The discourse of risk in diet pills controversy: an analysis of the press coverage in 2011 and in 2014

Abstract

Appetite suppressants are sold in Brazil over 30 years. In 2010, the Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária - Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) began a process to review the risk assessment of these drugs and in 2011 cancelled the register of the three amphetamine-based anorexigenics (anfepramone, fenproporex, mazindol), only allowing to be marketed in Brazil the sibutramine. In 2014, the Congress revoked the decison-making by Anvisa and authorized the sale of the amphetamine derivatives. This paper analyzes how the meanings of risk were built by daily newspapers during the coverage of the appetite suppressants controversy, considering these two antagonistic moments. Based on the social semiotics, we analyzed 25 newspaper articles published in 2011 and in 2014, which showed that the discourse of risk does not assume the center of the discursive scene, resulting in a political coverage that favours the conflicts of interests, as well as the disputes with the Anvisa and the contradictions of the process.