https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-big-sugar-undermines-dietary-guidelines/
How Big Sugar Undermines Dietary Guidelines: Dr. Michael Greger (06/2022)
“International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) , a nonprofit, is accused of being a front group for Coca-Cola and other junk food giants.”
Dr Greger reports: “In 2019, a series of reviews was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that concluded the same thing that past reviews have concluded: adherence to dietary patterns lower in red or processed meat intake may result in decreased risk for premature death, cardiometabolic disease and mortality––meaning the risk of getting and dying of diseases like heart disease and type 2 diabetes, as well as the risk of getting cancer and dying from cancer. Therefore, they concluded in their Dietary Guideline Recommendations, “continue your current red meat consumption,” “continue your processed meat consumption.” Wait, what?! Yeah, premature death, cancer, heart disease, diabetes––but keep eating your burgers and bacon.”
According to Dr Greger, to understand what just happened, we have to go back to 2015. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans had just had the audacity to recommend people reduce their sugar intake. Imagine you work for the sugar industry. The evidence is overwhelmingly against you; so, what do you do? Well, what did the tobacco industry do? One method involved the tobacco industry’s funding of and involvement in seemingly unbiased scientific groups to manipulate the scientific debate concerning tobacco and health. Groups like the ILSI, the International Life Sciences Institute, which has enjoyed a long and serious collaboration with the tobacco industry also shapes food policy around the world.
The International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), technically a nonprofit with an innocuous sounding name, “has been quietly infiltrating government health and nutrition bodies around the world.” It was created by a top Coca‐Cola executive, and “is almost entirely funded by Goliaths of the agribusiness, food, and pharmaceutical industries”. “After decades largely operating under the radar, the Institute is coming under increasing scrutiny by health advocates in the United States and abroad who say it is little more than a front group advancing the interests of the 400 corporate members,” among them Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.
So, when the 2015 US dietary guidelines advised eating less sugar, the soda-funded International Life Sciences Institute sponsored a review concluding that the guidelines on sugar were simply not trustworthy. (Bradley Johnston, was the lead author.) And
here it is, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The Scientic Basis of Guideline Recommendations on Sugar Intake, concluded there basically wasn’t one. “Guidelines on dietary sugar do not meet criteria for trustworthy recommendations as they are based on low-quality evidence.”
“This comes right out of the tobacco industry’s playbook: cast doubt on the science,” said Professor Marion Nestle. “This is a classic example of how industry funding biases opinion. It’s shameful”, says Dr. Greger. ”Yes, the paper was paid for by the likes of Coca-Cola, Hershey, Red Bull, and the makers of Oreos. But the authors swore they wrote the protocol, and conducted the study independently. It turns out that was a lie, forcing the journal to publish a corrected version after the Associated Press obtained emails showing the industry front group “requested revisions.” It also came out that a co-author conveniently forgot to mention a $25,000 grant she got directly from Coca-Cola.
Dr Greger states, “You know it’s bad when candy bar companies criticize an industry-funded paper on sugar. The maker of Snickers, Skittles, and M&Ms broke ranks with other food companies, and denounced the industry-funded paper. They themselves were a member of the ILSI, but come on, telling people to ignore guidelines to cut down on sugar? That’s just making us all look bad.”
If you look at the relationship between funding sources and the conclusions in nutrition-related scientific articles, there’s about seven or eight times the odds that the conclusion will skew favorable, compared to studies with no industry funding. For interventional studies, the proportion of studies paid for by industry that reached unfavorable conclusions about their own products was a big fat 0 percent, which should not surprise anyone.
