Research Scrutiny

Eric Petersen for The Chronicle

Corporate influence over science tends to be subtle. Just as politicians who solicit donations from Wall Street banks deny allegiance to their backers, scientists insist that the money they accept from industry does not alter their scholarly conclusions. Surely no university researcher would ever admit being in cahoots with a company.

Not usually, anyway. In November, the Associated Press obtained emails sent by James O. Hill, a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Colorado at Denver and director of the university’s Center for Human Nutrition, to executives at the Coca-Cola Company. In addition to his position at Colorado, Mr. Hill is (or, rather, was) president of the Global Energy Balance Network, a nonprofit created to “connect and engage multi-disciplinary scientists and other experts around the globe dedicated to applying and advancing the science of energy balance to achieve healthier living.” By emphasizing so-called energy balance, GEBN sought to shift the blame for obesity from sugary drinks to lack of exercise.

The group was bankrolled in part by Coca-Cola, a relationship that was disclosed in the website’s fine print. Suspicions were raised, first in The New York Times, regarding the soda-friendly public statements made by scientists affiliated with the group, but Mr. Hill’s emails really pulled back the curtain. In one email, he wrote to a Coke executive that “I want to help your company avoid the image of being a problem in people’s lives and back to being a company that brings important and fun things to them.” Coming from a marketing executive, such a bland assertion would be unremarkable. Coming from one of the nation’s leading obesity researchers, it seemed, at the very least, unseemly.

In the last few years, the reliability of research generally has inspired significant hand-wringing. Often that worry has focused on scientists who collect or select data until dubious results become significant. High-profile fakery among researchers has also been a problem. The website Retraction Watch, which monitors such scandals, is not hurting for material.

The Coke scandal is likely to shine a brighter spotlight on how private money affects what goes on in laboratories.

Post-scandal, the Global Energy Balance Network was shuttered and the University of Colorado at Denver returned a $1-million grant from the company. Coke scrambled to save face. Since then, Mr. Hill has remained mostly mum. While he turned down an interview request, he did note that none of the $550,000 that Coke had donated to the University of Colorado Foundation since 2010 went to him personally (though since 2012, he acknowledged, Coke has paid him $4,000 in speaking fees).

So was this merely an isolated case of a corporate relationship that grew too cozy?

Far from it, according to Marion Nestle. A professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University who writes the watchdog blog Food Politics, she thinks corporate influence over nutrition research is so pervasive, and so widely accepted, that it endangers the credibility of her field.

“They’re funded by nuts and avocado and pork and pears and plums and pomegranates — anything you can think of,” Ms. Nestle says. To pluck one example, a study published last year touted the “unique health benefits of pears” and urgently called for more pear-focused research. A footnote revealed that the authors had “received a grant from USA Pears in the past.”

The funding source should give readers, and eaters, pause. Often, according to Ms. Nestle, studies like this ask questions that “have almost no relevance to human health, but have a great deal of relevance to marketing.” That doesn’t mean researchers are necessarily conspiring with industry to concoct bogus research. “Everybody who takes industry funding believes that it has no effect on the design, conduct, and interpretation of their research,” she says. Yet reams of research on how drug companies influence doctors show that even tiny freebies (free pens, anyone?) can create unconscious bias.

While nutrition studies has found itself in the cross hairs recently, other fields are not immune: The sway of big oil and big tobacco over scientific research is by now well documented. A recent investigation by an advocacy group called Campaign for Accountability found that so-called payday-lending companies, often accused of trapping low-income customers in cycles of debt, had financed research concluding that — surprise! — short-term, high-interest loans weren’t so bad after all.

So what’s the solution? Transparency, certainly. But that’s no panacea: The now-defunct Global Energy Balance Network disclosed its funding sources, just not its apparent deference to industry. There’s discussion among nutrition researchers of creating a firewall between funding sources and scientists to prevent bias. But right now it’s just talk. Says Ms. Nestle: “Every society, research group, and university department of nutrition research is scrambling to find ways that it can take industry money and not have it bite them.”

Tom Bartlett is a senior writer who covers science and other things. Follow him on Twitter @tebartl.