Description
Takes readers deep inside the secret world of corporate science, where powerful companies and allied academic scientists mold research to meet industry needs.
The 1990s were tough times for the soda industry. In the United States, obesity rates were exploding. Public health critics pointed to sugary soda as a main culprit and advocated for soda taxes that might decrease the consumption of sweetened beverages-and threaten the revenues of the giant soda companies.
Soda Science tells the story of how industry leader Coca-Cola mobilized allies in academia to create a soda-defense science that would protect profits by advocating exercise, not dietary restraint, as the priority solution to obesity, a view few experts accept. Anthropologist and science studies specialist Susan Greenhalgh discovers a hidden world of science-making-with distinctive organizations, social networks, knowledge-making practices, and ethical claims-dedicated to creating industry-friendly science and keeping it under wraps. By tracing the birth, maturation, death, and afterlife of the science they made, Greenhalgh shows how corporate science has managed to gain such a hold over our lives.
Spanning twenty years, her investigation takes her from the US, where the science was made, to China, a key market for sugary soda. In the US, soda science was a critical force in the making of today's society of step-counting, fitness-tracking, weight-obsessed citizens. In China, this distorted science has left its mark not just on national obesity policies but on the apparatus for managing chronic disease generally. By following the scientists and their ambitious schemes to make the world safe for Coke, Greenhalgh offers an account that is more global-and yet more human-than the story that dominates public understanding today.
Coke's research isn't fake science, Greenhalgh argues; it was real science, conducted by real and eminent scientists, but distorted by its aim. Her gripping book raises crucial questions about conflicts of interest in scientific research, the funding behind familiar messages about health, and the cunning ways giant corporations come to shape our diets, lifestyles, and health to their own needs.
About the Author
Susan Greenhalgh is the John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society Emerita at Harvard University. She is the author of Fat-Talk Nation: The Human Costs of America's War on Fat, Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China, Under the Medical Gaze: Facts and Fictions of Chronic Pain, and Cultivating Global Citizens: Population in the Rise of China, among other books.
Reviews
"Greenhalgh's book is a painstaking . . . exercise using interviews, internal emails, and other source documents to trace the evolution and impact of what she terms 'soda science,' funded by corporations. . . . Greenhalgh's objective is to illustrate the way the food and drink industry has pushed its agenda and to hold companies to account. Pressure from her and others seems to have had an effect." * The Lancet *
"The story [Greenhalgh] tells here is fascinating in its own right and a great read. It also makes one other point: social science methods are really useful in getting information unavailable any other way." -- Marion Nestle * Food Politics *
"Soda Science is a critical contribution to a growing body of literature on corporate influence in science and public health. Greenhalgh's compelling narrative not only exposes the tactics used by Coca-Cola to protect its interests but also serves as a broader warning about the dangers of corporate-funded science. By shining light on how global corporations like Coca-Cola can shape scientific research and public policy to serve commercial rather than public interests, Greenhalgh has produced a work that is both timely and essential. This book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the intersections of science, policy, and corporate power in the modern world." * H-Sci-Med-Tech *
"Study after study has shown that consumption of sugar sweetened beverages poses clear health risk. So how have the big soda companies, Coke and Pepsi in particular, reacted to this news and to public health policies that have aimed to restrict their business dealings like marketing, labeling, and even taxes? A fascinating and important part of this history has been told in a new book by [Greenhalgh] called Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca Cola." * Leading Voices in Food *
"Greenhalgh's dogged research pulls from open records requests and ILSI tax forms to trace how Coke used its deep pockets to influence ostensibly independent researchers, offering multimillion-dollar grants to 'scientists whose research was friendly to corporate interests' and whom the company would then call on to represent its favored outlook at medical conferences across the globe." * Publishers Weekly *
"Greenhalgh's book is not simply about the manipulation of science by Big Food. It is also a groundbreaking analysis about the differences in the practice of science in the US (and other democracies) and in China (an authoritarian state-centrist regime). . . . Soda Science is an important book for understanding science and policy making in China." * China Quarterly *
