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Economist Rory Robertson has been waging war on Big Sugar and Sydney University for more than a decade. Rory’s campaign has taken a sudden turn over recent days. James F Sice reports. 

Warning to Big Sugar and friends: Rory Robertson has stopped being polite. That’s not to say you won’t be getting his long emails, full of jibes, questions and copied en masse to Sydney University academics, the ABC, most MPs, leading scientists and medical journals and, well, anyone else who needs to know about the big “diabetes fraud”. 

 

BY James F Sice

 

It is simply that Robertson, ex-Reserve Bank and Macquarie Bank economist and self-described “former fattie”, is getting up close and personal. After more than a decade of campaigning, he’s tired of being ignored.

It came to a head last week at the Museum of Sydney’s Warrane Theatre in front of 600 people. The event was a Diabetes Australia roadshow. ABC medical reporter Norman Swan was MC. Rory stood up and asked a conflict of interest question about the doyenne of sugar science in Australia and she and her associate left the room. Questions have been put by MWM to Sydney Uni but they have not been fully answered.

 War on sugar  

Rory Robertson’s war against Big Sugar began in 2011 after reading an article in The Australian which discussed ‘The Australian Paradox’ in which authors Professor Jennie Brand-Miller and Dr Alan Barclay claimed that sugar intake in Australia had declined from 1980 to 2010 while simultaneously obesity and diabetes had tripled. 

In other words, sugar wasn’t the villain in our obesity epidemic, or, as Jenny Brand-Miller and Barclay put it, “the concern is that potentially more important determinants of obesity are being overlooked by the current emphasis on sugars and soft drinks.”

Robertson has two main beefs: firstly, The Australian Paradox, which first appeared in Nutrients academic journal, is based on inaccurate data and secondly, that Brand-Miller, a professor at Sydney University, is allegedly married to Dr John Miller, the medical director of Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals, the 23rd most valuable company in the world and a leading marker of insulin used to treat type 2 diabetes. In the year ending March, the company made $US22.24bn, much of selling drugs to treat obesity and diabetes.

Robertson sees a clear conflict of interest. He first pursued Brand-Miller and Nutrients, whose then editor, Peter Howe, took the unusual step of noting the journal had become “the target of an unprecedented internet campaign by an individual”. That was in April 2012, since then Robertson’s net has widened. Considerably.

 The Great Diabetes debate gets hot

Last Wednesday, Robertson couldn’t believe his luck when he spied Brand-Miller in the audience at a Diabetes Australia ‘Great Debate’. Seizing the moment, he directly asked her about the potential conflict in her research given her alleged relationship with Miller.

Without saying a word, Brand-Miller and her companion left the event – “exit stage left”, as Robertson puts. After a heated exchange with some members of the panel, Robertson was asked to leave. He did so.

As he tells MWM: “There’s no quiet, polite way to disrupt this nonsense if hundreds of letters to thousands of authority figures gets me nowhere. It wasn’t my finest hour, but I’ve tried diligently to get the science community to address what I think is a profoundly important deception on pharmaceutical conflicts of interest by the most globally influential nutrition scientist in Australia’s history.”

Robertson wants an independent inquiry into Brand-Miller’s link to Novo Nordisk and a host of other Sydney University academics whom he alleges to be part to inappropriate diabetes research. He has bombarded successive chancellors and vice-chancellors at the university about the influence of Big Sugar on its research agenda and in the wake of last Wednesday’s drama, the senior management and board of the ABC in relation to Swan’s role as a host of the event.

At the heart of Robertson’s claims is his takedown of Brand-Miller’s Australian Paradox and her alleged relationship with Novo Nordisk’s John Miller. This latter point has proven difficult to fully pin down. Both Brand-Miller and Sydney University declined to confirm it.  But other evidence, such as happy internet snaps of the pair together, suggest they are a couple or at least have been. Robertson says he is “99.99 %” sure they were or are married.”

Michael West Media is not suggesting that Brand-Miller has acted unethically and allowed any personal relationship affect her professional work. But there is a live debate about the treatment of type 2 diabetes, as typified by the less confrontational work of star TV doctor, Michael Mosley, who, like Robertson, argues that T2 diabetes can be reversed by diet rather than drugs.

Which brings us to Robertson’s critique of Brand-Miller’s work.

