This article is a collaboration between MedPage Today and:

The University of North Carolina (UNC) is renaming its Raleigh-based children's clinic the Krispy Kreme Challenge Children's Specialty Clinic, the school has announced.

The Krispy Kreme Challenge is an annual charity event consisting of a 5-mile race, during which participants run 2.5 miles, eat a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, and run back.

The organization promised to donate a total of $2 million to the outpatient clinic -- nearly $1 million has been raised since the race's inception as a charity event 9 years ago. The remaining $1 million will be raised by 2020, according to a recent clinic press release.

The new name has prompted concern over the intrusion of the food industry into children's institutions, particularly when the company promotes sugary, high-fat donuts.

"Shame on my colleagues for not finding a way to accept funds without providing free advertisement for junk food," wrote Barry Popkin, MD, a professor of nutrition and economics at UNC, in an email to MedPage Today. "What is interesting about this is if we named this the Winston-Salem [cigarette] clinic, it would outrage America and maybe even the same for the Coca-Cola Clinic, but Krispy Kremes are equally horrible for our health -- they are high sugar, high fat, refined carbohydrate junk food primed to add to the child obesity problem plaguing North Carolina."

The children's clinic said in an email to MedPage Today that Krispy Kreme doesn't fund the challenge and that they don't even provide the donuts for free. Yet Krispy Kreme is listed as an official sponsor on the organization's website.

"The addition of the Krispy Kreme corporate logo in the sponsor listing was a concession made in exchange for use of the name," said the clinic. "The company has never financially contributed to the race."

The challenge began in 2004 after a group called the Parks Scholars did the race as a dare. It became a charity event in 2006. "The race, and all the work that leads up to it (all done on a volunteer basis), is a shining example of these students' leadership, service, and character," according to the organization.

But the name change, which essentially provides free advertising for the donut chain, still did not sit well with one healthcare professional, Robert Lustig, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, who has written extensively on the dangers of processed foods and sugar.

"Industry sponsorship of medicine is a common occurrence," he said in an email. "But it must occur without conflict of interest. Naming rights [are] an automatic conflict of interest. Peddling sugar to children, particularly when we have an epidemic of pediatric obesity and metabolic syndrome, is a flagrant conflict of interest. And N.C. Children's Hospital accepting money for anything that can be detrimental to children is an egregious conflict of interest."

The organization said the additional $1 million is an "unrestricted gift," meaning that the $1 million can be used however the administration of the children's clinic wants it to be used. The money, over the life of the promised gift, comes out to less than $200,000 per year -- not insignificant, but far lower than naming rights are often bought for.

The renaming of institutions by major league donors isn't a new phenomenon, of course; medical schools have sold naming rights to the highest bidder for years. But the children's clinic described the deal as a strategy by both institutions, not as an donation contingent upon a name change.

"I can only describe the renaming as a stewardship strategy on both sides -- UNC Children's wanting to publicly acknowledge the Parks Scholars for their many years of support (past and future) and the Park Scholars wanting to publicly demonstrate their connection and commitment to UNC Children's," said the communications director of the children's clinic. "[It is] just two organizations solidifying their long-time partnership in a very public way."

Lustig added that the institution is far from the only one with a tie to an unhealthy food product. He pointed out that the American Academy of Pediatrics took money from Coca-Cola until this year.

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant," he wrote. "We have to shine a light on all of these misjudgments."