Big Sugar Shenanigans

September 13, 2016 10:33 AM

The Sugar Industry Hid Shocking Documents for 40 Years required reading for anyone who wants to understand how corporate funding shapes scientific research and ultimately public health policy
posted by infini (25 comments total)

Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research
A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents

JAMA Internal Medicine
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:40 AM on September 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

i don't wanna say i told you so, but i motherfucking told you so
posted by entropicamericana at 10:42 AM on September 13, 2016 [28 favorites]

I saw the documentary "Fed Up" when it came out a few years ago, and the interviews there said as much about the sugar industry. No one I knew was clamoring about it. I hope this brings more attention to them and how despicable the whole thing is.
posted by numaner at 10:54 AM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here's the NYTimes version of the story. I was particularly offended by the final quote, from the professor who uncovered the scandal.

By today’s standards, [the Harvard researchers] behaved very badly

That's letting them off way too easily. They behaved badly by 1960s standards, too. I know all the crooked scientists are dead now but Harvard still exists. The institution should be ashamed.
posted by Nelson at 10:55 AM on September 13, 2016 [25 favorites]

For their trouble, the Harvard researchers would eventually earn $48,900 (in 2016 dollars) from the Sugar Research Foundation.

I feel like I've made a similar comment on a similar story about something like climate change, but I'm struck by how little money this is. You're selling out your professional ethics to be bribed by huge, profitable industry and you get, between the two of you, a year's worth of a middle class salary? It just seems so paltry.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:07 AM on September 13, 2016 [33 favorites]

Wow, The Incredible, Edible Egg guys were really asleep at the wheel. They brought a jingle to an industrial memetic warfare fight.
posted by XMLicious at 11:22 AM on September 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

It just seems so paltry.

We see the same thing whenever investigations are done related to how much free stuff pharma companies have to give doctors to influence them, or how much it takes to influence a member of congress. The ugly truth is, buying people off is cheap.
posted by tocts at 11:24 AM on September 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

*eats a mug of jam for lunch* Meh, I can't afford to live long anyway.
posted by maryr at 11:24 AM on September 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

It's almost as if biomedical research was some kind of public good that shouldn't be left up to industry to fund. How odd.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 11:28 AM on September 13, 2016 [72 favorites]

I keep reading stories like this in the media and it looks to me like low carb diets are about to hit critical mass and go mainstream. I've had great luck with energy levels, maintaining weight, losing weight, and appetite in general running anything from keto (20g or less of carbs per day) up to about 100g of carbs per day.

It's too bad high fat diets are an even higher strain on earth's resources.
posted by MillMan at 11:44 AM on September 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

low carb diets are about to hit critical mass and go mainstream

Yup, any day now...
posted by neroli at 11:56 AM on September 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

It just seems so paltry

The Soviets didn't pay Western spies very much, either. Integrity is cheap.
posted by lhauser at 11:56 AM on September 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

It's almost as if biomedical research was some kind of public good that shouldn't be left up to industry to fund. How odd.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 11:28 AM on September 13

And there's the crux of it.

If we want things to keep going this way on a myriad of issues, all you need to do is keep underfunding independent research and keep bringing in "stakeholders" (read big business) to provide"input" on health, climate, agriculture, etc research.

Just look at the Therapeutics Initiative, Canada's only independent drug review, completely under attack for years and still with significantly less funding, despite acclaim and egfectiveness, and Canada has stopped funding our branch of the Cochrane reviews...

And even state research funding council Canadian Institute of Health Research appointed a lobbyist for Pfizer to its board!
Harvard should definitely apologise. But more importantly, they should report the funding links to their research today!
posted by chapps at 11:59 AM on September 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

The sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to play down the link between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as the culprit instead, newly released historical documents show.

Wait, so what I don't get is, why didn't the National Cattlemen, the National Pork Producers, The International Dairy Foods Association, and the American Egg Board push back on this?

They've been dogged with the heart disease label for years, you'd think they'd get some studies of their own. It's not like they don't have political power. I'd venture to say they've got more lobbying weight than the sugar lobby.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:15 PM on September 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

The idea that eating fat is what makes you fat makes a lot off pre-analytic intuitive sense. Having the government and other health authorities agree, no matter what the science actually says, only reinforced that.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:22 PM on September 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'd venture to say they've got more lobbying weight than the sugar lobby.

Because of all that fat?
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:47 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Let's see:

Cuban embargo, no more Cuban sugar, huge boon to the corn industry (high fructose corn syrup)

End of Cuban embargo, hmmmm ....
posted by hank at 12:58 PM on September 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I hope in light of these findings Def Leppard will do the right thing and rerecord their hit single as "Pour Some Dietary Fat On Me"
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:08 PM on September 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

Another sweet treat from the sugar industry as posted on Metafilter: The tragic tale of RC Cola.
posted by kinnakeet at 1:49 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I hope in light of these findings Def Leppard will do the right thing and rerecord their hit single as "Pour Some Dietary Fat On Me"

[sing]Rub some Crisco on meeeeah, in the name of loooove.[/sing]

changes the whole feel of the song somehow...
posted by ennui.bz at 2:12 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

The idea that eating fat is what makes you fat makes a lot off pre-analytic intuitive sense.

There's also

Jack Sprat could eat no fat.
His wife could eat no lean.
And so between them both, you see,
They licked the platter clean.

Which in my nursery rhyme book as a little kid was illustrated like this one, with him slender and his wife heavy. Though in the course of looking for an example like that I found another where they appear to be the same weight, illustrated by a woman.
posted by XMLicious at 5:45 PM on September 13, 2016

Yup, any day now...[Atkins diet reference]

The difference 17 years later is the modern internet with so many success stories.

I'll grant you everything else is against it - everything meaning money (unless the dairy, beef and nut industries get behind it) and inertia from decades of low-fat diet promotion.
posted by MillMan at 5:49 PM on September 13, 2016

I saw the documentary "Fed Up" when it came out a few years ago, and the interviews there said as much about the sugar industry. No one I knew was clamoring about it. I hope this brings more attention to them and how despicable the whole thing is.

There have been several documentaries about this issue in the past few years but Fed Up was probably the earliest of the recent wave.

Sugar Coated (2015)
That Sugar Film (2014)
Fed Up (2014)

Some of the "usual suspects" who turn up in these movies are:

Robert Lustig - Professor and pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF who speaks out against added dietary sugar.

Gary Taubes - journalist and author of Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease and Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

Yoni Freedhoff - Medical doctor from Ottawa, Canada who criticizes the food industry's use of sugar

It seems like a case is building, much like the case against the tobacco industry. Maybe there will be class-action lawsuits against soft drink and processed food companies based on this suppression of potentially life-saving research.
posted by theorique at 9:22 PM on September 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

South Africa has joined the battle against sugar, becoming the first African country to plan a tax on drinks loaded with the sweet stuff.

That's the BBC. The other headlines such as Bloomberg and Forbes were handwringing over the losses to big Cola that this would mean. How dare they tax sugar!!
posted by infini at 11:39 PM on September 13, 2016

It might also be worth keeping in mind that sugar is one of the biggest (if not the biggest, but I can't find the ref) agricultural crops at 168 million metric tonnes annually. That's what we've cut down vast swathes of forest to grow. The wiki article is pretty comprehensive, but after reading this thread the cheery references to sugar's benefits are scary.
posted by sneebler at 6:42 AM on September 14, 2016 [1 favorite]