[PAA-Discuss] Media Take Diet Advice From Coke-Funded Academics
Juli3 at aol.com
Juli3 at aol.com
Fri Dec 18 15:19:55 EST 2015
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Media Take Diet Advice From Coke-Funded Academics
(http://fair.us10.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=686226710c&e=c9c3a92938)
Coca-Cola’s use of healthcare professionals to market its products used to
be more overt.
Readers of USA Today, the LA Times and Atlantic Monthly might expect that
prominent university professors quoted as independent experts on obesity
would relay objective information based on the best science. They would be
wrong.
Over the past few months, through excellent investigative work,
journalists Anahad O’Connor and Candice Choi unmasked a scheme that should look
_familiar_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=c1b0acaf52&e=c9c3a92938) to anyone following health and
environmental news: corporations paying front groups and scientists to spin the media
and public in order to protect their products.
In this latest example, Coca-Cola—facing _slipping sales_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a09550
5b58&id=af94a6ff9a&e=c9c3a92938) and increasing pressure to regulate its products that are
_fueling_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=e94a12aaac&e=c9c3a92938) the _nation’s_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=43b04d4a4d&e=c9c3a92938)
_obesity_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=f404050883&e=c9c3a92938) _epidemic_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=106eca9b0e&e=c9c3a92938) —
launched a new front group led by prominent professors. As O’Connor
reported in the New York Times (_8/9/15_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=6147ce49da&e=c9c3a92938) ):
Coca-Cola, the world’s largest producer of sugary beverages, is backing a
new “science-based” solution to the obesity crisis: To maintain a healthy
weight, get more exercise and worry less about cutting calories.
The beverage giant has teamed up with influential scientists who are
advancing this message in medical journals, at conferences and through social
media. To help the scientists get the word out, Coke has provided financial
and logistical support to a new nonprofit organization called the Global
Energy Balance Network, which promotes the argument that weight-conscious
Americans are overly fixated on how much they eat and drink while not paying
enough attention to exercise.
This despite evidence that exercise, while beneficial for other reasons,
by itself has _minimal impact_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=2960be248f&e=c9c3a92938) on weight. But
as we’ve seen _again_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=94b2fa77f9&e=c9c3a92938) and _again_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=a1d614ddec&e=c9
c3a92938) , facts and science don’t matter when it comes to protecting
corporate profits.
In the case of Global Energy Balance Network, Coke funded the group to the
tune of $1.5 million and claimed minimal involvement. However, as Choi
reported for the Associated Press (_11/24/15_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=f4e844665d&e=c9c3a92938) ),
_internal emails_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=2bac0ca68a&e=c9c3a92938) show that Coke executives
were actually heavily involved: “They helped pick the group’s leaders, edited
its mission statement and suggested articles and videos for its website.”
The Times pointed out that “the network’s website, _gebn.org_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=3e11437b35
&e=c9c3a92938) , is registered to Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, and
the company is also listed as the site’s administrator.”
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=d417a824a2&e=c9c3a92938)
Coke-funded academic James O. Hill wants people to see Coke as “a company
that brings important and fun things to them.”
The investigation revealed that Coke was also providing substantial
funding to the two professors who led the _now-collapsed_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=45e5b2c575&e=c9c3a9293
8) front group: the president James O. Hill and vice president Steven N.
Blair.
James O. Hill is a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University
of Colorado and director of their Center for Human Nutrition. According to
emails uncovered by AP, Hill _wrote privately_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=bf7079ff14&e=c9c3a92938)
to a Coca-Cola executive:
I want to help your company avoid the image of being a problem in peoples’
lives and back to being a company that brings important and fun things to
them.
In 2014, Coca-Cola gave an “unrestricted monetary gift” of $1 million to
the University of Colorado Foundation “for the purposes of funding” the
Global Energy Balance Network, according to the Times.
According to AP:
Since 2010, Coke said it gave $550,000 to Hill that was unrelated to the
[Global Energy Balance Network] group. A big part of that was research he
and others were involved with, but the figure also covers travel expenses
and fees for speaking engagements and other work.
Steven N. Blair is a professor at the Arnold School of Public Health, in
the departments of exercise science and epidemiology and biostatistics at
the University of South Carolina. He announced the Global Energy Balance
Network with the following “misleading” claim, according to the Times:
Most of the focus in the popular media and in the scientific press is, “
Oh they’re eating too much, eating too much, eating too much” — blaming
fast food, blaming sugary drinks and so on…. And there’s really virtually no
compelling evidence that that, in fact, is the cause.