"Soda Science is not just a vivid expose, though it is that. It is also a toolkit. Greenhalgh equips the reader with a more-precise vocabulary for describing scientists' roles (e.g. quasi-corporate scientists), organizations such as ILSI (product-defense nonprofits), and the effect of a funding source on a scientist's thought process (incentivized reasoning). . . . Anyone who cares about science, integrity, and global capitalism should read this book, accessible and clearly written as it is." * Ambix *
"Soda Science offers fruitful ground for exploring how emerging and current researchers might better protect their science from "serving two masters", to riff on Matthew 6:24's warning." -- Christy Spackman * Food Anthropology *
"Soda Science is a fascinating, well-researched and important book. It is also inspiring. Greenhalgh illustrates how humanists and social scientists can do work that generates significant scholarly insight while also helping to address urgent social challenges." * British Journal for the History of Science *
"Recommended." * Choice *
"Brava! Greenhalgh's Soda Science is a deeply researched, well-documented expose on how Coca-Cola and other major food corporations hired mercenary scientists to mislead the public into believing that as long as you exercised, you could consume plenty of calories and not gain weight. That initiative fell apart in the United States, but Coca-Cola and its accomplices were able to infiltrate the public health system of China, helping stop the world's most populous country from instituting programs that would make its people healthier." -- David Michaels, author of The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception
"Soda Science is a brilliant story of corporate science, carefully researched and compellingly told. When the US obesity epidemic was a set of statistical warning signs, Coca-Cola and other makers of ultraprocessed food and drink started up scientific research programs focused on exercise. A squad of industry-supported scientists and research organizations steered discussions away from calories consumed and toward calories spent. They taught people to think in terms of small changes in daily activity-ten or fifteen minutes of moderate exercise each day. Through seemingly independent non-profits, the industry then exported the model, to Mexico, Latin America, and especially to China, the world's biggest market and biggest fan of science-based policy." -- Sergio Sismondo, author of Ghost-Managed Medicine: Big Pharma's Invisible Hands
Book Information
ISBN 9780226829142
Author Susan Greenhalgh
Format Hardback
Page Count 352
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 567g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 30mm
The 1990s were tough times for the soda industry. In the United States, obesity rates were exploding. Public health critics pointed to sugary soda as a main culprit and advocated for soda taxes that might decrease the consumption of sweetened beverages-and threaten the revenues of the giant soda companies.
Soda Science tells the story of how industry leader Coca-Cola mobilized allies in academia to create a soda-defense science that would protect profits by advocating exercise, not dietary restraint, as the priority solution to obesity, a view few experts accept. Anthropologist and science studies specialist Susan Greenhalgh discovers a hidden world of science-making-with distinctive organizations, social networks, knowledge-making practices, and ethical claims-dedicated to creating industry-friendly science and keeping it under wraps. By tracing the birth, maturation, death, and afterlife of the science they made, Greenhalgh shows how corporate science has managed to gain such a hold over our lives.
Spanning twenty years, her investigation takes her from the US, where the science was made, to China, a key market for sugary soda. In the US, soda science was a critical force in the making of today's society of step-counting, fitness-tracking, weight-obsessed citizens. In China, this distorted science has left its mark not just on national obesity policies but on the apparatus for managing chronic disease generally. By following the scientists and their ambitious schemes to make the world safe for Coke, Greenhalgh offers an account that is more global-and yet more human-than the story that dominates public understanding today.
Coke's research isn't fake science, Greenhalgh argues; it was real science, conducted by real and eminent scientists, but distorted by its aim. Her gripping book raises crucial questions about conflicts of interest in scientific research, the funding behind familiar messages about health, and the cunning ways giant corporations come to shape our diets, lifestyles, and health to their own needs.
About the Author
Susan Greenhalgh is the John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society Emerita at Harvard University. She is the author of Fat-Talk Nation: The Human Costs of America's War on Fat, Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China, Under the Medical Gaze: Facts and Fictions of Chronic Pain, and Cultivating Global Citizens: Population in the Rise of China, among other books.
