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For Immediate Release
April, 20 2021, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Gary Ruskin +1 415 944 7350 or Mélissa Mialon +33 671756537
The Food Industry Is Shaping the Principles of Scientific Integrity, Study Says
WASHINGTON
The food industry has been trying to revise the standards and principles by which science is conducted, in ways that benefit industry, such as by promoting the acceptance of public-private partnerships and permissiveness about conflicts of interest, according to a study published today in the journal Globalization and Health.
The food industry's work in this area has been led by the International Life Sciences Institute, a nonprofit organization founded by a Coca-Cola executive and funded by the food industry.
The new study found that ILSI's "work on scientific integrity ignores the risks of accepting corporate funding and fails to provide guidelines to protect from these risks."
The study is based on documents obtained from public records requests by U.S. Right to Know, an investigative public health group, as well as others from the public domain and from the UCSF Food Industry Documents Archive.
"What is worrying is that the food industry built a niche literature on scientific integrity through a third party that wasn't known until recently as acting for large food companies," said Melissa Mialon, the lead author of the study, and research fellow at the Trinity Business School of Trinity College Dublin. "Researchers and institutions concerned about conflicts of interest may fail to recognize that influence from corporations in the literature they cite and use to advance scientific integrity principles."
"Big Food wants to manipulate the standards of research and science to defend processed foods that promote obesity, diabetes and other ills," said Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right to Know, one of the co-authors of the study. "It is eroding the integrity of science, which crucially must be independent of and impartial to powerful corporations and their drive for profits."
The study notes that "the food industry, like the alcohol and tobacco industries, tries to influence science's very principles, such as scientific integrity and the good conduct of research."
The study concludes that "ILSI's work on scientific integrity, conflicts of interest and public-private partnerships waters down independent work in that space, puts profits before science, and undermines efforts to address undue influence of industry actors on public policy, research, and practice."
In recent years, ILSI has been the subject of critical reporting, including three articles from The New York Times:
- A Shadowy Industry Group Shapes Food Policy Around the World
- How Chummy Are Junk Food Giants and China's Health Officials? They Share Offices
- Study Tied to Food Industry Tries to Discredit Sugar Guidelines
Most of ILSI's work in the area of scientific integrity was conducted by ILSI-North America, which changed its name in February to the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences.
As a measure of its success, ILSI-North America has stated that its work on scientific integrity and public-private partnerships "has been published in peer-reviewed journals, endorsed by Federal agencies and professional nutrition and food science societies, and cited broadly throughout the scientific community."
The study argues that it is important to "counter these practices as they risk shaping scientific standards to suit the industry's interests rather than public health ones."
The study "found that ILSI is a leading actor, not only in the food industry but more broadly in the scientific community, on the development of scientific integrity standards and principles." It notes that, "In the very process of developing scientific integrity principles, food companies may use their connections with these reputable individuals and organizations to further their influence on science and policy."
The food industry efforts to refashion the principles of science seem to repeat the actions of the tobacco industry. In a 2001 article in the American Journal of Public Health, Elisa Ong and Stanton Glantz wrote of tobacco industry's "sophisticated public relations campaigns controlled by industry executives and lawyers whose aim is to manipulate the standards of scientific proof to serve the corporate interests of their clients."
The study in Globalization and Health is titled, "Beyond nutrition and physical activity: Food industry shaping of the very principles of scientific integrity." It was co-authored by Melissa Mialon, research fellow at the Trinity Business School of Trinity College Dublin; Matthew Ho, a student at the University of Nevada; Angela Carriedo, communications secretary of the World Public Health and Nutrition Association; Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right to Know; and Eric Crosbie, assistant professor at the University of Nevada.
USRTK's fact sheet about ILSI is available at https://usrtk.org/our-investigations/ilsi-wields-stealthy-influence-for-the-food-and-agrichemical-industries/
Gary Ruskin of U.S. Right to Know has co-authored three previous studies on ILSI. They are:
- Pushing partnerships: corporate influence on research and policy via the International Life Sciences Institute. (Public Health Nutrition, 2020)
- Are industry-funded charities promoting "advocacy-led studies" or "evidence-based science"?: a case study of the International Life Sciences Institute. (Globalization and Health, 2019)
- How food companies influence evidence and opinion - straight from the horse's mouth. (Critical Public Health, 2017)
U.S. Right to Know is a nonprofit investigative research group focused on promoting transparency for public health. We are working globally to expose corporate wrongdoing and government failures that threaten the integrity of our health, our environment and our food system.
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JD VANCE: I wouldn't call it a war pic.twitter.com/CH2wot7pW1
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In addition to a ban on superintelligent AI, Casar and Sanders' legislation calls for a pause on all "advanced" AI development until a new federal regulatory body can be established to set clear rules and review processes for AI safety. It would also create a new cabinet-level agency to protect the public from the dangers of AI and to enforce the new restrictions.
"Despite its potential deadly consequences, cutting-edge AI technology is less regulated than the average food truck," Casar said. "That must change. In just four years, we have gone from the first version of ChatGPT to AI models so powerful they cannot be properly controlled."