He also received more than $3.5 million in funding from Coke for research
projects since 2008, the Times reported.
Go-To Sources for Media
Coca-Cola’s vision for Global Energy Balance Network, AP reported, was
for the group to “quickly establish itself as the place the media goes to
for comment on any obesity issue.”
The front group was well-positioned to achieve that vision, since
professors Hill and Blair were already well established as experts on obesity.
An _analysis of media coverage_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=a8bb107323&e=c9c3a92938) by Gary
Ruskin, my co-director at US Right to Know, found 30 news articles quoting Hill
or Blair, written after they received funding from Coca-Cola, in which
journalists failed to disclose this funding.
The articles appeared in influential outlets, including the New York
Times, Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, Atlantic Monthly,
US News & World Report, Newsweek and NPR.
In one example, a 2014 LA Times story (_5/9/14_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=c17cfdc4aa&e=c9c3a92938)
) by Mary MacVean, Hill is featured as the voice of criticism for the
documentary _Fed Up_ (mip://0e4a1ea8/default.html#/page/home) .
“It’s a very myopic view of how obesity develops, and it offers no real
solutions,” was the assessment of James O. Hill, a pediatrics and medicine
professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. Hill
said that he objected to the lack of attention to physical activity in the
film and that the assessment of caloric sweeteners as the major problem in
Americans’ diets was mistaken.
“I’m not arguing that the food environment is unimportant. I’m not
arguing sugar is not important,” Hill said. “I think the food industry has some
responsibility,” but he believes the food industry and scientists need to
join forces to find solutions.
The pattern is typical of Hill’s quotes in the media: comments about the
importance of physical activity over diet as the key to weight loss, with
no mention of funding from Coca-Cola.
‘Rent-a-Scientist’
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=9d5c5c88a2&e=c9c3a92938)
Image: USRTK
The Coke story is just the latest “Rent-a-Scientist” example of
corporations quietly paying professors who appear in the media as independent
experts, pushing points of view that happen to benefit the corporations from
which they take money.
Earlier this month, a _Greenpeace sting operation_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=163d2ead61&e=c9c3a929
38) caught Princeton professor William Happer and Penn State professor
emeritus Frank Clemente agreeing to take corporate cash (and conceal the
payments) to write papers extolling the benefits of coal and carbon
emissions.
That scandal followed the revelation that Wei-Hock Soon, a scientist at
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims global warming
can be explained by variations in the sun’s energy, described his work as “
deliverables” for corporate funders, as Justin Gillis and John Schwartz
reported in the New York Times (_2/21/15_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=c9a0070e69&e=c9c3a92938) )
In September, emails _obtained by my group_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=9936963486&e=c9c3a92938) US
Right to Know linked Monsanto money to two professors who frequently
appear in the media as independent experts on GMOs, as Eric Lipton reported in
the New York Times (_9/5/15_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=9ddf3ca59c&e=c9c3a92938) ).
A _media analysis_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=1d63e421c8&e=c9c3a92938) on that issue found 28
media stories quoting or written by University of Florida professor Kevin
Folta or University of Illinois professor emeritus Bruce Chassy after they
received Monsanto funding, but without disclosing the funding.
All these cases highlight that reporters need to do a better job
researching their sources and disclosing the financial ties between corporations
and academics. As Ruskin wrote for US Right to Know (_12/14/15_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=2fd176cc7f&e=
c9c3a92938) ):
If a professor takes money from one of these soda companies, that is
crucial context for their views on obesity, and journalists disserve their
readers by failing to report it. Readers need to know who pays sources to
evaluate the legitimacy and biases of these sources.
The net effect of quoting these professors without disclosing their
Coca-Cola funding is to unfairly enhance their credibility, while undermining
the credibility of public health and consumer advocates.
____________________________________
Stacy Malkan is co-director of _US Right to Know_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=a1bacd0ba1&e=c9c3a92938)
, a nonprofit consumer group. She is also the author of _Not Just a
Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=99fc531f39&e=c9c3a92938) .
Read the original post _here_
(http://fair.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c573daa3ad72f4a095505b58&id=07f67f3518&e=c9c3a92938) .
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