Bribe of scientists by sugar industry uncovered!

Recently, a postdoc researcher was going through the archives at Harvard and other universities and discovered internal documents of the Sugar Research Foundation (now known as the Sugar Association) showing that they bribed three Harvard scientists to play down a link between sugar and heart disease and instead point the finger at fat. The scientists, who are now dead, were paid an equivalent of $50,000 in today’s dollars (the bribery occurred in the 60’s). At the time, research had begun pointing the finger at sugar. To counteract this direction, John Hickson, a top sugar industry executive, discussed a plan to shift public opinion “through our research and information and legislative programs.”

The scientists published, in the New England Journal of Medicine, a review of research--hand picked by the sugar people--that was skewed to make sugar look innocent and saturated fat look guilty. As Dr. Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at UCSF says, “It was a very smart thing the sugar industry did, because review papers, especially if you get them published in a very prominent journal, tend to shape the overall scientific discussion.” (The New England Journal of Medicine did not require financial disclosures until 1984.)

Thus, for fifty years, the role of nutrition in heart disease has been largely shaped by the sugar industry. Incidentally, one of those three scientists went on to become the head of nutrition at the United States Department of Agriculture where he helped shape the dietary guidelines. The guidelines put carbohydrates at the base of the pyramid, telling us that we should be eating 6 to 11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta a day. No fat, but a heck of a lot of carbs, which, by the way, convert quickly to sugar.

The sugar industry’s influence (and that of other scientists, such as Ancel Keys, who also doctored his data) led Americans to choose low-fat, high sugar foods that some experts now blame for fueling the “obesity crisis.” For example, people didn’t eat much yogurt until the low-fat, sugared varieties came on the market. Now they are hugely popular. A six-ounce container of strawberry-flavored Yoplait, advertised as 99 percent fat free, has more sugar than a Twinkie.

I’m no purist where sugar is concerned, but I refuse to buy anything advertised as low fat. Which reminds me: one of the things that annoys me about this anti-fat business is that canned tuna—which used to be packed in oil—is now packed in water. I hate that!

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