Evading the law would come with steep penalties: companies that illegally develop superintelligent AI would lose the right to do business under the so-called "corporate death penalty." Individuals, meanwhile, could face up to 20 years in prison, which Casar noted was the same penalty incurred for "building a nuclear weapon" without authorization.
As concerns about unchecked AI capabilities have grown in recent years, executives at companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta have committed to halting the development of their technology once it reaches a point at which it can't be operated safely.
But Sanders and Casar said that "none of these companies have taken meaningful steps to back up these words" and that "instead, they are racing to develop more and more advanced AI without proper safety precautions."
"The future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of Big Tech oligarchs," Sanders said. "The American people and people throughout the world must determine that future.”
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The new Amnesty report noted that in July alone, the Israeli military signed "at least 15 land confiscation orders covering approximately 200 dunams (20 hectares) of land in Areas A and C in the Jenin governorate in the north of the occupied West Bank, with the apparent goal of connecting two planned Israeli settlements in the area: Emek Dotan and Noa." Those two settlements are among the more than 30 approved this year by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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"Alongside Israel’s forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Area C," Morayef added, "these measures illustrate in action the Israeli authorities’ determination to intensify its formal annexation of Palestinian land across the occupied West Bank.”
Amnesty's analysis came amid another wave of settler violence in the West Bank over the past 24 hours. The BBC reported early Thursday that "funerals have taken place for two Palestinian teenagers who local officials say were killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in an attack on their village in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday."
"The village council in al-Mughayyir told the BBC that Omar al-Nassan, 19, and Khalil Abu Alia, 16, were killed as they tried to stop Israeli settlers stealing sheep and that confrontations broke out," the outlet noted. "The Israeli military stated that its forces had entered the village to provide security for an Israeli civilian and police trying to retrieve livestock. It said they fired on and struck what it called 'key instigators' of a 'violent disturbance,' in which Palestinians threw stones at its troops."
The United Nations has tallied an average of nearly seven settler attacks per day in the West Bank this year, the highest number on record.
Amid the settler rampages as well as the ongoing genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government has advanced "its controversial E1 settlement plan in violation of international law with an announcement that it has opened tenders for the construction of 1,234 Israeli homes in the occupied West Bank," Amnesty noted on Thursday.
"If implemented, the plan would isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of Palestinian territory and will effectively divide the West Bank in two, making Palestinian movement across these areas of the occupied Palestinian territory more difficult and further fragmenting Palestinian communities," the group said.
Last last month, the European Union's diplomatic service called on the Israeli government to "withdraw the tender, halt its E1 plans as well as all other settlement expansion projects, and ensure accountability for settler violence."
But Morayef said Thursday that the international community must do much more than issue statements condemning the Israeli government's actions.
"States with close trade and political relationships with the Israeli government must urgently take action to pressure Israel to rescind these land confiscation orders," said Morayef. "Any states providing assistance to Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements or other war crimes risk complicity in international crimes against Palestinians."
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ICE Hired Unqualified Goons After 'Unprecedented Lowering of Standards': Whistleblower
Immigration and Customs Enforcement "chose... to be more convenient rather than thorough," even though "there was a potential to put lives at risk," said the whistleblower.
Sep 03, 2026
A whistleblower is claiming that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dangerously lowered its hiring standards for new recruits, who were given final job offers without undergoing even preliminary vetting.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that the whistleblower, who has worked at ICE for 17 years, filed a complaint in August 2025 with the Office of Inspector General in the Department of Homeland Security that sounded alarms about what he described as an "unprecedented lowering of standards" for hiring.
According to the complaint, applicants were offered jobs before they they even passed fingerprint and identity checks, which the whistleblower said created "grave national security risks" for the agency.
In an interview with the Times, the whistleblower said that ICE "chose... to be more convenient rather than thorough," even though "there was a potential to put lives at risk and jeopardize national security."
This is at least the second whistleblower complaint to raise concerns about the deterioration of standards at ICE.
In February, former ICE lawyer Ryan Schwank alleged in a complaint that he "received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant."
Schwank also alleged that "the legally required training program at the ICE academy is deficient, defective, and broken," which he warned "can and will get people killed."
ICE's hiring standards came under scrutiny this summer after it was revealed that ICE agent David Brouillette, who fatally shot a 25-year-old Colombian immigrant named Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, had a lengthy history of allegedly abusive behavior.
As noted by the Times, Brouillette was even rejected for a job at the police department in Hallowell, Maine because he had "too many red flags."
The ICE hiring surge came shortly after passage of the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allocated more than $170 billion in funding for immigration enforcement operations. ICE last year said it would use some of the money to hire 10,000 additional agents, more than double the number of agents who had previously worked at the department.
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Honor Life of Gloria Steinem (1934-2026) 'By Organizing' for Rights, Equality, and Freedom
"Thank you, Gloria, for showing the world what it means to speak up for women’s equality."
