National Obesity Forum

According to Robert Thomson the Editor of the Times in 2006:

The Obesity group is supported by the National Obesity Forum. In January, the President of the National Obesity Forum, Dr Ian Campbell, quit claiming it had become too dependent on drug company funding. The forum lists GlaxoSmithKline UK ltd, Slim Fast Food Ltd, Tanita UK Ltd, Sanofi-Aventis Ltd as amongst their “partners".

Drug industry front group?

Britain's leading anti-obesity campaigner has quit the pioneering organisation he founded, claiming it has become too dependent on drug company funding. Dr Ian Campbell, a GP who has won acclaim for his groundbreaking work to help patients who are seriously overweight, resigned as president of the National Obesity Forum.

In his resignation letter, he makes a series of claims about its performance, internal management and a 'loss of direction' caused by the influence of its big pharmaceutical backers.Campbell alleges the forum is too attached to 'ineffective' medical methods for treating people once they become obese - including the administration of weight- loss drugs - rather than working with government to devise radical ways of stopping them gaining excess weight in the first place.

Campbell told The Observer last night that he was 'greatly saddened by the forum's loss of direction'. Its trustees' eagerness to secure continued drug company funding meant it had tailored its messages to suit them, he said. 'Four of the forum's five trustees strongly support the medical weight loss management approach, which stresses the treatment of obesity. That is only one aspect of the obesity debate.

'We need to move from raising awareness about obesity to taking action to prevent people becoming obese, and the forum should be working to help government tackle this problem', he said.

It also emerged last week that the forum's board tried to muzzle Campbell by threatening him with an injunction and a claim for damages if he continued to make 'disparaging or derogatory statements' about the forum or approached any of its sponsors.

Dr Colin Waine, the forum chairman and a visiting professor at University of Sunderland, refused to discuss Campbell's unexpected departure. 'That's an internal board matter. I don't want to go into the details about why he left,' he said.

Asked why Campbell had been sent a lawyer's letter, Waine replied: 'That's not anything we want to broadcast in the media.' Waine denied there had been serious disagreements over the forum's direction, saying its objectives had been the same since 2000.

Dr Howard Stoate, a GP and Labour MP for Dartford who is co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on obesity, said: 'I'm very sorry that Ian is leaving the forum. He's been very important and has been extremely influential in raising obesity up the political agenda to the point where the government is taking it much more seriously. That's due in some measure to the work of the forum and Ian personally. He's been a driving force.'

'Five years ago obesity was seen as a social and cosmetic problem. Now it's seen for what it is: a major public health problem that shortens lives, causes serious ill-health and is a huge burden on the NHS.' Dr Susan Jebb, of the Medical Research Council's Human Nutrition Research centre at Cambridge University, said Campbell and the forum had done much to ensure that health professionals took obesity far more seriously.

'When Ian set up the forum in 2000 people in primary care weren't talking about obesity. It wasn't on their radar. He has created a body of people involved in the NOF who have woken up to the fact that obesity matters and that primary care is in the frontline,' said Jebb.

People

The NOF Trustees

Dr Colin Waine Dept of Primary care, Univ of Sunderland, Chair | Dr David Haslam GP, Hertfordshire Clinical Director | Jane DeVille-Almond Practice Nurse Education | Shamil Chandaria Honorary Patron | Karan Thomas Training Consultant | [[Dr Jonathan Pinkney Consultant BSc, MB BS, MD, FRCP. | Dr Ashley Adamson Senior Lecturer BSc, SRD, PhD, RPHNutr | Tam Fry Honorary Chairman, Child Growth Foundation | Paul Sacher Research Director, MEND Programme | Helen Johnson Parliamentary Affairs Executive team member | Maria Voce Office Manager, Company secretary, Executive team member

Partners

• All-Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity
• Department of Health
• National Institute of Clinical Excellence
• Royal College of Paediatricians
• Association for the Study of Obesity
• National Audit Office
• Korean Academy of Family Physicians
• National Association of Primary Care
• Roche Products Ltd
• Abbott Laboratories
• Slim Fast Foods Ltd
• Safeway Foods plc
• Tanita UK Ltd
• Sanofi-Aventis Ltd
• Mantis Surgical Equipment Ltd
• GlaxoSmithKline UK Ltd
• Canderel
• British Meat Nutrition Education Services
• Rosemary Conley Enterprises
• Carlton TV Ltd
• The Obesity Awareness and Solutions Trust

PR agencies

• Helen Johnson Public Affairs

Affiliations

• Obesity All Party Parliamentary Group, provides support to the Group