Threats, spying, censorship: researchers denounce pressure from the ultra-processed food industry

Behind the cereal bars, the formula milk, the potato chips, the ice cream, the baby formulas, there's a multibillion-dollar global industry. And growing: the specialized firm Technavio estimates that its market will grow by $856.6 billion between 2025 and 2029. A billion-dollar industry... and willing to take care of its own, warns expert Melissa Mialon in dialogue with VOZ.

"It’s not like, ‘Hello I'm the boss of Coca-Cola. I'm calling you to tell you your kids are here… and I’m going to follow them," Mialon explains the pressures of the ultra-processed foods industry on researchers analyzing their health risks. In reality, she continues, you don't know who's on the other end of the phone. From the message, to the graffiti, to the vandalism. "They pay for someone to do that."

A food engineer by training, for years she has been dedicated to illuminating dark corners - the pressure, conflicts of interest - of Big Food. Despite the opaque nature of the provocations she describes, Mialon reasons that by looking at who they are aimed at, it is easy to guess who is behind them: the victims are researchers who analyze ultra-processed foods, "it's not a type of intimidation any other researcher in public health receives." The victimizer, therefore, is the industry they investigate.

A global problem, an American problem

The ultra-processed debate has heated up in recent years. The nomination of Robert F Kennedy for secretary of Health and Human Services raised the grades a notch higher: his pledge to Make America Healthy Again has healthy eating as a central ingredient. His recent confirmation turns the knob even further.

"We are betraying our children by letting [food] industries poison them," he said last year. His recent criticisms ranged from oils in chicken nuggets to dyes in Fruit Loops cereal. At the head of the department, he would have authority to regulate food safety and nutrition labels, in addition to overseeing a hundred health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Lobbyists are anticipated as a barrier: "In so many countries I had legislators telling me, "You know, we have a file full of evidence of the harms of that industry, but you know I also work on alcohol and others," Mialon says.

Although global, the problem is especially sensitive in the United States, the researcher warns, "The ultra-processed foods make the most of their revenue in the US. The majority of what Americans eat is ultra-processed."

Bribes, kidnappings and tapped phones

She read numerous academic reports, whistleblowers and newspaper reports. She talked to hundreds of investigators. Mialon can list case after case that, she claims, proves a strategy of pressure on academics and experts to prevent their findings on the harms of ultra-processed foods from leading to laws restricting the business.

Private spies in Switzerland, who manage to intrude even in meetings in private homes. Wiretapped phones in Colombia. Death threats in Mexico for demanding high taxes on sugary drinks. All are cases recorded by Mialon, but you don't have to cross borders and oceans to find them either: the academic herself claims to have been a victim of veiled coercion.

"She was quite critical of the food industry" she recalls years later, still surprised, at the Copernican turn of a colleague. Overnight, that excamarada began publicly repudiating Mialon’s investigation into the conflicts of interest of the Committee on Dietary Guidelines for Americans (19 of its 20 members had some sort of conflict of interest). Although astonished, Mialon believes she has found an explanation: "That lady gets money from the American government," from the same agency that funds the Dietary Guidelines.

"A colleague got kidnapped," she adds. One more case. It was in Colombia, they had just published an article about the Big Food lobby. They drugged him, he disappeared. Two days later he woke up in a new location. All he was missing was his laptop. "We can't be sure if they were related to our investigation, but it happened right around the same time."

Threats, kidnapping, surveillance, are all forms of intimidation as difficult to attribute as they are infrequent. More common is public discrediting: posts on social networks, advertisements, press releases. Sometimes with derogatory nicknames such as "anti-food jihad", "gastronomical gestapo" or "breastapo" (a combination of "Gestapo" and "breast", as a criticism of those who promulgate breastfeeding versus formula).

The latter are contained in a study published by Mialon and a group of international researchers on that industry, which they group together with the alcohol and tobacco industries under the unflattering term "Unhealthy Commodity Industries" (UCIs).

Big Food, the new Big Tobacco?

After reviewing dozens of academic publications and "grey literature" (media, search engines, blogs...), the authors conclude that the UCIs exert the same type of pressure.

As they say, the most frequent is public discrediting. It is also the easiest to link to its author. As the severity of the act increases, the more difficult it becomes to establish the responsibility of a company or a stakeholder.

Threats of lawsuits, complaints to authorities, to investors, freedom of information requests. Threats of physical violence, bribery, hacking, theft. Although they all figure (and are repudiated) in the study, there is an obvious difference between threatening a lawsuit and hitting, or hurting someone: what is the boundary between a legitimate corporate defense and an objectionable one?

"When it comes to doing things behind closed doors or through third parties when you can't trace it back," Mialon retorts. "When it's not transparent, when you don't really know when you can't protect yourself."

Although the examples have long been reported and accumulated, that paper published in the journal Oxford Academic claims to be the first to collect them and look for a pattern.

Of the three UCIs, the most intimidating is tobacco. The second, that of ultra-processed foods. Alcohol is a distant second. This is especially true in the United States, where more than half of the sources analyzed come from.

However, the researchers warn that the lack of reports on Big Food and Big Liquor does not necessarily point to the innocence of both industries. It may just be a lack of reporting. To fill this gap, Mialon consulted with about 100 researchers through direct interviews or surveys. The results, which will be made public this year, confirm the pressure trend.

Part of that lack of awareness may be due, experts say, to the fact that tobacco company lobbying is more widely known and, in some ways, accepted. "People don't realize that the industry behind those foods is as harmful as tobacco is," Mialon asserts.

"The approach to be skeptical about Big Tobacco should be applied to Big Food as well."