by Dr. Joseph Mercola, Mercola:
Story at-a-glance
- In my interview with Calley Means, co-author of the book “Good Energy,” we discuss how tobacco companies bought major food companies in the 1980s, applying addictive strategies to food production and influencing nutritional guidelines, leading to a surge in chronic diseases
- The 1910 Flexner Report, funded by Rockefeller, reshaped medical education, emphasizing pharmaceutical interventions and marginalizing holistic approaches, setting the stage for modern health care’s limitations
- Corruption in health institutions, including conflicts of interest in research funding and guideline committees, perpetuates misguided health advice and hinders effective chronic disease management
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- Reforming the health system requires removing conflicts of interest from advisory committees, restructuring financial incentives and empowering patients through grassroots advocacy and education
- A multi-pronged approach to health care transformation is necessary, including individual empowerment, new wellness-focused business models and policy changes to address the chronic disease epidemic
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Calley Means, co-author of the book “Good Energy” and a policy advisor to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Our conversation uncovered some shocking truths about the origins of our modern food system and the dire health consequences we’re facing as a result.
However, Means’ insights into the corruption of our health institutions and his ideas for reform leave room for much optimism about the future of health in America.
The Tobacco Industry’s Secret Takeover of Our Food Supply
The tobacco industry’s covert influence on our food system is responsible for many of the processed foods that line grocery store shelves today. As Means explained:1
“In the 1980s when you looked at the most valuable companies in the world — now it’s Microsoft and Amazon and Google — it was Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds back then. These were two of the largest companies in the world and they had the largest cash piles, the largest balance sheet of any company in human history because smoking was such a profitable business.”
As smoking rates began to decline due to public health warnings, these tobacco giants made a calculated move. With their core business under threat, these tobacco giants used their massive cash reserves to buy up major food companies:2
“They had big piles of cash, cigarette smoking was clearly going to decline, what do they do with that cash? They bought food companies. So, we think about the 1980s as the age of Wall Street, M&A [mergers and acquisitions], Gordon Gekko. When you look at the biggest deals and the biggest Wall Street transactions in the 1980s, the two largest were cigarette companies buying food companies.”
The implications of this shift were profound:3
“By 1990, the two largest food companies in the world were R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris. The book ‘Barbarians at the Gate,’ which is the preeminent book on the M&A deals of the 1980s, was about R.J. Reynolds buying Nabisco. And then you had Philip Morris buying Kraft, US Foods, some of the largest transactions in U.S. history.”
Making Food Addictive: The Cigarette Company Playbook
What happened next was a deliberate effort to apply tobacco industry tactics to food production:4
“So, what the cigarette companies did very intentionally is they shifted two departments over, they shifted their scientists over to make food more addictive. And this is an amazing situation, right? And this is documented. This is very clear what they were trying to do.
They’re going from cigarettes, which is becoming a stigmatized industry where it’s not allowed for kids, to something every single American needs — to eat starting basically at birth.”
To push their new addictive foods, the industry employed the same lobbying tactics that had kept tobacco “safe” for decades. They funded biased research from prestigious institutions like Harvard to claim sugar doesn’t cause obesity. But this wasn’t just about changing recipes.
The tobacco industry’s influence extended to shaping nutritional guidelines. This junk science was then used to create the infamous USDA food pyramid, which Means called “the most deadly document in American history.” The goal was clear: “And just as any drug provider, the business is getting people hooked, getting them hooked early, getting them hooked for a long period of time.”5
The Health Consequences of a Corrupted Food System
The impact of these changes on public health has been devastating. As Means pointed out:6
“Cancer rates actually exploded since the 1980s dramatically. So, I joke, but I’m being somewhat serious, we’d be much healthier if the cigarette companies were back to making cigarettes.
It was actually a total disaster for the metric they were trying to solve with coming down on smoking — cancer rates. By letting the cigarette industry actually get to our food, cancer rates have absolutely just exploded along with every other chronic condition.”
This history has been largely obscured from public view. When I asked how they managed to hide their involvement, Means explained that while it has been reported on, the information hasn’t been widely disseminated. He learned about it through his work in public affairs, where they openly discussed using the “tobacco playbook” for food companies.
Beyond the personal toll, this epidemic of chronic disease is threatening the economic stability of our nation:7
“Health care costs are going up at an increasing rate today. They’re at 20% GDP, they’re growing double the rate GDP, health care costs. They’re the largest source of U.S. inflation. They’re going to be 40% GDP … just mathematically, if these trends don’t change, we will be a fat, infertile, sick, depressed and bankrupt population, if these trends aren’t reversed.”
The Flexner Report: How American Medicine Lost Its Way
Our discussion then turned to the historical roots of America’s dysfunctional medical system. I brought up the influential Flexner Report of 1910, which Means agreed was a pivotal moment:8
“John D. Rockefeller, and let’s be clear, maybe with some good intentions, the medicine was the Wild West, it wasn’t … I don’t want to get into his psyche, but I want to just say what happened. As he was a top funder of modern medical education, so Johns Hopkins was one of them, and he also was the father of the modern pharmaceutical industry from a lot of his byproducts from oil.”
The Flexner Report, commissioned by Rockefeller, fundamentally reshaped medical education in America and laid the foundations of the modern medical system, dubbed “Rockefeller medicine.” Rockefeller financed the campaign to consolidate mainstream medicine, adopt the philosophies of the growing pharmaceutical industry and shutter its competition.
