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Food and drinks industry uses non-profit organisation to campaign against public health policies, study finds

fpjl2 — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 08:07:13 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, published today in the journal Globalization and Health, analysed over 17,000 pages of emails obtained through Freedom of Information requests made between 2015 and 2018. ̽��ֱ��documents captured exchanges between academics at US universities and senior figures at a non-profit organisation called the International Life Science Institute, or ILSI.

Comprising of 18 bodies, each of which covers a specific topic or part of the globe, ILSI has always maintained its independence and scientific rigour, despite being funded by multinational corporations such as Nestle, General Mills, Mars Inc, Monsanto, and Coca-Cola.

Founded by former Coca-Cola senior vice president Alex Malaspina in 1978, ILSI states on its website that none of its bodies “conduct lobbying activities or make policy recommendations”. As a non-profit organisation, ILSI is currently exempt from taxation under US Internal Revenue codes.

However, researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, ̽��ֱ�� of Bocconi, and US Right to Know, found emails explicitly discussing tactics for countering public health policies around sugar reduction, as “[T]his threat to our business is serious”.

These include exchanges with an epidemiology professor at the ̽��ֱ�� of Washington, as well as the US Centre for Disease Control’s then director of heart disease and stroke prevention, all strategising how best to approach the World Health Organisation’s then Director-General Dr Margaret Chan, to shift her position on sugar-sweetened products.

“It has been previously suggested that the International Life Sciences Institute is little more than a pseudo-scientific front group for some of the biggest multinational food and drink corporations globally,” said the study lead author Dr Sarah Steele, a researcher at Cambridge’s Department of Politics and International Studies.

“Our findings add to the evidence that this non-profit organisation has been used by its corporate backers for years to counter public health policies. We contend that the International Life Sciences Institute should be regarded as an industry group – a private body – and regulated as such, not as a body acting for the greater good.”

In one email, Malaspina, who also served as long-time president at ILSI, described new US guidelines bolstering child and adult education on limiting sugar intake as a “real disaster!”. He writes: “We have to consider how to become ready to mount a strong defence”. Suzanne Harris, then executive director of ILSI, was among the email’s recipients.

James Hill, then director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the ̽��ֱ�� of Colorado, was involved in a separate exchange on the issue of defending industry from the health consequences of its products. Hill argues for greater funding for ILSI from industry as part of “dealing aggressively with this issue”. He writes that, if companies keep their heads down, “our opponents will win and we will all lose”.

̽��ֱ��FOI emails also suggest ILSI constructs campaigns favourable to artificial sweeteners. Emails reveal Malaspina passing on praise from another former ILSI President to a former Coca-Cola employee and the Professor, describing both as “the architects to plan and execute the studies showing saccharine is not a carcinogen”, resulting in the reversal of many government bans.

̽��ֱ��FOI responses suggest that ILSI operates strategically with other industry-funded entities, including IFIC, a science communication non-profit organisation. “IFIC is a kind of sister entity to ILSI,” writes Malaspina. “ILSI generates the scientific facts and IFIC communicates them to the media and public.”

“ ̽��ֱ��emails suggest that both ILSI and IFIC act to counter unfavourable policies and positions, while promoting industry-favourable science under a disguised front, including to the media,” said Steele.

In fact, the emails suggest ILSI considers sanctioning its own regional subsidiaries when they fail to promote the agreed industry-favourable messaging. Correspondence reveals discussion of suspending ILSI’s Mexico branch from the parent organisation after soft drink taxation was debated at a conference it sponsored. Mexico has one of the highest adult obesity rates in the world.

Email conversations between Malaspina and the CDC’s Barbara Bowman are open about the need to get the WHO to “start working with ILSI again” and to take into account “lifestyle changes” as well as sugary foods when combatting obesity.

Further exchanges between Malaspina and Washington Professor Adam Drewnowski support ILSI’s role in this. Drewnowski writes of Dr Chan that “we ought to start with some issue where ILSI and WHO are in agreement” to help “get her to the table”.

In a further email, Malaspina points out that he had meetings with the two previous heads of the WHO, going back to the mid-90s, and that if they do not start a dialogue with Dr Chan “she will continue to blast us with significant negative consequences on a global basis”.

̽��ֱ��tide has begun to turn against ILSI in recent years. ̽��ֱ��WHO quietly ended their “special relations” with ILSI in 2017, and ILSI’s links to the European Food Safety Authority were the subject of enquiry at the European Parliament. ̽��ֱ��CDC’s Bowman retired in 2016, in the wake of revelations about her close ties with ILSI. Last year, long-time ILSI funder Mars Inc. stopped supporting the organisation. Much of the study’s correspondence precedes these events.

“It becomes clear from the emails and forwards that ILSI is seen as central to pushing pro-industry content to international organisations to support approaches that uncouple sugary foods and obesity,” added Steele.

“Our analysis of ILSI serves as a caution to those involved in global health governance to be wary of putatively independent research groups, and to practice due diligence before relying upon their funded studies.”

