![]() Kevin Folta, chairman at the horticulture sciences department at the University of Florida, wrote in one email to a Monsanto executive: “I am grateful for this opportunity and promise a solid return on the investment.”įolta wrote in an email to The Guardian that the claims made in the Times article were “flat-out lies” and that any answers he provided to an industry-backed site regarding GMOs were entirely his own words, and not scripted answers. In some cases, industry advisors even provided scripted answers to academics to answers such as “Do GMOs cause cancer?” According to an investigation into the emails by the New York Times, the biotech industry has published “dozens of articles” under the names of respected scientists, some of which were drafted by PR consultants. Monsanto and other ag-biotech companies have recruited academics, and paid them in the form of grants and trips to publicly defend the safety of herbicides used on genetically engineered crops, according to private emails uncovered by nonprofit US Right To Know. Here are just a few examples of food and beverage companies footing the bill for research that could be spun into pseudoscience-based PR. ![]() “Research, however, shows strong correlations between funding and research outcome.” “Researchers who take food industry funding do not believe that it affects their study design or interpretation and are outraged at the suggestion,” Nestle said. In fact, researchers don’t think industry funding influences results, but evidence suggests otherwise, she added. Companies don’t pay researchers to come to a favorable conclusion. “Is it really true that food companies deliberately set out to manipulate research in their favor? Yes it is, and the practice continues,” wrote Nestle in a commentary that accompanied the new report criticizing the sugar industry. A 2007 review of 206 studies that looked at the health benefits of milk, soda and fruit juices found that those sponsored entirely by a food or beverage company were four to eight times more likely to show positive health effects from consuming those products. Other research has come to similar conclusions. Her research uncovered 168 such studies in that year alone, and of those, 156 showed biased results that favored the sponsor’s interests, she told the Guardian. ![]() New York University nutrition professor Marion Nestle began informally tracking studies funded by food and beverage companies, as well as trade groups, in 2015. ![]()
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