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A new study shows how a nonprofit research organization has been deployed by its sponsors to large companies in the food and beverage sector to propose industry-friendly positions to decision makers and to international organizations under the pretext of a neutral scientific enterprise.
The study, published today in the journal Globalization and Health, badyzed more than 17,000 pages of e-mails obtained through requests for access to freedom of information made between 2015 and 2018. The documents described exchanges between US university academics and senior officials of an organization nonprofit called the International Institute of Life Sciences (ILSI).
Made up of 18 organizations, each covering a subject or a part of the globe, ILSI has always maintained its independence and scientific rigor, despite the financing of multinational companies such as Nestlé, General Mills, Mars Inc., Monsanto and Coca-Cola. .
Founded in 1978 by Alex Malaspina, former senior vice president of Coca-Cola, ILSI states on its website that none of its bodies "carry out lobbying activities or make policy recommendations". As a non-profit organization, ILSI is currently exempt from tax under US Internal Revenue codes.
However, researchers from the University of Cambridge, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Bocconi and the US Right to Know have discovered that emails are explicitly discussing tactics to counter public health policies on sugar reduction "[T]his threat to our business is serious. "
These include exchanges with a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, as well as with the director of heart disease and stroke prevention at the Center for Disease Control of the United States. United, all of whom have strategy as the best way to contact Dr. Margaret Chan, then Director General, of the World Health Organization. change its position on sweet products.
"It has already been suggested that the International Institute of Life Sciences is little more than a pseudo-scientific group for some of the largest multinationals in the food and beverage sector in the world, "said Dr. Sarah Steele, lead author of the study, a researcher in the Department of Politics and International Studies.
"Our findings add to the evidence that this non-profit organization has been used for years by its companies to counter public health policies.We argue that the International Institute of Life Sciences should be considered a group industrial – a private organization – and regulated as such, not as an organism acting for the greater good ".
In an email, Malaspina, who also held the position of longtime president at ILSI, described the new US guidelines strengthening the education of children and adults on limiting sugar intake as a "real disaster!" He writes: "We need to think about how to prepare for a strong defense". Suzanne Harris, then Executive Director of ILSI, was among the recipients of the email.
James Hill, then director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado, participated in a separate exchange on the issue of defense of the industry's health consequences of its products. Hill is arguing for greater funding of ILSI by the industry as part of "the aggressive resolution of this problem". He writes that if companies keep their heads low, "our opponents will win and we will all lose."
Freedom of Information emails also suggest that ILSI builds campaigns that promote artificial sweeteners. Emails reveal that Malaspina conveys the praise of another former ILSI president to a former Coca-Cola employee and professor, describing them as "the architects responsible for planning and executing the studies showing that saccharin is not a carcinogen ", which has canceled many government bans. .
Responses to freedom of information suggest that ILSI works strategically with other industry-funded entities, including IFIC, a science-based communication organization. non-profit. "IFIC is a kind of ILSI sister entity," writes Malaspina. "ILSI generates the scientific facts and IFIC communicates them to the media and the public."
"The emails suggest that ILSI and IFIC are acting to counter unfavorable policies and positions, while promoting an industry-friendly science under a disguised front, including with the media," he said. said Steele.
In fact, the emails suggest that ILSI plans to sanction its own regional affiliates when they fail to promote the agreed messages favorable to the sector. The correspondence reveals discussions about the suspension of ILSI's Mexican subsidiary to the parent organization after the debate over the taxation of soft drinks at a conference that she sponsored. Mexico has one of the highest adult obesity rates in the world.
E-mail conversations between Malaspina and Barbara Bowman of the CDC speak openly about the need to get WHO to "start working with ILSI again" and take into account "lifestyle changes" as well as food sweet in the fight against obesity.
Other exchanges between Malaspina and Washington Professor Adam Drewnowski supports the role of ILSI in this regard. Drewnowski writes Dr. Chan: "We should start with a question in which ILSI and WHO are in agreement" to help "put it to the table".
In another email, Malaspina says that he has had talks with the two previous WHO officials, dating back to the mid-1990s, and that, if they do not dialogue with Dr. Chan, "she will continue to send us important information." negative consequences on a global basis ".
The flow has started to turn against ILSI in recent years. The WHO has quietly ended its "special relationship" with ILSI in 2017 and its links with the European Food Safety Authority have been the subject of an investigation in the European Parliament. Bowman of the CDC retired in 2016 following revelations about her close ties with ILSI. Last year, Mars Inc., a long-time lender to ILSI, stopped supporting the organization. Much of the study correspondence precedes these events.
"It is clear from e-mails and advanced messages that ILSI is considered a critical element in bringing pro-industry content to international organizations to support approaches that uncouple sweet foods and obesity" Steele added.
"Our badysis of the ILSI serves as a warning to those involved in global health governance to be wary of so-called independent research groups and to exercise due diligence before relying on funded studies. "
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Reference
Do industry-sponsored charities encourage "interest group studies" or "evidence-based science" ?: Case Study of the International Institute of Science and Technology life. Globalization and health; June 3, 2019; DOI: 10.1186 / s12992-019-0478-6
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