Re: Should we welcome food industry funding of public health research?
I think Paul Aveyard and Derek Yach’s advocacy of the commercial funding of research (BMJ 2016:353:i2161) shows a lack of imagination if nothing else. They may be interested in testing whether shoppers could be persuaded to make better use of traffic light nutrition labels, to use their example, but the industry could obviously be interested in finding out whether they could comply with government guidelines in this respect without damaging sales. It is not at all cynical to say that many producers would like to deflect regulation – just look at the efforts of the tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-related industries to do this over so many years. Researchers whose salaries depend on the industry will of course be beholden to it whether payment goes to the institution which employs them or to them directly. Given the extraordinary and expensive efforts so many in the industry have made in the past to produce misleading research results, not to mention developing misleading packaging and devising dodgy deals to induce consumers to consume more, and adding sugar and salt etc. to food products to increase sales despite the evidence of the harm they do, the strong safeguards Aveyard and Yach specify will only be credible if the funding of research is completely independent.
Rapid Response:
Re: Should we welcome food industry funding of public health research?
I think Paul Aveyard and Derek Yach’s advocacy of the commercial funding of research (BMJ 2016:353:i2161) shows a lack of imagination if nothing else. They may be interested in testing whether shoppers could be persuaded to make better use of traffic light nutrition labels, to use their example, but the industry could obviously be interested in finding out whether they could comply with government guidelines in this respect without damaging sales. It is not at all cynical to say that many producers would like to deflect regulation – just look at the efforts of the tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-related industries to do this over so many years. Researchers whose salaries depend on the industry will of course be beholden to it whether payment goes to the institution which employs them or to them directly. Given the extraordinary and expensive efforts so many in the industry have made in the past to produce misleading research results, not to mention developing misleading packaging and devising dodgy deals to induce consumers to consume more, and adding sugar and salt etc. to food products to increase sales despite the evidence of the harm they do, the strong safeguards Aveyard and Yach specify will only be credible if the funding of research is completely independent.
Competing interests: No competing interests