Bush is Jose "Pepe" Fanjul, president of giant Florida sugar firm Florida Crystals Corp.
He is one of Bush's top fund-raisers, and enjoys access to senior officials close to the president. His brother Alfy Fanjul deals, meanwhile, with the Democrats. Their access is seen as unmatchable -- former president Bill Clinton famously took a phone call from Alfy Fanjul while entertaining intern Monica Lewinsky.
Experts say that anyone hoping to raise political money in Florida will have to pay attention to its sugar industry. This is particularly true of the current administration as Florida's governor is Jeb Bush, the president's brother.
There have been other sugar contributions too. In 2000 Nelson Fairbanks, chief executive of US Sugar Corp, became a "Pioneer," a special status among fundraisers, for raising at least US$100,000 for Bush's campaign.
Warren Staley, chief executive of Cargill, which has a large sugar trading operation, is a Pioneer this year. Sometimes the money has come directly from the lobbyists themselves.
The decision by the US government to fight the global strategy has come as a major shock to many experts in the field. Bruce Silverglade, of the US health campaign group Center for Science in the Public Interest, said that the influence of "Big Sugar" in the about-turn was obvious.
As the WHO prepares to meet this week to thrash out a possible solution to the global obesity crisis, many believe they face a formidable opposition. Or as Silverglade puts it: "The sugar industry has its hands wrapped around the political system."
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