Food companies distort nutrition science. Here’s how to stop them.

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

In Vox, Julia Belluz writes about Marion Nestle’s compilation of food industry research studies. About a year ago, Marion Nestle finally got sick of the rotten state of nutrition science. Everywhere she looked, she found glaring conflicts of interest. “Without any trouble, I could identify industry-funded nutrition studies by their titles,” says the New York University professor. “It was so obvious.” Nestle kept seeing studies with very specific names, like, “Concord grape juice, cognitive function, and driving performance,” or, “Walnut ingestion in adults at risk for diabetes.” These papers were funded by the food industry — a grape juice maker, walnut growers — and nearly always reached glowing conclusions about the food in question. Her findings so far are remarkable. Of the 152 industry-funded studies she has examined, 140 boast results that favor the funder. That’s more than 90 percent.

Does the FDA now belong to Big Pharma?

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In Salon, Martha Rosenberg writes that it is hard to believe only four senators opposed the confirmation of Robert Califf, who was approved today as the next FDA commissioner. Vocal opponent Bernie Sanders condemned the vote from the campaign trail. But where was Dick Durbin? Where were all the lawmakers who say they care about industry and Wall Street profiteers making money at the expense of public health? Califf, chancellor of clinical and translational research at Duke University until recently, received money from 23 drug companies including the giants like Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, Merck, Schering Plough and GSK according to a disclosure statement on the website of Duke Clinical Research Institute.

India introduces car sales tax to combat pollution

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The Guardian reports that India has introduced a new tax on car sales aimed at helping fight high levels of air pollution and congestion. The surprise move, announced by the finance minister, Arun Jaitley, is a victory for campaigners and a defeat for the powerful car industry. Commentators said the move showed how attitudes to car use had changed in India. “There are some things that are politically palatable now that were not before. Jaitley has seen there is political space and public support. Once Indians owning cars was seen as a sign of economic success. Now this sort of tax is seen as Indians being responsible,” said Samir Saran, of the Observer Research Foundation, a Delhi-based think tank.

Carbonating the World

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

A new report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest shows how two major global soft-drink producers, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, have sought to maintain their profits in the face of declining sales in wealthier countries by, like the tobacco industry, investing heavily in low- and middle-income countries. Thus, both companies, as well as other multinational and local beverage producers, are spending several billion dollars a year in such countries as Brazil, China, India, and Mexico to build bottling plants, create distribution networks, and advertise their products to maximize sales.

Trading Down: Unemployment, Inequality and Other Risks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

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Adverse impacts of the Trans Pacific Partnership on public health have been well documented but how might the pact affect regional and global economies? A new report “Trading Down: Unemployment, Inequality and Other Risks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,”  on the Trans Pacific Partnership by investigators at Tufts University asks that question. It concludes that “the benefits to economic growth are even smaller than those projected with full-employment models, and are negative for Japan and the United States. More important, we find that the TPP will likely lead to losses in employment and increases in inequality.”

Judge Criticizes Cigarette Makers, Adopts New Warning Statements

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The Wall Street Journal reports that the federal judge presiding over government litigation against tobacco companies in a Monday opinion blasted cigarette makers for continuing to fight her court order requiring them to warn the public about the dangers of smoking. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler, based in Washington, adopted revised language Monday for the product warnings and rejected as “ridiculous” the latest legal arguments being made by the tobacco companies. She said the defendants were trying to further delay the resolution of a case that began in 1999.

Theranos Lab Practices Pose Risk to Patient Health, Regulators Say

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Federal inspectors found “deficient practices” at a Theranos Inc. laboratory that “pose immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety,” according a letter released last week, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said an inspection completed in November at the company’s lab in Newark, Calif., uncovered five major infractions that violate the federal law governing clinical labs. Theranos, valued at $9 billion, has been under fire since an October Wall Street Journal report revealed that the company’s inventions were only used on a small number of tests sold to patients. A follow-up report said that Theranos had actively hidden its proprietary technology from lab inspectors during previous inspections.

Survey claims most gun owners would buy smart guns

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The gun industry is at odds with what they term an editorial piece by the Bloomberg School of Public Health on personalized firearms that use technology to prevent unauthorized access, writes Guns.com. The findings, published in the American Journal of Public Health last month, suggest there is a genuine interest in firearms with authorized-user technology, commonly referred to as smart guns, should it be available for sale. In a web-based survey of 3,949 individuals performed in January 2015, 59 percent said they would be willing to consider a childproof gun if they were to purchase a new weapon

The Potential Impact of a “No-Buy” List on Youth Exposure to Alcohol Advertising on Cable Television.

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This article by CS Ross , RD Brewer and DH Jernigan appears in the January 2016 issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to outline a method to improve alcohol industry compliance with its self-regulatory advertising placement guidelines on television with the goal of reducing youth exposure to noncompliant advertisements.

METHOD: Data were sourced from Nielsen (The Nielsen Company, New York, NY) for all alcohol advertisements on television in the United States for 2005-2012. A “no-buy” list, that is a list of cable television programs and networks to be avoided when purchasing alcohol advertising, was devised using three criteria: avoid placements on programs that were noncompliant in the past (serially noncompliant), avoid placements on networks at times of day when youth make up a high proportion of the audience (high-risk network dayparts), and use a “guardbanded” (or more restrictive) composition guideline when placing ads on low-rated programs (low rated).

RESULTS: Youth were exposed to 15.1 billion noncompliant advertising impressions from 2005 to 2012, mostly on cable television. Together, the three no-buy list criteria accounted for 99% of 12.9 billion noncompliant advertising exposures on cable television for youth ages 2-20 years. When we evaluated the no-buy list criteria sequentially and mutually exclusively, serially noncompliant ads accounted for 67% of noncompliant exposure, high-risk network-daypart ads accounted for 26%, and low-rated ads accounted for 7%.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that the prospective use of the no-buy list criteria when purchasing alcohol advertising could eliminate most noncompliant advertising exposures and could be incorporated into standard post-audit procedures that are widely used by the alcohol industry in assessing exposure to television advertising.