Fast Food and Junk Science

There are deep conflicts of interest for scientists on fast food’s payroll, and that means we can’t always trust the experts.

Dr. David Allison was about to become president of the scientific research group, The Obesity Society, when it was discovered he was on the payroll of the restaurant industry. Read more about how these conflicts of interest play out when it comes to nutrition science.

Fast food executives routinely pay well-known scientists to sit on “nutrition advisory councils.” These councils make it seem as though fast food giants are taking their role in the obesity epidemic seriously, but have little impact on the overall damage to our health that fast food causes.

The job of the nutritionists and physicians hired by McDonald’s or Burger King is to make these corporations seem like part of the solution.

Fast food corporations routinely fund national health professional groups, hoping it will give their members positive feelings about an unhealthy industry.

From the American Academy of Family Physicians to the American Dietetic Association, fast food transnationals sponsor and partner with health professional organizations every day. Could this financial conflict of interest be silencing the health professions about fast food's contribution to the global epidemic of diet-related disease?