To gain legitimacy, public health policy must be vested in institutions answerable to the public and based on reliable evidence. In the case of the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) venture in public health policy advocacy in Davos, neither of these measures of legitimacy were met. Also in question is legitimacy in the media coverage, where the basic tenets of journalism – questioning evidence, corroborating sources, providing context, and awareness of conflict of interest – seem to have gone missing.