Soda industry-funded studies consistently find that soda can be part of a healthy diet. Non-industry studies find the opposite and add that soda is one of the biggest culprits in the obesity crisis.
Those ubiquitous television ads trumpeting dairy products as a weight-loss tool: they are paid for by the National Dairy Council, which also pays for the research that supports this claim.
A study claiming to demonstrate that raisins fight oral bacteria was underwritten by the California Raisin Marketing Board
And sometimes these claims are seemingly corroborated by such respected organizations as the American Cancer Society—when in reality, that corroboration came at a price.
In 1997, the American Cancer Society endorsed Florida orange juice (its logo is printed on the labels of the product); a year later, the ACS endorsed anti-smoking devices—but only those manufactured by SmithKline Beecham. Then the ACS sold rights to use its logo to General Mills (it appears on that company’s product, Wheaties.) The ACS refuses to characterize these transactions as “endorsements”; instead, they are more akin to bartering, in that in exchange for use of the logo, SmithKline Beecham, for example, will provide grants for cancer research.
Under pressure after a series of articles about pharmaceutical company dinners for doctors, the American Medical Association began planning a campaign to remind doctors of ethical guidelines limited their acceptance of gifts from pharmaceutical companies. The campaign’s sponsor: Eli Lilly Corporation. USA Today’s headline for its story on the development was “Drugmakers bankroll ethics guidelines on ‘freebies’”. A few years earlier, the AMA had made a deal with the Sunbeam Corporation to endorse products made by the medical products manufacturer. However, AMA hadn’t tested or evaluated the quality or the cost of the products; as a result of publicity (and angry AMA members), the deal was killed.
Recent concerns about the use of Ritalin in the treatment of ADHD have made the funding of major organizations like CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) exceptionally relevant. CHADD has, for years, vigorously advocated the use of Ritalin in the treatment of ADHD. And, for years, CHADD has been underwritten by Ciba-Geigy (now Novatis): the maker of Ritalin. In fact, the DEA has said publicly that the relationship between the drugmaker and the organization “raises serious concerns about CHADD’s motive in proselytizing the use of Ritalin.” And the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) has received enormous amounts of money from pharmaceutical companies (Eli Lily is the biggest contributor).
But it’s not just logo-licensing. Industry is taking a greater role in medical conferences and meetings. According to the Washington Post, “in several dozen symposiums during the weeklong American Psychiatric Association meeting, companies paid the APA about $50,000 per session to control which scientists and papers were presented and to help shape the presentations.” (I plan to attend several conferences and meeting during the course of researching and writing this book.) That meeting alone featured forty-two industry-sponsored symposiums. Sponsors included: Pfizer, Novartis, Wyeth, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, and more.
The result of this kind of partnership is a kind of codependence; rather than merely trading commodities, industry is, in this way, shaping science and using that distorted science to convince the general public that their products are safe and necessary. These are not isolated cases. There are ties between ostensibly independent organizations, like the ones mentioned above. What does this mean for consumers?
And corporate science invades classrooms at the elementary and high school level, where struggling school districts, eager for curricula and materials, accept “educational materials” from corporations, thereby fundamentally, if subtly, changing America’s science curriculum. Examples include:
Coloring books distributed to kindergartners—by the coal industry
Educational materials proclaiming the necessity for genetically-engineered foods for a growing populations—published by biotech giants
Project Learning Tree: an educational program funded by the American Forest Foundation, a front group for logging and timber interests like Sierra Pacific, Weyerhaeuser, and Pacific Lumber, which teaches that “managed tree farms” are forests and omit mentions of clear-cutting and herbicides.
