ArticleThe Milbank quarterly2009
The perils of ignoring history: Big Tobacco played dirty and millions died. How similar is Big Food?
Article in The Milbank quarterly, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 230 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
230 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 675 citations in OpenAlex.
- Market strategies used by processed food manufacturers to increase and consolidate their power: a systematic review and document analysis.Globalization and health · 2021Pooled it
- Evaluation of confounding in epidemiologic studies assessing alcohol consumption on the risk of ischemic heart disease.BMC medical research methodology · 2020Pooled it
- Food cue reactivity and craving predict eating and weight gain: a meta-analytic review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2016Pooled it
- A randomized study of effects of obesity framing on weight stigma.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2021Trial
- Reactions to graphic and text health warnings for cigarettes, sugar-sweetened beverages, and alcohol: An online randomized experiment of US adults.Preventive medicine · 2020Trial
- Competing with big business: a randomised experiment testing the effects of messages to promote alcohol and sugary drink control policy.BMC public health · 2017Trial
- Cardiovascular dietary guidance at an inflection point: the 2025-2030 US dietary guidelines versus the 2026 AHA scientific statement.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Review
- Public Awareness and Support for Governmental Intervention to Address Harms Associated With Consumption of Ultraprocessed Foods: A National Survey, United States, June 2025.American journal of public health · 2026Article
- Litigation as a Necessary Tool to Challenge Food Industry's Toxic Practices.American journal of public health · 2026Article
- The hidden hand in retail: a qualitative analysis of how ultra-processed food companies shape consumer purchasing.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- A cognitive dissonance-based intervention to reduce ultra-processed food intake: Protocol for a pilot randomized controlled trial.Contemporary clinical trials · 2026Article
- Local government policies restricting unhealthy outdoor food advertising in Australia: stakeholder perspectives identify political willingness is key to overcoming barriers.Health research policy and systems · 2026Article
- Prevalence, value and food marketing methods of food-related sponsorship and contracts in Canadian recreation and sport facilities.Public health nutrition · 2026Article
- Do ESG Frameworks Capture Corporate Health Impacts? An Analysis of the Food and Beverage Industry.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Drivers and levers of the double burden of malnutrition in Cape Town, South Africa: insights from in-depth interviews with multi-sectoral stakeholders.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Corporate political activity of the food industry in the development of food policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: a narrative review of the current literature.Globalization and health · 2025Review
- 50 years of harm reduction in Europe: high time for transformation.Harm reduction journal · 2025Review
- Lobbying, transparency and trust: power imbalances and the failure to implement Europe's Beating Cancer Plan.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2025Review
- Financing food environments: who has the power to drive healthier food investment in Australia?Health promotion international · 2025Article
- How and why researchers and advocates should engage with state and local food policymaking.Nature food · 2025Review
170 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
contextIn 1954 the tobacco industry paid to publish the "Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers" in hundreds of U.S. newspapers. It stated that the public's health was the industry's concern above all others and promised a variety of good-faith changes. What followed were decades of deceit and actions that cost millions of lives. In the hope that the food history will be written differently, this article both highlights important lessons that can be learned from the tobacco experience and recommends actions for the food industry.
methodsA review and analysis of empirical and historical evidence pertaining to tobacco and food industry practices, messages, and strategies to influence public opinion, legislation and regulation, litigation, and the conduct of science.
findingsThe tobacco industry had a playbook, a script, that emphasized personal responsibility, paying scientists who delivered research that instilled doubt, criticizing the "junk" science that found harms associated with smoking, making self-regulatory pledges, lobbying with massive resources to stifle government action, introducing "safer" products, and simultaneously manipulating and denying both the addictive nature of their products and their marketing to children. The script of the food industry is both similar to and different from the tobacco industry script.
conclusionsFood is obviously different from tobacco, and the food industry differs from tobacco companies in important ways, but there also are significant similarities in the actions that these industries have taken in response to concern that their products cause harm. Because obesity is now a major global problem, the world cannot afford a repeat of the tobacco history, in which industry talks about the moral high ground but does not occupy it.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.