The news article used for the 9/19 news in food assignment is called "Sugar Shocked? The Rest of Food Industry Pays For Lots of Research, Too" written by Maria Godoy.
The article above talks about how prominent companies in the food industry are paying scientists millions of dollars to research and publish findings on their products. Coca-Cola was mentioned specifically, as they had paid "$132.8 million to scientific research and partnerships." While forwarding scientific research is important for advancing technology, experts found that roughly 90% of these published findings had favored the sponsor's interest. Scientists were being paid to publish incomplete or skewed research to make the company's product seem better or more healthy than it actually was. In the reading The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food by Michael Moss, he talks about how Coca-Cola has an extremely aggressive marketing campaign, even going so far as to "extend to especially poor or vulnerable areas of the US". Their main goal was always to try to get users to drink more. Taking this into account, it wouldn't be surprising that Coca-Cola would pay scientists to "tweak the experimental design in subtle ways" to make the product look better than it is. People trust what scientists have to say, so the companies use them as a sort of marketing scheme in order to gain a positive public opinion among those who read these findings. Moving forward, consumers need to view new research on food with a weary eye, especially when it is funded by a big industrial company.
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