“Backlash Over Meat Dietary Recommendations Raises Questions About Corporate Ties to Nutrition Scientists”, 2020-01-15 (; similar):
[Summary of vegetarian activist/researcher reaction to recent reviews & meta-analysis indicating that the correlation of meat-eating with bad health often does not appear in epidemiological datasets, the randomized experiments do not support the strong claims, and the overall evidence that eating meat = bad health is low quality & weak:
- “Meat Consumption and Health: Food for Thought”, 2019 (editorial)
- “Red and Processed Meat Consumption and Risk for All-Cause Mortality and Cardiometabolic Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Cohort Studies”, et al 2019a
- “Reduction of Red and Processed Meat Intake and Cancer Mortality and Incidence: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Cohort Studies”, et al 2019
- “Patterns of Red and Processed Meat Consumption and Risk for Cardiometabolic and Cancer Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Cohort Studies”, et al 2019
- “Effect of Lower Versus Higher Red Meat Intake on Cardiometabolic and Cancer Outcomes: A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials”, et al 2019b
- “Health-Related Values and Preferences Regarding Meat Consumption: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review”, et al 2019
- “Unprocessed Red Meat and Processed Meat Consumption: Dietary Guideline Recommendations From the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) Consortium”, et al 2019
After breaking the embargo, they began lobbying against it, spamming the journal editor, demanding the papers be retracted before publication, denouncing it in talks, and contacting the Federal Trade Commission & district attorneys demanding they investigate; they justify these activities by saying that since high-quality evidence can’t be easily obtained in nutrition, there is no need for it, and accusing the authors of financial conflicts of interest and comparing them to global warming deniers.
However, the conflicts of interest represent very small percentages of funding, and the vegetarian activist/researchers themselves are heavily funded by anti-meat interests, such as olive research institutions, walnut industry bodies, the egg industry, snack companies, and alternative diet groups, with the list of funders of one member including but far from limited to “the Pulse Research Network, the Almond Board of California, the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council; Soy Foods Association of North America; the Peanut Institute; Kellogg’s Canada; and Quaker Oats Canada.”]