Exercising Uncertainty Identifying and Addressing “Grey Areas” in a Case Study involving Corporate-Funded Research on the Effects of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages
Main Article Content
Abstract
Rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM) scholars posit that health and medicine texts cannot be divorced from the rhetorical conditions in which they are shaped and disseminated. This assertion runs counter to traditional biomedical values grounding messages about the body in positivist evidence and universal standards. As this issue of the founding journal in RHM demonstrates, a disciplinary response to a biomedical ideology should undergird not only the approaches scholars take to their research, but also the models of learning they bring to the classroom. In this essay, I present a case study assignment used in an undergraduate science writing course that aims to encourage critical thinking skills that extend beyond dichotomous understandings of both the material body and knowledge-production influencing how the body is situated in institutional settings. Following a discussion of relevant RHM scholarship, I provide details about the institutional context in which I work, a description of the assignment developed for this student population including sample student responses, and consideration of the strengths and limitations of the approach alongside strategies for adapting the assignment to other student populations and environments.
Article Details
References
Aaron, Daniel G., & Siegel, Michael B. (2017). Sponsorship of national health organizations by two major soda companies. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 52(1), 20-30.
Brewis, Alexandra, & Wutich, Amber. (2019). Lazy, crazy, and disgusting: Stigma and the undoing of global health. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Choi, Bernard C.K., Hunter, David, J., Tsou, Walter, & Sainsbury, Peter. (2005). Diseases of comfort: Primary causes of death in the 22nd century. Journal of Epidemiological Community Health, 59, 1030-1034.
Crawford, Robert. (1980). Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life. International Journal of Health Services, 10(3), 365-388.
Derkatch, Colleen, & Spoel, Phillipa. (2017). Public health promotion of ‘local food’: Constituting the self-governing citizen-consumer. Health, 21(2), 154-170.
Edbauer, Jenny. (2005). Unframing models of public distribution: From rhetorical situation to rhetorical ecologies. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 35(4), 5-24.
Fahnestock, Jeanne. (1998). Accommodating science: The rhetorical life of scientific facts. Written Communication, 15(3), 275-296.
Foucault, Michel. (1973). The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception. Trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Vintage Books.
Fountain, T. Kenny. (2014). Rhetoric in the flesh: Trained vision, technical expertise, and the gross anatomy lab. New York: Routledge.
Graham, S. Scott. (2019). Tentative stages of progression for an address at Geneva (unpublished manuscript) by Kenneth Burke. Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, 2(4), 446-462.
Grummon, Anna H., Smith, Natalie R., Golden, Shelley D., Frerichs, Leah, Taillie, Lindsey Smith, & Brewer, Noel T. (2019). Health warnings of sugar-sweetened beverages: Simulation of impacts on diet and obesity among U.S. adults. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 57(6), 765-774.
Hays, Ed. (10 Aug. 2015). Setting the record straight on Coca-Cola and scientific research. Unbottled. Blog. www.stage.cocacolacompany.com.cocacola-unbottled
Hite, Adele H., & Carter, Andrew. (2019). Examining assumptions in science-based policy: Critical health communication, stasis theory, and public health nutrition. Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, 2(2), 147-175.
Koplan, Jeffrey B., & Brownwell, Kelly D. (2010). Response to the food and beverage industry obesity threat. JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, 304(13), 1487-1488.
Kuhn, Thomas. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
LeBesco, Kathleen. (2010). Fat panic and the new morality. In Jonathan M. Metzl & Anna Kirkland (Eds.), Against health: How health became the new morality (pp. 72-82). New York: New York University Press.
—. (2004). Revolting bodies: The struggle to redefine fat identity. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Mahase, Elisabeth. (2019). Coca-Cola contracts could allow it to ‘quash’ unfavorable research findings. British Medical Journal, 365, 102.
Merchants of Doubt. (2015). Film. Prod. Robert Kenner. Sony Pictures.
Miller, Elisabeth. (2019). Too fat to be President? Chris Christie and fat stigma as rhetorical disability. Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, 2(1), 60-87.
Mitchell, Tate. (17 July 2018). How Coca-Cola is providing even greater product and ingredient transparency. Coca-Cola Company online. www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/how-coca-cola-is-providing-even-greater-product-and-ingredient-transparency.
Monbiot, George. (7 Feb. 2006). Exposed: The secret corporate funding behind health research. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2006/feb/07/businessofresearch.smoking
Moscetti, Craig W., & Taylor, Allyn L. (2015). Take me to your liter: Politics, power and public private partnerships with the sugar-sweetened beverage industry in the post-2015 development agenda. Washington International Law Journal, 24(3), 635-671.
Nestle, Marion. (2015). Soda politics: Taking on big soda (and winning). New York: Oxford University Press.
O’Connor, Anahad. (10 Aug. 2015). Coca-Cola funds efforts to alter obesity debate. The New York Times: A1.
—. (19 Dec. 2016). Study tied to food industry tries to discredit sugar guidelines. The New York Times: B1.
Oreskes, Naomi, & Conway, Erik M. (2011). Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. New York: Bloomsbury Press.
Ringel, Megan M., & Ditto, Peter H. (2019). The moralization of obesity. Social Science and Medicine, 237, 11239.
Rittel, Horst, & Webber, Melvin. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155-169.
Sacks, Gary, Swinburn, Boyd A., Cameron, Adrian J., & Ruskin, Gary. (2017). How food companies influence evidence and opinion: Straight from the horse’s mouth. Critical Public Health, 28(2), 253-256.
Scott, J. Blake, & Meloncon, Lisa. (2018). Manifesting methodologies for the rhetoric of health and medicine. In Lisa Meloncon & J. Blake Scott (Eds.), Methodologies for the rhetoric of health and medicine (pp. 1-23). New York: Routledge.
Serôdio, Paulo M., McKee, Martin, & Stuckler, David. (2017). Coca-Cola–a model of transparency in research partnerships? A network analysis of Coca-Cola’s research funding (2008-2016). Public Health Nutrition, 21(9), 1594-1607.
Short, Donald. (2005). When science met the consumer: The role of industry. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 82 (supplement), 256S-258S.
Smith, Alexander K., White, Douglas B., & Arnold, Robert M. (2013). Uncertainty: The other side of prognosis. New England Journal of Medicine, 368(26), 2448-2450.
Steele, Sarah, Ruskin, Gary, McKee, Martin, & Stuckler, David. (2019). ‘Always read the small print’: A case study of commercial research funding, disclosure and agreements with Coca-Cola. Journal of Public Health Policy, 40, 273-285.
Stuckler, David, Ruskin, Gary, & McKee, Martin. (2018). Complexity and conflicts of interest statements: A case-study of emails exchanged between Coca-Cola and the principal investigators of the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment. Journal of Public Health, 39, 49-56.
Teston, Christa. (2017). Bodies in flux: Scientific methods for negotiating medical uncertainty. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Union of Concerned Scientists. (n.d.). How Coca-Cola disguised its influence on science about sugar and health. www.ucsusa.com.