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She was fired after not endorsing Splenda-filled salads to people with diabetes (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 7 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world

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Elizabeth Hanna says she was fired by the American Diabetes Association after refusing to approve recipes heaped with the additive made by a major donor

Elizabeth Hanna had a simple job: help people with diabetes figure out what to eat. Anyone with common sense knows this should probably not entail foods that might increase people’s risk of getting diabetes. But that’s not necessarily the thinking at the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the world’s leading diabetes research and patient advocacy group, which also receives millions of dollars from sponsors in the pharmaceutical, food and agricultural industries.

According to a lawsuit Hanna recently filed against the ADA, the organization – which endorses recipes and food plans on its website and on the websites of “partner” food brands – tried to get her to greenlight recipes that she believed flew in the face of the ADA’s mission. These included recipes like a “cucumber and onion salad” made with a third of a cup of Splenda granulated artificial sweetener, “autumnal sheet-pan veggies” with a quarter cup of Splenda monk fruit sweetener and a “cranberry almond spinach salad” with a quarter cup of Splenda monkfruit sweetener.

Guess which company gave more than $1m to the ADA in 2022? Splenda.

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[–] tearsintherain@leminal.space 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Conflict of interest may not concern you, but it should concern all. This is how people lose trust in institutions. Pharmaceutical companies and their greed, high drug prices, are problematic.

The ADA’s corporate contributions are not precisely traceable. Based on financial filings, this is what we know: between 2017 and 2024, more than 50 pharmaceutical and device manufacturers contributed over $134m to the organization, or roughly 20% of its total funding. Food industry contributions were not broken out.

It isn’t difficult to see how contributors to the ADA get bang for their buck. The ADA’s social media feed is a virtual supermarket of products purveyed by its funders.

Need a diabetes test? Go to CVS! ($10m 3 year partnership in 2021.) Want to learn more about kidney care? Do it with DaVita! ($1.5m in 2024.) Want to donate to the ADA? Just head over to your local GNC store and put your money in the tin can. ($100k in 2024.) Needless to say, a low-carbohydrate product that lowers blood sugar also reduces need for the drugs and ancillary products that make diabetes such a boon for the healthcare industry.

In 2021, Patients for Affordable Drugs published a landmark report exploring connections between 15 patient advocacy groups and the pharmaceutical industry. The ADA scored lowest because it: “Accepts funding from pharma industry” and also because it “Has board members with financial ties to pharma industry; Shares lobbyist and/or lobby firm with pharma,” the report said.>