SUSAN BELL IN PARIS
A SCIENTIST who suggested the French food industry was making huge profits - and endangering public health - by over-salting products was classified as a threat to national security on a par with foreign spies and terrorists, a respected French magazine has reported.
After making a report on salt to the French government, Pierre Meneton was spied on by the security services, the news magazine Le Point reported in its latest edition. In his report, Mr Meneton said excessive use of salt could be blamed for 75,000 heart attacks each year, a third of which were fatal. But the food industry opposed cutting back on salt because it benefited from the sale of soft drinks to thirsty consumers, he alleged.
He said a 30 per cent cut in the amount of salt added to processed food would hit water and soft drinks sales by 6 billion a year.
Le Point said spies from the security agency bugged Mr Meneton’s office phone, intercepted calls to his mobile and monitored his relatives, friends and colleagues. The magazine published a copy of a memo from the interior ministry's office to the agency ordering the surveillance.
"I noticed that it was from the time that we wanted to hand the file to AFSSA [the French food safety agency] in 2000 that we started to have problems," Mr Meneton, 38, a research scientist specialising in cardiovascular illness with the National Institute of Health and Medical Research, told La Chaine Info Television. "It is surprising ... that public authorities would take such a measure when one tries to improve a public health problem."
At the same time that France’s secret services were spying on Mr Meneton, British authorities were demanding that food manufacturers reduce the amount of salt by 30 per cent on the basis of an official report which estimated that 30,000 deaths a year could be avoided.
A month after Mr Meneton’s report to the AFSSA was published by Le Point in February 2001, the food safety agency said it backed cuts in salt levels.
Le Point published its report last week on the eve of an international conference, "Salt and Health", which Mr Meneton had co-ordinated and was attended by the world’s top experts on cardio-vascular illness.
Sodium, one of table salt’s major constituents, has been linked to high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. But companies say it not only enhances taste, but is a preservative and improves texture.
===== Kevin Dean Buffalo, NY ICQ: 8616001 http://www.yaysoft.com
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/