An investigative report claims to expose "extensive links" – going much deeper than previously known – between public health scientists and the sugar industry, reports Medical News Today. Although the investigation was conducted in the UK, the report is bound to raise questions in other countries, as the findings implicate international food and drinks manufacturers.
"Without doubt this is a major issue for the US," report author Jonathan Gornall confirmed. "Several of the big companies who have been seeking influence over public health organizations and researchers in the UK are headquartered in the US," he explained, "a far bigger market where the impact of such engagement can only be magnified in their favour."
Across the four-part investigation, the investigative journalist reports evidence of a government committee working on nutritional advice receiving funding from companies whose products are considered by many to be responsible for the ongoing obesity crisis. The BMJ claim that the report raises "important questions about the potential for bias and conflict of interest among public health experts."
Members of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition and the Medical Research Council's Human Nutrition Research unit (HNR) were found to have received funding from sugar giants including Coca-Cola, Mars, Nestlé, Sainsbury's, the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and Weight Watchers International, among others.
The extent of these donations was found to be unprecedented, with one former HNR researcher – Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at the University of Oxford and chair of the UK government's Responsibility Deal Food Network – accepting funding worth $2.10m from companies such as Coca-Cola between 2004 and 2015. As principal investigator, Jebb also received a donation of $297,000 from Coca-Cola to one study she was working on. Some of the companies who invested in Jebb's research – including Unilever and Coca-Cola – are now members of the Responsibility Deal. Under the deal, the sugar industry pledges to a government target of a national 5% reduction in calorie consumption.
However, the new report states that companies have not upheld this pledge and the initiative has been ineffective, with a calorie increase of almost 12% in the national weekly shop during 2006-14. "For me the most surprising discovery was that an entire generation of public health researchers have not only convinced themselves that accepting funding from companies peddling unhealthy products is acceptable practice, but also that they seem genuinely surprised that such relationships might raise concerns about the impartiality of their work," Gornall is quoted in the report as saying. "That is not to say that such work is, consciously or otherwise, necessarily biased," he clarified, "but for public health messages to be credible they have to be delivered free of even the possibility of commercial taint." Gornall's report references research that has found evidence of pro-industry bias in some sponsored studies. However, he says that the main concern of the research was "the general principle" rather than documenting bias in specific papers.
According to Gornall, a core issue is the paucity of public research funding. The UK government instead encourages its public research organizations to seek commercial funding, making researchers vulnerable to accusations of conflicts of interest.
Gornall notes that the sugar industry is increasingly making efforts to buy into the science on nutrition. Industry funding of research that shows sugar in a good light is nothing new. In 2009, US dental administrator Cristin Couzens unearthed the files of a bankrupt sugar company and discovered a cache of revelatory documents spanning decades.
He says the World Sugar Research Organisation (WSRO) did not respond to several attempts to contact it. However, according to its website, it is "an international scientific research organisation globally supported by the sugar industry,W dedicated to "encouraging a better appreciation of the direct and indirect contribution made by sugar to the nutrition, health and wellbeing of all the populations of the world."
The evidence, it says, suggests that "a high-fat, high-energy diet, combined with inactive sedentary lifestyles, are the two principle (sic) factors increasing the risk of obesity." Furthermore, "A combination of high-carbohydrate diets and regular physical activity can assist in the maintenance of an ideal body weight."
In 1979, after publication of John Yudkin's book, Pure, White and Deadly, which was highly critical of sugar and the sugar industry, Gornall reports that the organisation published a critique in its members' bulletin under the headline "For your dustbin." Yudkin took exception to the description of his work as "science fiction" and began a four year libel action which, according to the account in the updated version of his book, ended in a published apology and WRSO paying costs
And looking at what really lies behind food companies' willingness to downsize their products in the name of calorie reduction, Gornall reports that global confectioner Mars signed up to the UK government's public health responsibility deal in 2011 and has since complied with pledges to reduce salt in its pasta sauces and lower the saturated fat content of some of its chocolate bars.
In 2013 the company announced that as part of its public health commitment it was going to cut the energy content in all of its single serving products to less than 250 calories by reducing their size. It was a move that Anna Soubry, former public health minister, described as "absolutely brilliant." The company, she is quoted as saying, "don't have to do it but are doing it for all the right reasons."
Gornall says, however, that perhaps something else lay behind the company's eagerness to reduce the size of its bars in all of its markets, not just the UK – much easier that reformulating – while keeping the price the same. He quotes reports saying that the company had reduced the size of its bars before, without making any public health claims, "in the wake of big hikes in the cost of chocolate-making over the past decade." In 2008, it had cut Mars and Snicker bars from 62.5g to 58g – again, while keeping the price the same. Prevailing economic conditions continue to favour such strategic cost cutting, Gornall says.
[link url="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/289323.php"]Full Medical News Today report[/link]
[link url="http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h231"]British Medical Journal article 1[/link]
[link url="http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h215"]British Medical Journal article 2[/link]
[link url="http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/february/sugarinvest3.pdf"]British Medical Journal article 3[/link]
[link url="http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h220"]British Medical Journal article 4[/link]