Nutritionist denies ‘eat meat or die’ claim
Tony Wardle discovers that it was all an invention of the MLC – supposedly
The director general of the British Nutrition Foundation, Professor Robert Pickard, was recently reported as saying that meat is essential for health. Failure to eat meat will result in gut bacteria producing disease-causing pathogens, he insisted. These patently untrue claims appeared in newspapers nationwide.
Viva! dismissed them as ‘pseudo-scientific clap trap’ and demanded that the BNF provide references as proof. They failed to do so but, surprisingly, Prof Pickard denied vehemently ever having made the claims. I found it a little confusing as I had a copy of the press release which had sparked the story and the claims were in direct quotes.
The BNF, of course, is part funded by the Meat & Livestock Commission and it was an MLC press release, issued in advance of a meat industry seminar at which Pickard was speaking.
Newspapers carried the story on the morning of the seminar yet Professor Pickard, despite holding press briefings later in the day, issued no retraction.
Something wasn’t right so I kept plugging away. Eventually, I received a letter from the BNF’s honorary vice-president, Professor Ian Macdonald, who claimed:
“Prof Pickard was unable to consider the copy of the press release as he was at another meeting immediately prior to that at the MLC. The comments did not emanate from the BNF or Professor Pickard but from the PR people working for the MLC.”
It must have been a very long meeting because the press release was issued two days before the MLC seminar. Even more strangely, both the MLC and BNF were happy to provide copies of the press release more than a week later – even after Viva! had first complained.
So I rang the MLC and two press officers independently claimed that the press release had been written by the British Nutrition Foundation, was approved by Prof Pickard and simply issued on MLC headed paper. I passed on this news to Professor Pickard and all the principal officers of the BNF but no one responded and no one was prepared to issue a retraction – of damaging claims which had falsely been attributed to them.
So, one version is that the boss of a supposedly independent nutritional organisation is so close to the meat industry that it feels able to make false statements in his name. He does nothing about it and when challenged goes as silent as a Trappist monk.
Of course, if the MLC is right then someone in the BNF isn’t telling the truth.
Either way, it deals a blow to the BNF’s claims at being a serious health body and shows an appalling lack of independence. It can only fuel suspicions that the principal aim of the BNF is not nutritional advice but to sell the products of those organisations who fund it.