Row over ultra-processed foods panel highlights conflicts of interest issue at heart of UK science reporting

On 27 September, the Science Media Centre (SMC) in London held a briefing for specialist journalists.1 Five professors working in nutrition assembled to discuss the evidence around ultra-processed foods (UPF), and the growing public debate about its link with diet related disease. “Is there evidence that it is something about the processing—rather than the fat, salt and sugar content of these foods—that is responsible?” the press notice asked.

Ultra-processed foods are certainly having a tough ride. There is now strong evidence these foods are associated with a wide range of negative health outcomes.23 Marketing restrictions have stalled in the UK but are advancing elsewhere in the world, noticeably in South and Central America, such as the black warning labels on ultra-processed food in Chile and Mexico. This year Unicef banned any partnerships with ultra-processed food companies, citing “a significant reputational risk” and pointing to a “broken food system”4.

It is against this backdrop that the Science Media Centre hosted the online briefing. The aim, said senior press manager Fiona Lethbridge, was to correct “some of the more dogmatic claims about harms of UPFs being made by people without a background in food science.” Over an hour, the association of UPFs with health harms was flagged—but the evidence was judged to be not black and white.

The briefing made headlines the next day—and the media centre itself was the subject of one story. “Scientists on panel defending ultra-processed foods linked to food firms,” ran the Guardian’s story by health editor Andrew Gregory.5 Although funding from Unilever to PepsiCo was declared to attending journalists, none of the media mentioned the …