Coca-Cola, the world’s largest producer of sugary beverages, is backing a new “science-based” solution to the obesity crisis: To maintain a healthy weight, get more exercise and worry less about cutting calories.
The beverage giant has teamed up with influential scientists who are advancing this message in medical journals, at conferences and through social media. To help the scientists get the word out, Coke has provided financial and logistical support to a new nonprofit organization called the Global Energy Balance Network, which promotes the argument that weight-conscious Americans are overly fixated on how much they eat and drink while not paying enough attention to exercise.
“Most of the focus in the popular media and in the scientific press is, ‘Oh they’re eating too much, eating too much, eating too much’ — blaming fast food, blaming sugary drinks and so on,” the group’s vice president, Steven N. Blair, an exercise scientist, says in a recent video announcing the new organization. “And there’s really virtually no compelling evidence that that, in fact, is the cause.”
Health experts say this message is misleading and part of an effort by Coke to deflect criticism about the role sugary drinks have played in the spread of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. They contend that the company is using the new group to convince the public that physical activity can offset a bad diet despite evidence that exercise has only minimal impact on weight compared with what people consume...
Coke has made a substantial investment in the new nonprofit. In response to requests based on state open-records laws, two universities that employ leaders of the Global Energy Balance Network disclosed that Coke had donated $1.5 million last year to start the organization.
Since 2008, the company has also provided close to $4 million in funding for various projects to two of the organization’s founding members: Dr. Blair, a professor at the University of South Carolina whose research over the past 25 years has formed much of the basis of federal guidelines on physical activity, and Gregory A. Hand, dean of the West Virginia University School of Public Health.
Records show that the network’s website, gebn.org, is registered to Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, and the company is also listed as the site’s administrator. The group’s president, James O. Hill, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said Coke had registered the website because the network’s members did not know how...
In a statement, the company said it had a long history of supporting scientific research related to its beverages and topics such as energy balance.
“We partner with some of the foremost experts in the fields of nutrition and physical activity,” the statement said. “It’s important to us that the researchers we work with share their own views and scientific findings, regardless of the outcome, and are transparent and open about our funding.”
Dr. Blair and other scientists affiliated with the group said that Coke had no control over its work or message and that they saw no problem with the company’s support because they had been transparent about it.
But as of last week, the group’s Twitter and Facebook pages, which promote physical activity as a solution to chronic disease and obesity while remaining largely silent on the role of food and nutrition, made no mention of Coca-Cola’s financial support...
The group’s website also omitted mention of Coke’s backing until Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, an obesity expert at the University of Ottawa, wrote to the organization to inquire about its funding. Dr. Blair said this was an oversight that had been quickly corrected.
“As soon as we discovered that we didn’t have not only Coca-Cola but other funding sources on the website, we put it on there,” Dr. Blair said. “Does that make us totally corrupt in everything we do?”...
In March, Dr. Hill, Dr. Blair, and Dr. Hand announced the creation of the organization in an editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. They argued that the public and many scientists largely overlooked physical inactivity as a cause of obesity. They said they were creating the Global Energy Balance Network to raise awareness “about both sides of the energy balance equation.”
The editorial contained a disclosure that the group had received an “unrestricted education gift” from Coca-Cola.
In response to a request made under the state Freedom of Information Act, the University of South Carolina disclosed that Dr. Blair had received more than $3.5 million in funding from Coke for research projects since 2008.
The university also disclosed that Coca-Cola had provided significant funding to Dr. Hand, who left the University of South Carolina last year for West Virginia. The company gave him $806,500 for an “energy flux” study in 2011 and $507,000 last year to establish the Global Energy Balance Network...
The group’s president, Dr. Hill, also has financial ties to Coca-Cola. The company last year gave an “unrestricted monetary gift” of $1 million to the University of Colorado Foundation. In response to a request made under the Colorado Open Records Act, the university said that Coca-Cola had provided the money “for the purposes of funding” the Global Energy Balance Network.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/?_r=0
Courtesy of Doximity
There’s been much talk in recent years about the need for more transparency in health care. Too often that’s all it is — talk. Truth is, the drug and health care industries often benefit from a system that, at best, gives consumers an opaque view of how things really work.
ReplyDeleteTake, for example, the medical industry’s unreasonable opposition to a plan developed by federal regulators that would require drug and medical-device makers to reveal how much they pay to fund the continuing-education programs physicians must periodically attend to maintain their licenses. Many of the programs are run by for-profit businesses that offer undisclosed lecture stipends to attract top medical specialists as speakers. That means pharmaceutical companies and other medical businesses effectively foot the bill for conference speakers — without having to disclose what they’re paying them. Critics say the longstanding practice allows the industry to exert subtle influence over what are supposed to be unbiased educational programs, perhaps by getting doctors to speak favorably about certain costly new treatments.
The amount of money involved in continuing medical education is significant, according to the Globe’s Tracy Jan. She reported last week that independent businesses operating the programs collected $311 million from the pharmaceutical industry in 2014, a 25 percent increase from 2011. The University of Michigan’s Dr. Paul Lichter — who oversees the Michigan medical school’s conflict of interest committee — told Jan it amounts to “government-sanctioned money laundering.”
In the interest of greater transparency, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rightfully wants to expand existing rules that require pharmaceutical companies to disclose how much they pay physicians for consulting work. The revised regulations would add mandatory reporting of some educational fees.
But the powerful American Medical Association and dozens of other industry parties are trying to scuttle the revised reporting requirements. A 362-page federal bill that would increase funding for research and fast-track development of new medicines contains language that allows payments made for educational purposes to remain secret. It includes tuition for seminars, speaker fees, and literature. The legislation was approved in July by the House.
Rule-change opponents say that if doctors’ speaking fees are made known, it might raise public suspicions that the physicians who accept money are somehow beholden to companies providing the funding. On the contrary, publicizing stipends would only boost the educational programs’ credibility — such openness would minimize any appearance of drug-company control over content.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/08/09/doctors-teaching-fees-shouldn-kept-secret/F1F1hWUZuuFBavc4RL5eQK/story.html