Many thanks to MedPage Today reporter Kristina Fiore for covering Dietitians For Professional Integrity’s efforts.
Highlights:
- “We’ve seen blatant examples of industry co-opting science,” Andy Bellatti, a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in nutrition who is also Dietitians For Professional Integrity’s strategic director, told MedPage Today in a phone interview. “Most of the American public has no idea that its national nutrition organization has McDonald’s and Coca-Cola educating its professionals.”
- In an email to MedPage Today, a spokesperson for AND said it hires a third-party research company to evaluate the opinions of its membership regarding its sponsorships every year. It would not provide details about the results of those surveys, maintaining that they are for internal use only. “Our main purpose now is to keep the conversation alive,” Bellatti said. “When you engage in systemic change, it takes a long time.”
- Robert Lustig, MD, a well known obesity and nutrition expert at the University of California San Francisco, expressed his support for the group in an email to MedPage Today. “Doctors were forced to stop accepting kickbacks from the drug industry for recommending their products, but dietitians are not prevented from shilling for food companies,” Lustig said. “The dietitians of America are split over the role that food industry money plays in the promulgation of the obesity and diabetes epidemics. That DFPI even exists is a manifestation of that tension.”
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