Obesity tsars, sugar firms paying them a fortune and a VERY unhealthy relationship



Concerns: Campaigners have blasted health officials, including Professor Ian MacDonald, for working as a paid advisor for Coca Cola

You might think that there was a sign above every university and medical school announcing: ‘Top scientists for sale!’



According to an investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, five of the eight members of the Government’s scientific committee on nutrition receive funding from large confectionary companies.



The chairman, Professor Ian Macdonald, receives money not only from Unilever, the world’s biggest ice-cream maker, but from Coca-Cola and Mars, too.



Another of the Government’s most trusted scientists on diet, sugar and heart disease, Professor Tom Sanders, has been given £4.5 million towards his research by sugar giant Tate & Lyle.



If they enjoy such sweet business connections, can we trust the advice our scientists give us on diet and obesity?



Have the men and women in white coats - once thought incorruptible, above politics and devoted only to the purity of scientific fact - been bought up by the industries they have been asked to help regulate?



Of course, universities and research institutes need money to fund their programmes. But we should be very worried about industry funding scientists who advise the Government on how to look after our people’s health.



Perhaps the most shocking thing about Professor Macdonald, chairman of the ‘independent’ Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), being funded by three food multinationals is that most of his peers aren’t shocked at all.

The scientific establishment likes to tell you it is above such conflicts of interest. Supporters would say Professor Macdonald is so eminent in his field - diabetes and obesity - that the news that Coca-Cola pays thousands of pounds into his personal bank account is of no consequence.



But you may remember we used to be told MPs didn’t suffer conflicts of interest - they could be trusted utterly. Then it turned out that backbenchers touted themselves for hire regularly.

They took money for parliamentary questions from their corporate friends, while ministers sold rich businessmen peerages.



There is, of course, no evidence Professor Macdonald and his friends on the SACN committee - all of whom are paid by the taxpayer to be there - have put the interests of the companies that back them first.



But consistently, the SACN has gone against the general tide of scientific opinion as the epidemic of obesity and diet-related diabetes has become Britain’s most pressing public health problem.

Its forthcoming report on sugar and health will be of huge concern to every parent in the land. The committee’s reports are the main reason official health advice on the amounts of sugar we eat hasn’t changed in 23 years.



But our diet - and accompanying health problems - have changed drastically since. Back then, obesity was rare and the chief threat from sugar was to our teeth.



Could this reluctance to condemn the added sugar in our diets have anything to do with five of the eight members - including two other professors - of the SACN committee having links to the sweets and sugar industry, which has funded their research to the tune of millions of pounds?



Sadly, the SACN story is all too familiar. Other supposedly independent health advisory bodies are habitually stuffed with scientists and industry insiders who would have to be saints to remain impartial.



The Government’s Alcohol Working Group has just played a major role in reversing David Cameron’s pledge to tackle teenage abuse of cheap alcohol with minimum pricing.

When Cameron made the pledge three years ago, there were just two alcohol industry members on the 16-strong committee.



Within six months, half the non-government members of the committee had links to the booze business or were employed by the likes of Heineken or the Scotch Whisky Association. The public health minister at the time, Anne Milton, said she hadn’t noticed.



Similarly, in the medical drugs business, industry has always sought close ties with government and academia to sell its wares.

Numerous scandals have resulted and the phrase ‘Big Pharma’ was coined to describe the way the biggest pharmaceutical companies are able to influence who receives research money.



Sweetener: The involvement of big business in official advisory boards exists in other industries, too

The Government’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which decides on drug and equipment purchases, is frequently criticised for allowing drugs company employees and industry-funded scientists onto its decision-making committees.



This is something corporate lobbyists here have learned from the U.S.



In 2003, U.S. sugar producers managed to persuade President George Bush to threaten to withdraw funding from the United Nations World Health Organisation.



The offence? WHO scientists wanted to publish guidelines saying that sugar should make up only 10 per cent of the average diet. (It is around 20 per cent in many parts of the developed world.)



Though most authorities, including the NHS, agreed, the sugar lobby managed to find scientists to support their cause.

Funding: Professor Macdonald has accepted money from Mars - though he says he has never discussed Government work with them

So, how can we taxpayers know if scientists are being open about their backers?



Some make it plain. Tom Sanders, the King’s College London professor of nutrition and diabetes criticised for taking £4.5 million from sugar giant Tate & Lyle for a research facility at St Thomas’ Hospital, lists on his website who, including government agencies, has funded him.



But Professor Macdonald, at the centre of the new row over sweet industry funding, says nothing about his business backers on his Nottingham University web page, though he did inform the Government of his industry connections before he took the SACN role.



Many eminent academics and doctors say these conflicts of interest have to stop. Professor Simon Capewell, who works on public health at Liverpool University and campaigns for the reduction of sugar in processed foods, has called for Professor Macdonald to resign. ‘It’s like putting Dracula in charge of a blood bank,’ he says.



Conflict of interest: Studies have shown that scientists funded by big businesses, such as Coca-Cola, are more likely to produce work which is favourable to the industry

‘If Ian Macdonald doesn’t step down, there will be real concerns that their [the SACN] recommendations will be prejudiced by commercial factors rather than scientific public health priorities.’



Eminent pharmacologist Professor David Colquhoun of University College London says that the Macdonald case represents a ‘shocking conflict of interest’. He believes all scientists should make all their interests clear in every speech and academic paper.



In the field of drugs, says Professor Colquhoun, ‘far too many clinicians accept money from pharma [companies] and do nothing about it’.

On his blog, Improbable Science, he lists academics who have compromised their independence through their ties with businesses. It makes depressing reading.



While views from those within industry are worth hearing, ‘no advisory committee should have a majority from the industry side on it,’ he says.



Last night on Dispatches, Professor Macdonald had an opportunity to defend himself. He said he never discussed any of his Government work with Coca-Cola or Mars.



‘I am not to be bought off by anybody,’ he said. He denied being biased and said that it is important to confer with industry representatives.



But while it may be true that Professor Macdonald is not to be bought, there are studies showing medical scientists funded by any industry tend to produce work biased in that industry’s favour.



One influential paper from last year examined research on sugary drinks and weight gain. The researchers looked at 17 academic studies and found that when the authors had connections to the sugar industry, they were five times as likely to conclude sugary drinks did not make you fat.



We’ll find out later this year just how ‘independent’ Ian Macdonald’s committee on nutrition really is when it delivers its much-awaited report on sugar and obesity.



Many within the scientific community will be watching keenly to see whether a spoonful of financial sugar will sweeten the report in the favour of the confectionery giants.

