Junk Food

Junk Food Producers Pay Scientists To Fudge Link Between Health And Nutrition

Posted: 06/23/11 10:59 AM ET

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Yet another major long-term study, this one published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has conclusively demonstrated the link between weight gain and junk food. The study showed that soda is "the number one problem related to weight gain," Dr. Walter Willett, chair of the Nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, told MSNBC.

But that's not the story that major food companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola or Mars Co. want you to believe. And a new report by ABC suggests that these companies are willing to pay scientists to help produce evidence refuting the link between bad health and a bad diet. The terms of the payments, of course, do not explicitly require the scientists to fudge study results. But scientists who receive big grants from major food companies have been known to testify in favor of junk food in court and in front of Congress. Some have compared such scientists to those who obfuscated the link between smoking and cancerbefore it became incontrovertible—which casts "big sugar" in the same role as "big tobacco."