Fuad bans Paediatric Hospital from accepting McDonald’s US$10,000

Health Minister Fuad Khan has banned the Wendy Fitzwilliam Paediatric Hospital from accepting a $64,000 donation from McDonald’s because of the link between the fast food industry and childhood obesity and a number of chronic non-communicable diseases such as diabetes.

Speaking in the House of Representatives, at Tower D, Waterfront Complex, Port of Spain October 16, Khan said that while Government was “very glad for foreign direct investment”, it was not happy to see a McDonald’s clown inside the paediatric ward, marketing the company and engaging in “subliminal advertising”.

Khan said he was shocked to see a picture in the Business Express(of October 12) of McDonald’s “Chief Happiness Officer Ronald McDonald”, a clown, announcing that McDonald’s had donated US$10,000 to the hospital.

“I would be writing to the Foundation (to instruct) that no money from these fast food enterprises should reach Mount Hope Children’s Hospital,” he said to desk thumping.

“That’s right,” Education Minister, Dr Tim Gopeesingh said.

“We have to protect our children and we have to decide, if we want to make sure that our children grow healthy and they don’t have the expense in the future, of kidney problems, et cetera,” Khan said.

He noted that this country had refused to accept $10,000 from softdrink manufacturers Pepsi and Coca Cola to replace some exercise equipment, while other Caribbean countries did.

He said there was a direct correlation between increasing obesity in the population, including alarming rates among children and adolescent, and the consumption of fast foods.

He said the correct mixture of salts, sugars and fats (especially when combined with flavour enhancers such as MSG,) created a “serious food addiction”, similar to addictive drugs, alcohol or nicotine.

Noting that Trinidad and Tobago had the highest rate of diabetes in the Caribbean, Khan said the combined economic burden of diabetes and hypertension in Trinidad was over $500 million a year.

In response, Diego Martin North East MP Colm Imbert stated that the Minister of Health meant well but he tended to say the oddest of things.

Imbert said, “This is a member (Khan) who held a fete at which there was consumption of alcohol and he attempted to make a donation to the Children’s Life Fund from the proceeds and it was refused because the proceeds came from the sale and consumption of alcohol.

“I believe he means well but he says the strangest of things. The first entity in Trinidad and Tobago whose contribution was refused to the Children’s Life Fund was none other than the Minister of Health. And he get vex you know, get on and get vex and so on when they refused to accept the money," Imbert said.