Uncovered Coke Emails Reveal 3 Ways Big Food Casts Doubt on Science, Endangering Public Health
An email thread involving industry-backed food organizations and former Coco-Cola executives recently obtained by a FOIA request offers a rare window into the sorts of tactics that food companies use to counter dietary warnings put forth by government health agencies that have the potential to damage their bottom lines.
The emails were exchanged between Michael Ernest Knowles and Alex Malaspina, both of whom have held prominent positions within the Coca-Cola company and the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), an industry-fronted food organization.
The thread began with a message sent internally by the International Food Information Council Foundation (IFIC), another organization with industry backing. It outlined the IFIC’s initial response to the publication of the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which Health.gov notes is "designed to help Americans eat a healthier diet."
Published by the Agriculture and Health and Human Services Departments, the quinquennial document is shaped with the help of input from dozens of health and nutrition experts who make up the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC). The day before the guidelines were published, the DGAC published their recommendations, which included warnings to Americans about eating too much red or processed meat, as well as drinking too many sugared beverages.
In response to that initial document, the IFIC organized a conference call between a number of food experts who objected to some of the recommendations made by the DGAC and more than 40 journalists and food bloggers. "This IFIC media call is a great example of how the industry should respond to biased, non-scientifically-based recommendations," wrote Knowles in one of his emails. "It's after the event of course but will no doubt be successful in ensuring that they do not get adopted as written."
Indeed, when final guidelines came out, they failed to recommend a wholesale reduction in red and processed meat consumption among all Americans.
"The food and agricultural industries are incredibly powerful and successful in making Congress and federal agencies do what they want," said Gary Ruskin, co-director and founder of U.S. Right to Know, the nonprofit food industry watchdog that obtained the emails. "These are major institutions that they just are able to manipulate so cold-heartedly and effectively."
An ILSI spokesperson wrote in a statement to Alternet that what the organization seeks to discredit is information based on "objectively bad science" driving unfounded health decisions. "And when we critique a study or a nutrition claim for not being evidence-based, we do it transparently and the work is done by credentialed experts," the spokesperson added.
Ruskin co-authored a paper, recently published in the journal Critical Public Health, which used the email thread to identify some of the ways the food industry accomplishes these goals:
1. Shape existing data, and create new studies: Knowles writes that, in order to drive the narrative surrounding obesity, "we have to use external organizations in addition to any work we directly commission."
2. Work with scientific organizations: Knowles recommends that industry representatives use their positions on scientific boards to the benefit of food companies, and urges them to attain “leadership roles in the key ones and push for individual issues to be addressed by public conferences/workshops."
3. Curry favor withpolicymakers: The European Union, Knowles writes, is pressing for "greater international collaboration" with the U.S., and he suggests that "we should encourage this through ILSI and our academic contacts."
That the food industry uses methods like these is hardly breaking news, admitted Ivy Ken, professor of sociology at George Western University. "I would like to say they're shocking, but they're part of the bag of tricks these organizations and these companies typically dip into," she said. "Emails like this reveal that these companies are deliberately trying to mislead the public."
The dietary guidelines affect things like the sorts of foods served in schools, as well as the shape of federal food assistance programs. According to Ken, the USDA is "completely" in the pocket of the food industry. "I think they’re nearly useless," she said, about the dietary guidelines. "They have really just become a vehicle for industry."
This at a time when the question of what Americans eat has rarely been more pertinent due to rising adult obesity rates now exceeding 35 percent in certain states.
Allen Levine, president of The Obesity Society, told Alternet that he hasn't witnessed firsthand the food industry practice the sorts of tactics laid out in the emails. But he isn't necessarily surprised if it does. "One can imagine that the industry would not be happy to have people being told to limit the consumption on something they sell," he said. "But they should not apply any pressure or influence in any way that is unreasonable."
The IFIC failed to respond to a request for comment.
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