Reference
Are industry-funded charities promoting “advocacy-led studies” or “evidence-based science”?: a case study of the International Life Sciences Institute. Globalization and Health; 3 June 2019; DOI: 10.1186/s12992-019-0478-6

A new study shows how a non-profit research organisation has been deployed by its backers from major food and beverage corporations to push industry-favourable positions to policymakers and international bodies under the guise of neutral scientific endeavour.

We contend that the International Life Sciences Institute should be regarded as an industry group – a private body – and regulated as such, not as a body acting for the greater good

Sarah Steele

Photo by Peter Bond on Unsplash

High-angle photography of grocery display

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Contracts give Coca-Cola power to ‘quash’ health research, study suggests

fpjl2 — Tue, 07 May 2019 23:35:29 +0000

A study of over 87,000 documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests has revealed a contract mechanism that could allow Coca-Cola to “quash” findings from some of the health research it funds at public universities in the US and Canada.

̽��ֱ��study, published today in the Journal of Public Health Policy, identified several clauses in legal documents that give the company early sight of any findings, combined with the right to “terminate without reason” and walk away with the data and intellectual property.

Taken together, these clauses could suppress “critical health information”, and indeed may have done so already, according to the study’s authors. Much of the research Coca-Cola supports is in the fields of nutrition, physical inactivity and energy balance.

̽��ֱ��authors argue that the clauses contravene Coca-Cola’s commitments to transparent and “unrestricted” support for science, which came after criticism of the opaque way some major food corporations fund health research.

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, ̽��ֱ�� of Bocconi, and US Right to Know, call on corporate funders to publish lists of terminated studies. They say scientists should publish agreements with industry to reassure the public that findings are free from influence.

“It is certainly true that the contracts we have found allow for unfavourable developments or findings to be quashed prior to publication,” said lead author Dr Sarah Steele, a policy researcher from Cambridge’s Department of Politics and International Studies.

“Coca-Cola have declared themselves at the forefront of transparency when it comes to food and beverage giants funding health research. In fact, our study suggests that important research might never see the light of day and we would never know about it.

“We are already hearing accusations from experts in nutrition that the food industry is copying tactics from big tobacco’s playbook. Corporate social responsibility has to be more than just shiny websites stating progressive policies that get ignored.”

Consumption of high calorie, low nutrient food and drink is believed to be a major factor in the childhood obesity epidemic. Last year, the UK government introduced a “sugar tax” on many soft drinks, including Coca-Cola’s flagship product.

US Right to Know, a non-profit consumer and public health research group, submitted 129 FOI requests between 2015 and 2018 relating to academics at North American institutions who received Coca-Cola funding.

̽��ֱ��research team combed through the vast tranche of resulting documents and discovered five research agreements made with four universities: Louisiana State ̽��ֱ��, ̽��ֱ�� of South Carolina, ̽��ֱ�� of Toronto and the ̽��ֱ�� of Washington.

̽��ֱ��funded work includes “energy flux and balance” studies and research on beverage intake during exercise. Coca-Cola’s own transparency website declares that scientists retain full control over their research and the company has no right to prevent publication of results.

However, while contracts show Coca-Cola does not control day-to-day conduct, the company retains various rights throughout the process. These include the right to receive updates and comment on findings prior to research publication, and the power to terminate studies early without reason.

̽��ֱ��documents yielded by the FOI requests contained no firm examples of Coca-Cola suppressing unfavourable research, although the study authors say “what is important is that the provision exists”. All documents relating to the contracts are now accessible on the US Right to Know website.

Emails show one scientist expressing uncertainty over his study termination (“…they have not communicated with us in several months”) and concern over intellectual property.

Another scientist is seen arguing that his contract is “very restrictive for an ‘unrestricted grant’”.

“These contracts suggest that Coke wanted the power to bury research it funded that might detract from its image or profits,” said Gary Ruskin, co-director of US Right to Know.

“With the power to trumpet positive findings and bury negative ones, Coke-funded science seems more like an exercise in public relations.”

̽��ֱ��researchers acknowledge that the food and beverage industry may be updating research contracts in line with new public commitments, but without seeing those contracts it is hard to know.

They say their Coca-Cola case study suggests a continued lack of transparency that should be remedied with “hard” information on funding, rather than relying on self-reported conflicts of interest.

“Journals should require authors of funded research to upload the research agreements for studies as appendices to any peer-reviewed publication,” said Steele.

“ ̽��ֱ��lack of robust information on input by industry and on studies terminated before results are published, makes it impossible to know how much of the research entering the public domain reflects industry positions.”

New study of FOI documents uncovers provisions that could allow the beverage giant to suppress findings from health science it funds at North American universities. Researchers argue that Coca-Cola’s contracts run counter to their public declarations of openness.

It is certainly true that the contracts we have found allow for unfavourable developments or findings to be quashed prior to publication

Sarah Steele

Meghan Schiereck

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