May it serve
as a warning not only to policymakers, but also to researchers, clinicians, peer
reviewers, journal editors, and journalists of the need to consider the harm to scientific
credibility and public health when dealing with studies funded by food companies with vested interests in the results — and to find better ways to fund such studies and to prevent, disclose and manage potentially conflicted interests,» writes Marion Nestle, Ph.D., M.P.H., of New York University, in a related commentary.
Made almost comically explicit in the article is the idea that traditional arms - length
reviewers do not have this
credibility problem because they do not participate in the review process
as adjuncts to marketing and sales.
And
as to this opponent, the litigant is faced with having to hire a
reviewer with ostensibly more scientific expertise to litigate the tangential side case because the first MHP was presumed to have grounded his opinions in science, thereby shielding them from ready criticism inside an armor of unwarranted wisdom and
credibility.