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What the experts say

Marion NestlePhD, MPH · Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, New York University

No, not for research related to the funder's products. She can see no viable way to take the money and stay independent, and applies the rule to herself: travel reimbursement accepted, honoraria redirected to her university.

What it rests onHer argument is not corruption but blindness: recipients cannot see the influence of a financial relationship on their own work, which she supports by analogy to the cigarette, pharmaceutical and medical-device literatures. Asked directly whether there is a workable middle path, she answers 'I regret that I cannot think of any viable way to do that.' Read the whole post before quoting her: she does accept travel reimbursement, so 'no industry money at all' overstates her position.

Source: foodpolitics.com ↗

Dariush MozaffarianMD, DrPH · cardiologist and nutrition epidemiologist, Tufts

Take it, disclose it in full, and state on the record that the funder had no role. This is his practice, published and dated, rather than an argument he has been read making.

Source: nature.com ↗

Overview

Not a population question. It is a professional-ethics question addressed to researchers and to professional societies, and neither side asks you to do anything. What Nestle's side offers a reader is the different and weaker step of checking who funded a study. This belongs as background, not as a choice you make.

Where they agree

Both hold that funding must be disclosed and that a reader should be able to see it. Neither disputes that the disclosure statements exist or that they are accurate.

What would settle it

For Nestle, evidence that disclosed industry funding does not shift conclusions in nutrition specifically, which her own tally deliberately stops short of establishing. For the other side, the Food Compass sequence is the natural test and it currently cuts against the cynical reading: the Danone-funded version scored cereals higher and meat lower, and the publicly funded 2024 revision moved beef, pork, eggs and seafood up and cereals down.

Practice does not pick a winner here

You do, and your call is dated, kept, and yours to change. Follow the people you already trust and what they publish turns into a short daily practice.

• Record where you land on this, and change your mind later without losing the history
• The 2 practices that follow from this question, graded and linked to the source
• Everything else these people publish, read and graded, in one place

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