Community Garden Magazine Issue Ten June 2016 Community Garden Magazine Issue Ten June 2016 | Page 33

remark, but that it was a reference to the abstract she had attached for her co-author to
provide feedback on. She said she believed the full paper was "robust."
The flood of industry money in nutrition science partly reflects the field's challenges.
Isolating the effect of any single food on a person's health can be difficult, as evidenced by
the sea of conflicting findings.
The ambiguity and confusion has left the door open for marketers.
Since 2009, the authors of the candy paper have written more than two dozen papers
funded by parties including Kellogg and industry groups for beef, milk and fruit juice.
Two are professors: O'Neil of LSU and Theresa Nicklas at the Baylor College of Medicine.
The third is Victor Fulgoni, a former Kellogg executive and consultant whose website says he
helps companies develop "aggressive, science-based claims about their products."
Their studies regularly delivered favorable conclusions for funders — or as they call them,
"clients."
In a phone interview, Fulgoni said industry-funded studies show favorable results because
companies invest in projects with the "best chance of success." He said any type of funding
creates bias or pressure to deliver results.
"The same kind of questions you're asking me, you should be asking (National Institutes of
Health) researchers," Fulgoni said.
It's true that industry-funded studies don't have a monopoly on the problems in scientific
research. Still, Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University (and no
relation to the food company) said unlike other research, industry-funded studies "are
designed and produced to be useful in marketing. The hypotheses are market driven."

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