Reporting author Jonathan Gornell cited that "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.
The investigation was divided into four parts: examining ties between industry and academia, assessing the impact on research outcomes, exploring the potential ineffectiveness of the country's "Responsibility Deal" that gets companies to voluntarily improve the healthfulness of their products, and evaluating the real motivations for modifying product marketing. Across the four-part investigation, Gornell 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. He further stated that "Is it acceptable that research into public health problems such as obesity is funded by these companies?"
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 (SACN) 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, a professor of diet and population health at the University of Oxford and chair of the British government's Responsibility Deal Food Network - accepting funding worth $2.10 million 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 government's Responsibility Deal, which she chairs. Under the deal, the sugar industry pledges to a government target of a national 5% reduction in calorie consumption. In the article, Jebb responded that she was committed to using industry funding "to support important pieces of research and to make the information from these studies available for the public good."
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.
Only 13 of SACN's 40 affiliated scientists had no financial relationships with the food industry between 2001 and 2012, Gorall reported.
David Stuckler, professor of political economy and sociology at Oxford, said the funding of public health research by food companies "falls into the category of efforts to crowd out public regulation, to try to weaken public health by working with it." "It's a question that we think needs debating," Gornall said."Years ago, big tobacco was welcomed around conference tables, Now tobacco is persona non grata. It killed people. It could be argued that [food] companies producing products that make us fat are also killing people by contributing to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Why is this different?"
"We have to be a little more savvy about how we regard these relationships," Gornall added. "It behooves scientists to be, and to be seen as, squeaky clean."
Although the findings pertain directly only to U.K. experts and policymakers, nutrition experts here in the U.S. said the findings easily apply to our own system.
"None of this surprises me," said Robert Lustig, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, who is known for his anti-sugar stance. "We have a long and sordid history of dietary professionals in the U.S. who have been paid off by industry."
Andy Bellatti, MS, RD, co-founder of Dietitians for Professional Integrity and outspoken critic of food industry-nutrition researcher ties, applauded the "hard-hitting investigation." "In order for the field of public health to thrive and make significant contributions, the shackles that chain it to the food industry need to be cut," Bellatti noted. "Until that happens, we will continue to see industry literally buying toothless and vague recommendations that do not have the public's best interest in mind."
Marion Nestle, PhD, of New York University and author of the blog Food Politics, said the situation in the U.K. is identical to that in the U.S., where the sugar industry "has a long history of involvement in federal policy and where practically any large food or beverage industry is sponsoring research to support the benefits or lack of harm from their products."
"The soda industry is a good example," Nestle said. "Coca-Cola and the American Beverage Association have paid for many studies ostensibly showing that sodas have no effect on obesity or type-2 diabetes, and that studies showing otherwise are flawed or biased. Such conflicts of interest in research and policy are increasingly common and blatant. The U.K. studies shine light on industry practices that are deeply troubling and should concern everyone who cares about what they eat."
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