In the 1970s and ’80s, independent tobacco researchers labored intensely in relative obscurity. They discovered how tobacco causes cancer, how quickly it takes its victims and how addictive it could be. For their efforts, they were slandered by the tobacco companies and found that funding for anti-smoking research was scarce. These were the years before the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, the National Institutes of Health and the powerhouse research centers of Sloan Kettering and MD Anderson housed and supported tobacco researchers. Now the findings of these researchers are readily available to the public where they both motivate smokers to quit and public health officials to protect the public against tobacco.

Several searing examples of how the media treated tobacco researchers illustrate the fate of those who develop findings that are contrary to the profit interests of major corporations. These examples also help explain why people don’t have helpful information about what refined foods are doing to the health of hundreds of millions of people. In 1953, Evarts Graham found that when he painted cigarette residue on the skin of mice, cancerous tumors appeared. Yet Forbes Magazine reported on this crucial finding with this sarcastic quote, “Graham gave no estimate of the number of smokers who distill the tar from their tobacco and paint it on their backs in concentrated form.” In 1970, Oscar Auerbach found that 12 out of 96 beagles developed invasive tumors when taught to smoke, while none of the non-smoking beagles did. CBS permitted Joseph Cullman, then chairman of Phillip Morris, to appear on national television to assert falsely that only two of the dogs had developed tumors. Further, our government permitted a tobacco-state members of Congress to malign the study in the Congressional Record. The tobacco researchers did not have a supporting organization to take up their cause, promote the strength of their findings and defend the integrity of their work against the mightier tobacco industry. As a result, people continued to smoke because they were confused about the danger of cigarettes. This confusion resulted in suffering and early deaths.

Until I attended the Food Addiction and Obesity Summit in Seattle this past April, I feared that food addiction researchers would suffer a fate similar to that of tobacco researchers. Food addiction researchers are making very powerful findings that are being systematically ignored by the health industry and the media. The addictive properties of refined foods and sugars explain why people cannot stop overeating and are suffering early deaths due to obesity-related conditions such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes. If food addiction discoveries were front-page news, people could find relief from insatiable cravings by eliminating the offending food.

The Seattle meeting brought together the top food addiction scientists from around the world, who presented their research to an audience of physicians, nurses, public health officials and professionals supporting patients or clients struggling with weight, diet and health issues related to obesity.

Compelling findings of addictive properties, propensity to food addiction in humans and animals and negative consequences for sugar, saccharine, maltodextrose, high fructose corn syrup, fat and milk were presented. Scientists working in the field of addiction are finding that sugars, fats and refined foods have the ability to act on the brain as other addictive substances such as alcohol, cocaine and nicotine. Food addicts understood at a new level that they have a disease, not a lack of willpower. This is information that would be very valuable to many overweight and obese people. Unfortunately, these findings have been ignored by the health industry and food corporations have developed marketing strategies to overcome or discount their research and the findings of nutrition groups.

The scientists were then presented with the tragic reality of food addiction as five recovering food addicts shared their clinical and personal experiences. Their stories described a desperate desire to stop severe overeating along with the inability to do so in spite of debilitating physical, emotional, and mental consequences. The scientists heard first hand, how meaningful their work is to sufferers of this disease.

Both groups were emotionally moved by the weekend presentations. Elliot Blass, professor of Psychology and Neuroscience of the University of Massachusetts, who presented a lecture on the opioid effects of milk, said, “As a scientist, it is rare to be moved profoundly by personal experience but that has happened at this conference.” As an expression of deep gratitude, the entire conference gave the host of the conference, IslandWood, a prolonged standing ovation.

The meeting ended in what can only be called a euphoria of discovery, new relationships and hope. More importantly, connections made between scientists and practitioners have the potential to focus research in new ways that can inform treatment protocols and public health policies to curtail deceptive advertising and harmful availability of these substances to our children. And, according to Kelly Brownell, director of the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, “The important lessons we learned from the tobacco experience have the potential to help us address the challenges we are now facing with the food industry and the calorie-dense, nutrient-poor products being marketed to our children.”

Game’s On! Play in a fair league with a full team. Learn about the Food Addiction and Obesity Summit at http://foodaddictionsummit.org/agenda.htm.>

Thanks to Pam Liflander for editing.