Reviews
"Greenhalgh's book is a painstaking . . . exercise using interviews, internal emails, and other source documents to trace the evolution and impact of what she terms 'soda science,' funded by corporations. . . . Greenhalgh's objective is to illustrate the way the food and drink industry has pushed its agenda and to hold companies to account. Pressure from her and others seems to have had an effect." * The Lancet *
"The story [Greenhalgh] tells here is fascinating in its own right and a great read. It also makes one other point: social science methods are really useful in getting information unavailable any other way." -- Marion Nestle * Food Politics *
"Soda Science is a critical contribution to a growing body of literature on corporate influence in science and public health. Greenhalgh's compelling narrative not only exposes the tactics used by Coca-Cola to protect its interests but also serves as a broader warning about the dangers of corporate-funded science. By shining light on how global corporations like Coca-Cola can shape scientific research and public policy to serve commercial rather than public interests, Greenhalgh has produced a work that is both timely and essential. This book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the intersections of science, policy, and corporate power in the modern world." * H-Sci-Med-Tech *
"Study after study has shown that consumption of sugar sweetened beverages poses clear health risk. So how have the big soda companies, Coke and Pepsi in particular, reacted to this news and to public health policies that have aimed to restrict their business dealings like marketing, labeling, and even taxes? A fascinating and important part of this history has been told in a new book by [Greenhalgh] called Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca Cola." * Leading Voices in Food *
"Greenhalgh's dogged research pulls from open records requests and ILSI tax forms to trace how Coke used its deep pockets to influence ostensibly independent researchers, offering multimillion-dollar grants to 'scientists whose research was friendly to corporate interests' and whom the company would then call on to represent its favored outlook at medical conferences across the globe." * Publishers Weekly *
"Greenhalgh's book is not simply about the manipulation of science by Big Food. It is also a groundbreaking analysis about the differences in the practice of science in the US (and other democracies) and in China (an authoritarian state-centrist regime). . . . Soda Science is an important book for understanding science and policy making in China." * China Quarterly *
"Soda Science is not just a vivid expose, though it is that. It is also a toolkit. Greenhalgh equips the reader with a more-precise vocabulary for describing scientists' roles (e.g. quasi-corporate scientists), organizations such as ILSI (product-defense nonprofits), and the effect of a funding source on a scientist's thought process (incentivized reasoning). . . . Anyone who cares about science, integrity, and global capitalism should read this book, accessible and clearly written as it is." * Ambix *
"Soda Science offers fruitful ground for exploring how emerging and current researchers might better protect their science from "serving two masters", to riff on Matthew 6:24's warning." -- Christy Spackman * Food Anthropology *
"Soda Science is a fascinating, well-researched and important book. It is also inspiring. Greenhalgh illustrates how humanists and social scientists can do work that generates significant scholarly insight while also helping to address urgent social challenges." * British Journal for the History of Science *
"Recommended." * Choice *
"Brava! Greenhalgh's Soda Science is a deeply researched, well-documented expose on how Coca-Cola and other major food corporations hired mercenary scientists to mislead the public into believing that as long as you exercised, you could consume plenty of calories and not gain weight. That initiative fell apart in the United States, but Coca-Cola and its accomplices were able to infiltrate the public health system of China, helping stop the world's most populous country from instituting programs that would make its people healthier." -- David Michaels, author of The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception
"Soda Science is a brilliant story of corporate science, carefully researched and compellingly told. When the US obesity epidemic was a set of statistical warning signs, Coca-Cola and other makers of ultraprocessed food and drink started up scientific research programs focused on exercise. A squad of industry-supported scientists and research organizations steered discussions away from calories consumed and toward calories spent. They taught people to think in terms of small changes in daily activity-ten or fifteen minutes of moderate exercise each day. Through seemingly independent non-profits, the industry then exported the model, to Mexico, Latin America, and especially to China, the world's biggest market and biggest fan of science-based policy." -- Sergio Sismondo, author of Ghost-Managed Medicine: Big Pharma's Invisible Hands
Book Information
ISBN 9780226829142
Author Susan Greenhalgh
Format Hardback
Page Count 352
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 567g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 30mm