So, what can journals do to counteract tactics that industry often uses to advocate for the safety of unsafe products, or question the integrity of science that calls their products into question? To combat the tobacco industry’s inuence over scientic discourse, leading journal editors have refused to be passive conduits for articles funded by the tobacco industry. They just won’t accept tobacco industry-funded studies period. Accordingly, high-quality journals could refrain from publishing studies on health effects of added sugars funded by soda and cookie companies. But they’re not. This was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
And so, four years later, the next batch of dietary guidelines is on the way, and the last scientific report of the guidelines committee, encourages people to eat diets not just lower in sugar, but lower in meat as well. So, Big Beef decided to follow in the footsteps of Big Butterfinger. Same journal, same guy, same scientist-for-hire, Bradley Johnston, as lead author, and the rest is history.
For additional information on ILSI, see the following article:
https://usrtk.org/pesticides/ilsi-is-a-food-industry-lobby-group/
International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) is a food industry lobby group
Posted: March 22, 2022 by Stacy Malkan
The International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) is a corporate-funded nonprofit organization based in Washington DC, with 17 affiliated chapters around the world. ILSI describes itself as a group that conducts “science for the public good” and “improves human health and well-being and safeguards the environment.” However, investigations by academics, journalists and public interest researchers show that ILSI is a lobby group that protects the interests of the food industry, not public health.
Recent news
● June 2022: ILSI rebrands (again) to duck bad press, by U.S. Right to Know.
● March 2022 study in Cambridge University Press found that 95% of the U.S.
2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee had conflicting interests with the food, and/or pharmaceutical industries. Particular actors, including Kellogg, Abbott, Kraft, Mead Johnson, General Mills, Dannon, and the ILSI had connections with multiple members. The “significant and widespread” conflicts of interest on the committee “prevent the DGA from achieving the recommended standard for transparency without mechanisms in place to make this information publicly available.”
● February 2022 study in Globalization and Health co-authored by USRTK shows that food and chemical industry players view the International Food Information Council (a group that works closely with ILSI) as “being central to promoting industry-favorable content in defense of products facing potentially negative press, such as aspartame...” The study describes IFIC as “a sister entity to ILSI. ILSI generates the scientific facts and IFIC communicates them to the media and public.” See also, IFIC: How Big Food Spins Bad News.
● April 2021 study in Globalization and Health documents how ILSI plays a key role in helping the food industry shape scientific principles by promoting the acceptance of public-private partnerships and permissiveness about conflicts of interest.
● Coca-Cola has severed its longtime ties with ILSI. The move is “a blow to the powerful food organization known for its pro-sugar research and policies,” Bloomberg reported in January 2021.
● ILSI helped Coca-Cola Company shape obesity policy in China, according to aSeptember 2020 study in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law by
Harvard Professor Susan Greenhalgh. “Beneath ILSI’s public narrative of unbiased science and no policy advocacy lay a maze of hidden channels companies used to advance their interests. Working through those channels, Coca Cola influenced China’s science and policy making during every phase in the policy process, from framing the issues to drafting official policy,” the paper concludes.
● Documents obtained by USRTK add more evidence that ILSI is a food industry front group. A May 2020 study in Public Health Nutrition based on the documents reveal “a pattern of activity in which ILSI sought to exploit the credibility of scientists and academics to bolster industry positions and promote industry-devised content in its meetings, journal, and other activities.” See coverage in The BMJ, Food and drink industry sought to influence scientists and academics, emails show (5.22.20)
● Corporate Accountability’s April 2020 report examines how food and beverage corporations have leveraged ILSI to infiltrate the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, and cripple progress on nutrition policy around the globe. See coverage inThe BMJ, Food and soft drink industry has too much influence over US dietary guidelines, report says (4.24.20)
● New York Times investigation by Andrew Jacobs reveals that a trustee of the industry-funded nonprofit ILSI advised the Indian government against going ahead with warning labels on unhealthy foods. The Times described ILSI as a“shadowy industry group” and “the most powerful food industry group you’ve never heard of.” (9.16.19)The Times cited a June study in Globalization and Health co-authored by Gary Ruskin of U.S. Right to Know reporting that ILSI operates as a lobby arm for its food and pesticide industry funders.
