Cristin Kearns, a fellow at University of California, San Francisco, recently uncovered documents that reveal decades of deception and bribery in the sugar industry that implicates elite professors and the United States government. These revelations not only shed light on the way corporations wield power in American politics and culture; they also have significant legal ramifications.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys have struggled for years to hold the sugar and sugar-sweetened beverage industries accountable for their misleading advertising, targeting of children, and disproportionate effect on the United States’ obesity epidemic. In case after case, Big Sugar has successfully argued that consumers need to take responsibility for their own nutritional choices, even bad ones.
This report by Ms. Kearns adds a new element to the story: deception.
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