Food industry interference in public health policy in Thailand: a focus on interference through government organization.

Food industry intentionally takes actions to protect its benefit through direct or indirect industrial interferences with the public policy makers. The interferences mediate via direct contact with relevant government staff. This study aimed to collect lessons learnt from the experiences of industrial interferences with the public policies from government staff, and to develop recommendations for appropriate interactions between government and the industry. This qualitative study applied 3 methods: 1) a review of the literature and related documents, 2) in-depth interviews with key informants, and 3) a Delphi survey. The present study found that Thai and multinational companies in food industry used same interference strategies, such as, written communication, direct contact with administrators and policy makers. However, multinational companies tended to more often refer to international trade regulations and rules as an important strategy that created arguments when the intervened health policy was implemented. Based on the corporate political activity (CPA), the strategies directly applied to government officials include 1) information and messaging, 2) constituency building, and 3) legal strategy. Recommendations from the present study are 1) transparency throughout the process of communication between government and industry, 2) citation of academic evidence, including the rules and regulations related to international trade in communication, 3) a clearly defined process of communication between government and industry.