WHO says food-industry lawsuits are delaying public-health protections

The head of the World Health Organization has urged major food companies to stop using litigation that delays or weakens government measures designed to curb unhealthy diets.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the appeal after a multi-country investigation identified 235 lawsuits filed from 2010 through 2025 over policies targeting ultra-processed foods in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, the United States and the United Kingdom.

The policies challenged included front-of-package warning labels, taxes on unhealthy products and restrictions on marketing. According to the investigation, companies or their trade groups brought three-quarters of the cases. Of the lawsuits that had been resolved, three-quarters were lost by the food industry.

Tedros said the cases nevertheless consumed government resources and slowed the introduction of health protections. The investigation calculated that the litigation amounted to nearly 600 cumulative years of legal proceedings, averaging about 2.5 years per case.

The WHO chief said some companies had reported progress in improving the nutritional profile of their products, but argued that those efforts were not enough if businesses continued to challenge effective public-health measures in court.

The issue carries a substantial global health burden. Tedros said almost one billion people—about one in seven worldwide—were living with obesity in 2024. Unhealthy diets are also associated with conditions including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer.

He encouraged governments to continue adopting evidence-based measures despite the legal pressure and said the WHO would support those efforts.