● The New York Times revealed the undisclosed ILSI ties of Bradley C. Johnston, a co-author of five recent studies claiming red and processed meat don’t pose significant health problems. Johnston used similar methods in an ILSI-funded study to claim sugar is not a problem. (10.4.19)
● Marion Nestle’s Food Politics blog, ILSI: true colors revealed (10.3.19) ILSI ties to Coca-Cola
ILSI was founded in 1978 by Alex Malaspina, a former senior vice president at Coca-Cola who worked for Coke from 1969-2001. Coca-Cola has kept close ties with ILSI. Michael Ernest Knowles, Coca-Cola’s VP of global scientific and regulatory affairs from 2008–2013, was president of ILSI from 2009-2011. In 2015, ILSI’s president was Rhona Applebaum, who retired from her job as Coca-Cola’s chief health and science officer (and from ILSI) in 2015 after the New York Times and Associated Press reported that Coke funded the nonprofit Global Energy Balance Network to help shift blame for obesity away from sugary drinks.
Corporate funding
ILSI is funded by its corporate members and company supporters, including leading food and chemical companies. ILSI acknowledges receiving funding from industry but does not publicly disclose who donates or how much they contribute. Our research reveals:
● Corporate contributions to ILSI Global amounting to $2.4 million in 2012. This included $528,500 from CropLife International, $500,000 from Monsanto and $163,500 from Coca-Cola.
● A draft 2013 ILSI tax return shows ILSI received $337,000 from Coca-Cola and more than $100,000 each from Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow Agrisciences, Pioneer Hi-Bred, Bayer CropScience and BASF.
● A draft 2016 ILSI North America tax return shows a $317,827 contribution from PepsiCo, contributions greater than $200,000 from Mars, Coca-Cola, and Mondelez, and contributions greater than $100,000 from General Mills, Nestle, Kellogg, Hershey, Kraft, Dr. Pepper, Snapple Group, Starbucks Coffee, Cargill, Uniliver and Campbell Soup.
Emails show how ILSI seeks to influence policy
A May 2020 study in Public Health Nutrition adds evidence that ILSI is a food industry front group. The study, based on documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know via state public records requests, reveals how ILSI promotes the interests of the food and agrichemical industries, including ILSI’s role in defending controversial food ingredients and suppressing views that are unfavorable to industry; that corporations such as Coca-Cola can earmark contributions to ILSI for specific programs; and, how ILSI uses academics for their authority but allows industry hidden influence in their publications.
The study also reveals new details about which companies fund ILSI and its branches, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions documented from leading junk food, soda and chemical companies.
● Public Health Nutrition: Pushing partnerships: corporate influence on research and policy via the International Life Sciences Institute, by Sarah Steele, Gary Ruskin, David Stuckler (5.17.2020)
● The BMJ, Food and drink industry sought to influence scientists and academics, emails show, by Gareth Iacobucci
(5.22.20)
● U.S. Right to Know press release: ILSI is a food industry front group, new study suggests
How Big Sugar Undermines Dietary Guidelines: Dr. Michael Greger (06/2022)
“International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) , a nonprofit, is accused of being a front group for Coca-Cola and other junk food giants.”
Summary:
● The International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), which is supposedly a non-profit (term used lightly), was created by a top Coca Cola executive (Alex Malaspina, in 1978) and it is funded almost entirely by huge agribusinesses, tobacco, food and pharmaceutical industries.
● After running under the “radar” for decades, ILSI has come under increasing scrutiny by health advocates in the US and Europe who say that it is just a front group advancing the specific interests of the 400 corporate members.
● ILSI rebranded to become the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS), a 501(c)(3) organization focused on catalyzing science for the benefit of public health. (2020)
● Coca-Cola allegedly severed ties with ILSI in 2021, Mars (left in 2018). The World Health Organization (WHO) severed ties with ILSI in 2015.
● PepsiCo, Kellogg, Kraft, Cadbury, Syngenta, Cargill, Unilever and over 400 other companies are members.