
Big Soda sponsored 96 health groups – a big conflict of interest, study says - r721
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/10/10/big-soda-sponsored-96-health-groups-a-big-conflict-of-interest-study-says/
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ravenstine
On a side topic, why isn't there a sort of escrow for research groups where
they can receive money and return results without knowing who is funding them?
Or does such a thing exist? That might be a great way for a person to tell how
much credibility a study has, besides the actual methodologies used.

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confluence
You mean like the government?

You pay in taxes, government dispenses research funds, you don't know where
the money is from.

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aninhumer
Sure, more government funding would be nice, but no, the idea described is not
really like government science funding at all.

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Shivetya
Conflict of interest but its interesting to note both Coke and Pepsi also own
major juice brands and these get a free pass most of the time when laws are
crafted to reduce intake of sugary food.

so if soda accounts for twenty percent of so of weight gain, what accounts for
the vast majority? I would still place my bets on junk foods similar to
cookies, chips and such, but cannot discount prepared breakfast and dinners.

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igor_filippov
Don't know how juices in US are, but here in Europe there's a lot of sugar
inside.

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awqrre
They are full of sugars too, for example this 100% Apple juice that I have is
28g of sugars per 240ml. But most fruit juices that they sell aren't really
fruit juices and labels are really deceptive. For my kids, I mix fruit juices
with equal part water to help reduce sugars.

Fruit juices are fruits with lots of the good stuff removed but I still
consider fruits as desserts and not very healthy...

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elros
> I still consider fruits as desserts and not very healthy...

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but why wouldn't fruits as desserts be healthy?

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astrange
Why would fruit be healthy? They're living off the good reputation from the
phrase "fruits and vegetables", but fructose isn't good for you and the
vitamins are overrated.

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tkyjonathan
fruitarian: a person who eats only fruit.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitarianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitarianism)

Fruit and vegetable consumption and all-cause mortality: a dose-response
analysis
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23803880](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23803880)

~~~
astrange
I appreciate that the Wikipedia link just says not to do it.

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r721
Paper:
[http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(16)30331-2/full...](http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797\(16\)30331-2/fulltext)

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kahrkunne
A Big Conflict of interest?

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ourmandave
I don't know if they're committing all sorts of asshattery or what, but it's
hard to be mad at something called Big Soda.

That's like naming your bad guy Darth Funsies.

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M_Grey
How about... "Big Metabolic Syndrome"?

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JoeAltmaier
They can't win apparently. They contribute to public obesity - they're
justifiably slammed. Same if they contribute to public health (conceivably the
outcome of a lawsuit might be to compel them to do so; here they are doing it
voluntarily) - slammed again, but in a backhanded way this time.

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confluence
They can't win because they are on the wrong side of history and they are
fighting dirty by using stealth operations to turn the conversation from diet
to exercise. As if the average American can, or will, exercise enough to even
burn off 1 additional can of soda on top of their already caloric rich diets.

What they are doing is no different from the various operations Big Tobacco
did in the past to misinform, dissuade or deflect the conversation on
cigarettes.

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ravenstine
This sounds a lot like how many large tech firms operate. I'm not saying that
you are wrong, but that it's easy to point out "big" whatevery and forget
where our dollar bills come from. Silicon Valley is by no means clean of
business practices that include misinformation and "disruptive" anti-
competitive practices. Can we really blame Big Soda forever?

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ravenstine
@praptak Sure, it is. It just wasn't invalidating what was said. The point I
was making is that we don't scrutinize many businesses to the same degree as
tobacco, for example, and if we do we certainly don't hold it against them for
very long. Why treat Coke or Pepsi differently? I guess one could argue
because it has a direct effect upon our health. Even then, I wouldn't
necessarily conclude that they are trying to influence their own studies or
cherry pick data. I would be suspicious of it, though.

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chillwaves
Except there are decades of misinformation that have already happened -- that
fact completely undermines whatever point you are trying to make about the
innocence of these lobbying efforts by big Soda.

