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Comment by garraeth | Hacker News Reader

Original report: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Key info: "Of articles with food industry involvement, 55.6% reported findings favourable to relevant food industry interests, compared to 9.7% of articles without food industry involvement."

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But what is the recommendation? I would expect that the practitioners in industry probably are better situated to perform studies than many others. That they only publish favorable findings could also be that they are looking in the more promising to favorable results.

Or, are we implying that they cover up the other results? Believable, but not the only explanation.

If anything, being beholden to a corporation whose success hinges on favorable research findings is a recipe for corruption. Not that academics are free from that, but at least there is less pressure for bias. Of course, unless they are funded by the food industry...

I don't disagree. But, that isn't a recommendation.

So, what is the recommendation?

Don’t believe any research pushed by a food corporation?

That is back in throwing out the full bath tub, though. I am sympathetic to the thought, but I'm not convinced it is efficient.

Would be interesting to see how often the studies can replicate. Are they worse than studies in other fields?

And, to my other point, is this and different from other fields?

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