WHO accuses food, tobacco and alcohol giants of blocking vital health reforms

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a statement criticizing manufacturers of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed foods.[1]According to her, these sectors are lobbying hard to block, weaken, or delay public health policies such as tax increases or marketing restrictions aimed at young people. The WHO believes that these practices are undermining the implementation of reforms deemed essential to reducing mortality and improving population health.

An international context marked by chronic diseases

This position comes just days before a high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer and respiratory diseases, including asthma, on Thursday, September 25, 2025.

Although mortality from these conditions has declined globally, progress has slowed in recent years, according to a recent analysis.

The WHO statement notes that governments often face intense lobbying from industries trying to block, weaken, or delay policies, whether health taxes or trade restrictions targeting children. At the UN meeting, governments are expected to agree on new targets for noncommunicable diseases and a roadmap to achieve them, but health associations have warned that the draft political declaration has already been watered down.[2].

" Governments often face fierce opposition from industries that profit from unhealthy products. " said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference.

" It is unacceptable that commercial interests are profiting from the increase in deaths and illnesses. ", said Dr. Etienne Krug, director of the WHO Department of Health Determinants, Promotion and Prevention, in a statement. He added that " Governments must put people before profits and ensure that evidence-based policies are not hampered by corporate pressure. ".

WHO recommendations and objectives in a climate of heightened lobbying

The WHO is calling for an increase of at least 50% in the prices of tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks over the next decade.

The global health agency points out that every dollar invested by governments in the fight against non-communicable diseases could save more than 12 million lives, prevent 50 million premature deaths in fifty years and generate around 1,000 billion dollars (around 850 billion euros) in public revenue by 2030. These figures are all the more important given that chronic diseases and premature deaths linked to non-communicable diseases are currently putting health systems at risk.

Representatives of the food, tobacco and alcohol industries, for their part, have regularly opposed these tax increase proposals and have asked in their public statements to be consulted and involved in health risk reduction policies.

In this regard, the tobacco industry has always played a leading and pioneering role in mass marketing and circumvention of laws. Its practices have spread to other industries and lobbies, and the nicknames "Big Pharma" or "Big Food" are derivatives of "Big Tobacco." The tobacco industry's responsibility for the tobacco pandemic has been and remains such that countries have agreed to exclude it from the definition and implementation of any public policy. This is the meaning of Article 5.3 of the international treaty of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which imposes such a general obligation to protect public policies.

Compliance with this general obligation is all the more necessary as tobacco industry lobbying remains constant and intense, with interference at all levels aimed at weakening regulation and taxation of new nicotine products (heated tobacco, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches, etc.), to prevent any ecological and climate policy effective or even to consolidate its presence in developing and low-regulation states and to weaken global protection mechanisms against it.

©Generation Without Tobacco

AD

[1]Gabriela Galvin, According to the WHO, tobacco, alcohol and food giants are blocking health policies, Euronews, published on September 18, 2025, accessed on September 19, 2025

[2]Jennifer Rigby, Alcohol, tobacco and food giants block health reforms, says WHO, Reuters, published September 18, 2025, accessed September 19, 2025

National Committee Against Smoking |