Health Committee calls on PHE to publish evidence on sugar
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- Published: Monday, 12 October 2015 07:43
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The Chair of the Commons Health Committee, Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, has written to Public Health England (PHE) asking them to release 'Evidence into Action' its review of the evidence on reducing sugar consumption. She said she was ‘deeply concerned’ that Jeremy Hunt did not ‘consider it appropriate’ to publish this document ahead of the Health Committee’s short inquiry into the subject.
In a letter to Duncan Selbie, Chief Executive of PHE, she refers to her correspondence with the Secretary of State concerning the evidence which should guide policy priorities for addressing childhood obesity. She writes: ‘Clearly it would have been best for all concerned if the evidence could have been made available with his support especially as this would have been in line with his expressed views on the importance of timely transparency of data and evidence.
It is her view that the Secretary of State’s disinclination either to publish the evidence, or to make it available to the Committee, should not prevent Public Health England from doing so independently. She said that the agreement between the Department of Health and the PHE says that the latter “shall be free to publish and speak on those issues which relate to the nation’s health and wellbeing in order to set out the professional, scientific and objective judgement of the evidence base”.
She says that the evidence the PHE has assembled is crucial to the Committee’s ability to consider what the policy priorities should be for addressing childhood obesity. Furthermore, it would make available to both the public and the wider health community the essential background to an issue which has rightly generated enormous public concern.
She continues that there is a need for the House of Commons to respond to the epetition on this subject, which has attracted over 140,000 signatures. She says: “I do not believe that the petitioners, or the wider public, will understand how the Committee can complete its consideration of this issue if the review of the evidence, paid for with public money and for the benefit of the nation's children, is not made available. At a time when we rightly expect research bodies, clinicians and NHS managers to publish evidence in a full and timely manner, it would send entirely the wrong message for PHE unreasonably to withhold information from a Parliamentary committee.”
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