Neurath Christopher
American Environmental Health Studies Project (AEHSP), North Sutton, NH, United States.
Environ Health. 2025 Sep 29;24(1):62. doi: 10.1186/s12940-025-01154-x.
Extensive academic research has documented the tobacco industry's manipulation of science. Recently, scholars have begun examining the sugar industry's use of similar tactics to downplay sugar's role in obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and tooth decay. Archival records show sugar-industry-funded scientists criticized evidence linking sugar to these harms and deflected attention to other risk factors. Sugar's connection to tooth decay has been the most difficult harm for the industry to deny. Evidence is emerging that the industry turned to promoting fluoride as the solution to tooth decay thereby averting calls for reducing sugar consumption. Newly accessible sugar and dental industry documents enable investigation into whether fluoride research was manipulated to deflect from sugar's role in tooth decay, and later to defend fluoride when evidence of fluoride's own harmful effects arose.
Internal documents from sugar and dental organizations were examined and compared to the published scientific record. The Industries Documents collection at the University of California San Francisco was the main source of records. Analysis was in the context of the current understanding of how vested interests manipulate science to defend their products.
Records dating back to the 1930s demonstrate the sugar industry, sometimes in cooperation with dental interests, exaggerated fluoride's effectiveness and downplayed safety concerns. The sugar industry's science manipulation campaign preceded the better-known tobacco industry campaign defending cigarettes. Key leaders of the sugar industry's campaign transferred to the tobacco industry, which then adopted many of the sugar industry's tactics and financed research from some of the same sugar-conflicted scientists. Currently, a prominent safety issue with fluoride is developmental neurotoxicity. Evidence indicates that researchers with undisclosed conflicts of interest with sugar and allied industries produced biased reviews downplaying this risk.
Recently available records reveal a long history of the sugar industry distorting fluoride science. Many of the sugar industry's tactics were later adopted by the tobacco industry and mirrored by industries involved in asbestos, lead, pesticides, climate change denial, and others. Researchers and policymakers should be aware of the distorted scientific record regarding fluoride effectiveness and toxicity.
大量学术研究记录了烟草行业对科学的操纵。最近，学者们开始研究制糖行业是否也采用了类似策略来淡化糖在肥胖、糖尿病、心血管疾病和龋齿中的作用。档案记录显示，由制糖行业资助的科学家批评了将糖与这些危害联系起来的证据，并将注意力转移到其他风险因素上。糖与龋齿的联系是该行业最难否认的危害。有证据表明，该行业转而推广氟化物作为预防龋齿的解决方案，从而避免了减少糖消费的呼声。新获取的制糖和牙科行业文件使得人们能够调查氟化物研究是否被操纵，以转移对糖在龋齿中作用的关注，以及后来在氟化物自身有害影响的证据出现时为其进行辩护。
对制糖和牙科组织的内部文件进行了审查，并与已发表的科学记录进行了比较。加利福尼亚大学旧金山分校的行业文件收藏是主要记录来源。分析是在当前对既得利益者如何操纵科学以捍卫其产品的理解背景下进行的。
可追溯到20世纪30年代的记录表明，制糖行业有时与牙科利益集团合作，夸大了氟化物的有效性，并淡化了对安全性的担忧。制糖行业的科学操纵行动早于更为人所知的烟草行业为香烟辩护的行动。制糖行业行动的关键领导人转到了烟草行业，后者随后采用了制糖行业的许多策略，并资助了一些与制糖行业存在利益冲突的科学家进行研究。目前，氟化物一个突出的安全问题是发育神经毒性。有证据表明，与制糖及相关行业存在未公开利益冲突的研究人员给出了有偏见的综述，淡化了这种风险。
最近可得的记录揭示了制糖行业长期歪曲氟化物科学的历史。制糖行业的许多策略后来被烟草行业采用，并被涉及石棉、铅、农药、否认气候变化等行业效仿。研究人员和政策制定者应该意识到关于氟化物有效性和毒性的扭曲科学记录。