Sep 03, 2026
Progressive advocates, lawmakers, veteran journalists, labor leaders, and champions of feminism on Thursday are mourning the death of trailblazing women's rights activist and author Gloria Steinem, who has passed away at the age of 92.
Steinem, regarded as an icon of the second-wave feminism that emerged in the 1960s and 70s and co-founder of Ms. Magazine, was known for decades as a leading voice on reproductive rights, women's equality at work, and gender equity across society.
According to her representatives, Steinem died Wednesday at her home in New York City, surrounded by loved ones. An exact cause of death was not given.
"It is a moment of remembrance and celebration of this extraordinary woman. And it is too a moment of reflection." —Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International
"Gloria’s near-century on earth was years well-lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end," read a message posted to her Instagram account.
"Gloria’s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard,” the message continued. “Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves. Gloria lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor.”
"Oh no," declared Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, upon learning of Steinem's passing.
"It is a moment of remembrance and celebration of this extraordinary woman. And it is too a moment of reflection," Callamard said. "The fight for gender justice and women’s equality is at a critical juncture. The advancements of the last decades are attacked, threatened, mocked. We resist, fight back, build anew."
The progressive advocacy group Our Revolution said that Gloria Steinem "understood that liberation is not something handed down from the powerful. It is something ordinary people organize and fight for."
For more than 50 years, the group added, "she fought for women to have power over our bodies, our work, our lives and our futures. And she understood that the struggle for women’s liberation could never be separated from the struggles for racial justice, economic justice and human dignity. At a moment when women’s rights and fundamental freedoms are once again under attack, the best way we can honor Gloria is not simply by remembering her. It is by organizing. Rest in power, Gloria Steinem."
According to the New York Times:
Steinem helped usher in sweeping cultural transformations across virtually every facet of American life, from the boardroom to the courtroom to the bedroom.
For more than half a century, she personified the women’s movement and became its most enduring symbol; her tinted aviator glasses and curtain of streaked-blond hair parted in the center made her one of the most recognizable women in the world.
A prolific writer, Steinem started her career as a journalist in the 60s and in 1972 she co-founded Ms. Magazine, a publication focused on women's issues with the idea of translating "a movement into a magazine."
Steinem, wrote CNN's chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour, "will go down in history as one of the most important activists of all time, leading a movement for the equality of half the world: its women."
"She lived a long and passionate life dedicated to this vital and basic cause," Amanpour continued. "She did it with intellectual precision, emotional awareness, humor and beauty. May she rest in peace and may the cause thrive."
In a video posted to social media, Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said that Steinem "always understood that gender equality was absolutely bound up with economic equality and racial justice and that has to continue to be our North Star."
Rest in power, Gloria Steinem. pic.twitter.com/z6f7MMNOVq
— Rep. Becca Balint (@RepBeccaB) September 3, 2026
In 2017, after the first election of President Donald Trump, Steinem was one of the key leaders behind the Women's March, which kicked off opposition to the far-right Republican, with marches in cities nationwide that helped galvanize resistance to the destructive policies to come.
At the time, Steinem warned that Trump's arrival in the White House represented "disaster and a danger," but added that the upside of his ascendancy could be the force brought together to galvanize against him.
“He’s made us see that everything is connected,” she said. “I’m a hope-aholic, nonetheless. I feel we’re beginning to approach the end of one structure and the beginning of another. It’s a time of both danger and possibilities.”
As the Associated Press reports:
On Jan. 21, 2017, when hundreds of thousands of women gathered in Washington in their pink “pussy hats” for the historic Women’s March, it surprised nobody that the keynote speaker, and the most rousing, was Steinem.
“We are linked,” she told the crowd. “And this is a day that will change us forever because we are together.”
For many women, Steinem was the galvanizing voice that day. She would go on to advocate fiercely. But, though many saw her as a singular figure in history, she often liked to say that if she hadn’t come along, someone else would have accomplished the same things.
By the same token, she said, it was less important that younger people listen to her, and more important that they listen to themselves.
“The primary thing is not that they know who I am,” she said, “but that they know who THEY are.”
As news of Steinem's passing spread on Thursday, others offered their reflections on her life and accomplishments.
"Thank you, Gloria, for showing the world what it means to speak up for women’s equality," said the National Organization for Women (NOW) in a statement. "Thank you for fighting for our rights so that every woman and every person can live with dignity, freedom, and equality."
Democratic New York State Rep. Jessica Ramos said Steinem "spent her life refusing to accept a world where women were expected to settle for less."
"She organized, challenged power, and helped turn women’s equality into a movement that changed America," Ramos said. "We honor her legacy by refusing to go backward."
"Gloria Steinem did not simply advocate for women; she changed what women believed was possible," said Victoria Mancinelli, a member of the labor movement in Canada, in response to news of Steinem's death.
"She confronted a world that expected women to remain quiet, accept less, and wait patiently for progress. Gloria refused. Through her journalism, activism, and unrelenting pursuit of equality, she helped transform deeply personal struggles into a powerful collective movement and forced institutions to recognize women as leaders, decision-makers, and agents of change."
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