Readers of USA Today, the LA Times and Atlantic Monthly might expect that prominent university professors quoted as independent experts on obesity would relay objective information based on the best science. They would be wrong.
Over the past few months, through excellent investigative work, journalists Anahad O’Connor and Candice Choi unmasked a scheme that should look familiar to anyone following health and environmental news: corporations paying front groups and scientists to spin the media and public in order to protect their products.
In this latest example, Coca-Cola—facing slipping sales and increasing pressure to regulate its products that are fueling the nation’s obesity epidemic—launched a new front group led by prominent professors. As O’Connor reported in the New York Times (8/9/15):