03/21/2018 / By Jayson Veley
In this day and age, it’s incredibly important to conduct your own research and examine specific sources of information before arriving at a definitive conclusion. Money talks, as they say, and often times that money has the power to shape public opinion for better or for worse. Take the sugar industry, for example, which WakingTimes.com argues is largely responsible for six decades of science manipulation.
According to an ongoing investigation being conducted by Stanton Glantz from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the sugar industry itself funded a 1967 report that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which “singled out fat and cholesterol as the dietary causes of coronary heart disease and downplayed evidence that sucrose consumption was also a risk factor.” In this way, the sugar industry essentially shaped the overall discussion around heart disease and the risks associated with excessive sugar consumption for the next several decades.
In the year 2016, Stanton Glantz and his collaborators published a statement on their findings, which read in part, “The [Sugar Research Foundation] sponsored its first [coronary heart disease] research project in 1965…. The SRF set the reviews objective, contributed articles for inclusion, and received drafts. The SFR’s funding and role was not disclosed.” Glantz and his collaborators further noted that this sugar industry-sponsored research “successfully cast doubt about the hazards of sucrose while promoting fat as the dietary culprit in CHD.”
The dangers and health risks associated with sugar have been well documented by Natural News over the years. In 2014, for instance, Reuben Chow published a piece titled “Warning: Sugar destroys your health in more ways than one.” In it, Chow explained that consuming high amounts of sugar leads to premature aging, various cancers (breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovary, rectum, etc.), diabetes, heart disease, and loss of muscle mass. Other risks associated with sugar consumption include fatigue and low energy, stress, tooth decay and gum disease, yeast infections and digestive problems.
Chow concluded that “sugary foods are definitely problematic,” and that it would be a good idea for everyone to “stay away from or at least reduce their intake of food products containing refined sugars and refined carbohydrates.”
As if the sugar industry funding a study that was focused on the dietary causes of coronary heart disease wasn’t bad enough, last month, International Business Times reported that a corn syrup lobbyist by the name of Kailee Tkacz is now helping to set USDA dietary guidelines following the issuing of a waiver from White House counsel Donald McGahn last August.
Before setting her sights on becoming a member of the Trump administration back in July of last year, Tkacz was the director of food policy for the Corn Refiners Association, which is a trade group that consists of the four largest producers of corn syrup in the country: Archer Daniels Midland Company, Cargill, Ingredion and Tate & Lyle Americas. Prior to her time with the Corn Refiners Association, Tkacz lobbied on behalf of the Snack Food Association and the National Grocers Association. Before her days as a lobbyist, Tkacz spent a year at the American Legislative Exchange Council as a research analyst on tax policy, and another year at the Charles Koch Institute.
During her time with the Corn Refiners Association, Kailee Tkacz lobbied the USDA, as well as the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Environmental Protection Agency and the FDA on “education regarding federal food policy.” Now this woman, who at one time worked for the largest producers of corn syrup in the country, is setting policy within the Trump administration. If that’s not a conflict of interest, then what is?
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Tagged Under: food science, government, ingredients, lobbyists, propaganda, sugar, sweeteners, USDA