Note: this is an opinionated blog.
“You can not solve a problem that you profit from creating”
Dr. Chris van Tulleken
It takes courage to go against Industry.
It took 25 years for lead to be removed from gasoline (1).
Oil companies knew about climate change as early as the 1950s, and the American Petroleum Institute (API) was aware of the potential for human-caused global warming by then.
The dangers of asbestos were recognized over time, beginning in the 1890s and continuing through the 1900s and 1940s. In the early 1900s, researchers began to notice a large number of early deaths and lung problems in asbestos-mining towns. The asbestos industry covered up the dangers of asbestos for decades, despite corporate memos acknowledging the medical literature. (3)
In 2024 it is still not completely banned. (4)
The tobacco industry fueled “doubt” via “scientific” studies that muddled the truth. (5)
Ultra-Processed Foods (UPF)
This week on December 24, 2024, on WPR was a rebroadcast of an interview that caught my attention. The title of the program is: “What the rise of ultra-processed foods means for our health and society” (6) as an interview of infectious disease doctor Dr. Chris van Tulleken, an NHS infectious diseases doctor at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, one of the UK’s leading science presenters and a New York Times bestselling author.
While the discussion was about UPF, there was something in the interview that resonated with me and trigged this post title: Scientific accuracy does not guarantee integrity.
A lot of effort was made during the presentation to clearly define what are Ultra-Processed Foods (UPF). However, somewhere in the middle of the interview was the phone call from a “licensed nutritionist in Baltimore” that quoted a paper (7) that raises the concerns of scientific integrity in the moral sense.
Dr van Tulleken made it clear that while the science in the paper is “flawless” the questions raised do not match the UPF definition.
I was completely baffled by the heavy bias of the intervention of one of the authors, Dr. Joanne Slavin, professor in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota. I could not believe a word she uttered. Fortunately Dr van Tulleken clarified a lot of the verbiage, and clearly exposed the bias, as well as the conflicts of interests in the paper cited verbatim from reference Hess et al. (7)
Conflicts of Interest
MM serves as the Director of Nutrition Science and Research for the Soy Nutrition Institute (SNI) Global. The SNI Global receives funding from soybean farmers via the soybean national checkoff program and via membership dues from companies involved in manufacturing and/or selling soy ingredients and/or soyfoods. GHJ serves as Senior Advisor to the McCormick Science Institute. JLS serves on advisory/consultant boards for Simply Good Foods, Quality Carbohydrates Coalition, and the Sustainable Nutrition Scientific Board and has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, Taiyo, Barilla Foods, and the USDA in the past 12 mo. The other authors report no conflicts of interest.
Hess et al. (7)
Videos
In a recent presentation at the Royal Institution titled “Ultra processed foods and the third age of eating” (8) Dr. Chris van Tulleken shared in slides that the Tobacco industry has acquired many food companies. And this is alarming. on the Q&A follow-up video (9) he exposed radical ideas about poverty and how it is all connected.
There are many videos that can be easily found on YouTube, and more on the Royal Institution web site with the 2024 Christmas lecture: https://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures.
Dr Chris van Tulleken does not offer advice and is keenly aware that many people can only afford UPF as affordable food source. This alone is a major concern for the future, and the current and future cost to Society.
The politics
A recent article in Axios (10) gives more details on the US politics regarding Ultra-Processed Foods and the added attention to the health consequences, chronic disease in particular. However, the article does not raise high hopes that things will change, citing the fact that the large food companies “dwarf the old tobacco companies” (Barry Popkin, nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina) and “Eating healthfully is very bad for business and there are huge economic forces that mitigate against trying to do anything about chronic disease” (Marion Nestle, emerita professor of nutrition at New York University.)
Reference
(1) Needleman HL. The removal of lead from gasoline: historical and personal reflections. Environ Res. 2000 Sep;84(1):20-35. doi: 10.1006/enrs.2000.4069. PMID: 10991779.
(2) G. Supran , S. Rahmstorf , and N. Oreskes, Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections, Science, 13 Jan 2023, Vol 379, Issue 6628, DOI: 10.1126/science.abk0063
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos
(4) https://www.asbestos.com/mesothelioma-lawyer/legislation/
(5) Brownell KD, Warner KE. The perils of ignoring history: Big Tobacco played dirty and millions died. How similar is Big Food? Milbank Q. 2009 Mar;87(1):259-94. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0009.2009.00555.x. PMID: 19298423; PMCID: PMC2879177.
(6) What the rise of ultra-processed foods means for our health and society, by Daniel Ackerman and Meghna Chakrabarti – (rebroadcast originally aired on October 2, 2023.)
(7) Hess JM, Comeau ME, Casperson S, Slavin JL, Johnson GH, Messina M, Raatz S, Scheett AJ, Bodensteiner A, Palmer DG. Dietary Guidelines Meet NOVA: Developing a Menu for A Healthy Dietary Pattern Using Ultra-Processed Foods. J Nutr. 2023 Aug;153(8):2472-2481. doi: 10.1016/j.tjnut.2023.06.028. Epub 2023 Jun 24. PMID: 37356502.
(8) Ultra processed foods and the third age of eating – with Chris van Tulleken
(9) Q&A: Ultra processed foods and the third age of eating – with Chris van Tulleken