Harvard: Does the University Sell What the Customer Wants?
September 22, 2016
I know that online facilitates many functions. One can look up information. One can make up information and disseminate it so the information becomes “accurate.” One can take money and combine many functions in one glorious paean to academic integrity and scholarly research.
Consider fat and sugar. The Harvard crowd prefers kale and spring water, but for the moment consider these two essential components of many university commissaries.
Why am I linking online and the complements of chocolate and salt? The answer is my reaction to “Sugar Industry Secretly Paid for Favorable Harvard Research.” For the moment, let’s assume that this article is spot on. Hey, if something is online, that something is accurate, factual, and dead right. Well, that is what Jasper and Olli, along with the rest of the Beyond Search barn yard crew believe.
The write up informed me:
As nutrition debates raged in the 1960s, prominent Harvard nutritionists published two reviews in a top medical journal downplaying the role of sugar in coronary heart disease. Newly unearthed documents reveal what they didn’t say: A sugar industry trade group initiated and paid for the studies, examined drafts, and laid out a clear objective to protect sugar’s reputation in the public eye.
Hmmm. “Paid for” means content marketing. Search engine optimization undermines precision and recall. The mobile crowd is not into either of these yardsticks. But folks who like Twinkies can relate to sugar and fat. Now it seems that fat may be slightly less problematic for the waistline than sugar.
The write up told me:
Kearns [an expert who found the pay for brains’ play] said the papers, which the trade group later cited in pamphlets provided to policymakers, aided the industry’s plan to increase sugar’s market share by convincing Americans to eat a low-fat diet.
Yep, death. I suppose that if a few people die because of flawed research data that’s okay. Harvard has many initiatives to help those who have issues. However, Harvard does like to take care of itself and its available cash and assorted reserves.
Another maven’s comment received the fatty yellow highlight for this passage:
Marion Nestle, a nutrition expert at New York University who was not involved in the paper, said she’s still not convinced by those who argue that “sugar is poison” — a person’s total calorie consumption could matter more. But she called the UCSF findings a “smoking gun” — rare, hard evidence of the food industry meddling in science. “Science is not supposed to work this way,” she wrote in an accompanying commentary. “Is it really true that food companies deliberately set out to manipulate research in their favor? Yes, it is, and the practice continues,” Nestle added, noting that Coca-Cola and candy makers have both tried recently to influence nutrition research.
I am confident that Harvard can explain its venturing into the esteemed field of content marketing. I love that Harvard athletic program too. But I am even more fond of Harvard research than I was before learning about pay to play. I need a kale sandwich and a bottle of spring water. 23 skidoo to integrity in academe.
Stephen E Arnold, September 22, 2016
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