The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7491 p240
1 March 2008

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Focus on chronic disease not terror

World governments are focused on fighting terrorism at the expense of tackling chronic disease, according to a US academic.

Lawrence Gostin, an adviser to the US government and director of the law centre at Georgetown University, Washington, said: “There’s a political paralysis in dealing with the issue. In the US presidential campaign, prevention of obesity and the effect it is having on the poor has so far registered barely a blip on the democratic side of politics and zero on the republican side.”

Professor Gostin was speaking ahead of the Oxford Health Alliance Summit held in Sydney, Australia, this week.