A new study claims that the sugar industry has persuaded US government scientists to look for methods to prevent cavity which did not engage in casting out sugary foods from the diet.
These findings were based on 319 industry documents dated from the 1960s to 1970s, from a public library collection at the University of Illinois.
The study authored by experts at UC San Francisco who discovered the archives, said that “a sugar industry trade organization representing 30 international members had accepted the fact that sugar caused tooth decay as early as 1950.”
The researchers said that by 1969, the National Institute of Health had settled on the idea that even though a reduction in sugar consumption was theoretically possible, but it was not a practical public health measure.
The sugar industry operatives have then worked in unison with NIH for finding alternative research approaches.
The study revealed that 78% of the trade organization’s research prerogative was integrated with the appeal for research proposals from scientists presented on the 1971 National Caries (Tooth Decay) Program.
Research author Cristin Kearns, a UCSF postdoctoral scholar said “The dental community has always known that preventing tooth decay required restricting sugar intake. It was disappointing to learn that the policies we are debating today could have been addressed more than forty years ago.”
The 1,551 pages of correspondence along with documents from the National Institute of Dental Research from 1959 to 1971 were analyzed by Kearns and the team for investigating the way the sugar industry had influence over the 1971 tooth decay program research policies.
It was found that research on enzymes for breaking up dental plague and a vaccination for protecting tooth decay was funded by the sugar industry. They have also bred and nourished their association with the NIDR along with the industry’s expert panel overlapping by all except one member with the NIDR panel who pushed the priorities for the tooth decay program.
Co-author Stanton Glantz said “These tactics are strikingly similar to what we saw in the tobacco industry in the same era.”
The sugar industry’s efforts to prevent cavities which affect about 50% of US adults and are a leading chronic disease in children.
Ronald Burakoff, chairman of dental medicine at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, found the study to be “quite disturbing.”
The research recommends they “conspired to push the research agenda away from decreasing sugar consumption to ways of mitigating the damaging effects of sugar consumption. The parallels to the tobacco industry’s denial of the harmful effects of smoking are alarming.” added Burakoff.
The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, the NIDR’s successor — did not instantaneously reply to an AFP request for a statement.