 The Australian Paradox ‘solved’

Robertson claims that through a sugar-free and carbohydrate-restrictive diet, he lost 10 kilograms in eight months. For this, he has backing. In his address to the National Press Club in 2020, then Australian of the Year James Muecke, an ophthalmologist, said, “The simple fact is, there are now three proven methods for putting type 2 diabetes into remission,” 

“There are now over 100 controlled clinical trials to support the fact that a very low calorie diet or a low carbohydrate diet works to either prevent type 2 diabetes or put it into remission”

With the number of people with diabetes expected to reach 1.3 billion by 2050 and 96 per cent of cases being type 2 diabetes in 2021, how could you say sugar is not the cause?

 Do the graphs tell the story?

Robertson argues that Brand-Miller’s Australian Paradox contains inaccurate interpretations. For instance, a graph used in the study to illustrate a fall in the consumption of sugary drinks by what Brand-Miller and Barclay claimed was 30 per cent actually shows a rise of 10 per cent. 

One of the figures (green line labeled ‘refined sucrose’) cited by Brand-Miller supposedly shows a dropping intake of added sugars from 1980 to 2010 attributed to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. However, the FOA gets its data from the ABS, who discontinued the data series after 1998 due to it being unreliable. Despite this, the study continues to argue that there was a “consistent and substantial” decline in sugar consumption from 1980 to 2010.

“I’m an economist,” says Robertson. “Most of what I do is look at charts and data…They ignore firm scientific data.”

“No matter how bad the paper is, the university will protect it…her entire career, she’s pushed this argument that excessive sugar and carbohydrate intake isn’t the problem.”

 What Sydney University says – or doesn’t

The University of Sydney did not address the specific allegations about the Brand-Miller and the research. Instead, a University of Sydney spokesperson told Michael West Media that: 

“For over a decade Mr Robertson has made a series of public claims about a number of our researchers and their scientific work – any matters have been appropriately, repeatedly and thoroughly examined internally and externally with no evidence of any misconduct found.

 “Professor Jennie Brand-Miller is recognised and regarded around the world for her substantial work on carbohydrates and the glycemic index of foods, with over 300 scientific publications and awards for her contributions to science and technology in Australia.”

The spokesperson also noted that: “Our staff are required to declare any relevant interests including external income, and there are significant consequences if someone does not do so. ”

 When Mark Scott ran the ABC instead of Sydney Uni…

Robertson’s claims have been examined by other media organisations, most notably the ABC, under then managing director/editor-in-chief Mark Scott. 

After reporting on Robertson’s campaign against The Australian Paradox on Lateline in 2016, ABC conducted an internal investigation into the validity of its report after it received a complaint stating it “unduly favoured the perspectives of critics of the Australian Paradox”.

Scott is now the vice-chancellor of University of Sydney. Back in 2016, his ABC vigorously defended Robertsons’ key claims regarding Brand-Miller’s Australian Paradox.

“Lateline has explained that it was relevant to focus exclusively on the 2011 paper because Professor Brand-Miller continues to promote it at conferences, it has been cited in the federal parliament in support of the Sugar industry and appears on the Australian Beverages Council website as a justification for Sugar laden products the council represents an advocates.” 

“We are satisfied that Rory Robertson represented a principle relevant perspective on the issues examined in the broadcast. We note that he’s a senior Economist, with one of the countries leading banks, who is a highly credible, respected data analytics expert. It is our view that his extensive research on this issue and critical assessment of the Australian Paradox, particularly the data relied upon by its authors, is based on and substantiated by demonstratable evidence and is compelling.”

 The profit paradox

Dr Joe Collins, lecturer in political economy at the University of Sydney, isn’t surprised that such alleged conflicts of interest may exist. “When the imperatives of profit are combined with the compulsions of competition within markets… if we accept that this is an appropriate way to coordinate nutrition, then I don’t think we should be surprised when these systematic problems appear.”

“When McDonald’s got the heart tick… it’s intuitively absurd, but it’s legitimate because they sell apple slices with their nuggets.” 

 Rest assured, Robertson won’t be going away

Rory Robertson isn’t going to give up. “It’s gotten worse the number of people that have type 2 diabetes is rapidly rising. There’s unnecessary misery and early death there’s ongoing amputations and people going blind…and they just say ‘shut up Rory, nothing to see here’ … I won’t  just go away.”

“It’s the biggest scandal in Australian medical history, people are being forced fed insulin who don’t need it and just need a low carb diet.” 

Michael West Media put questions directly to Brand-Miller. But received another reply from the media department of Sydney University advising it to put any further questions through it.

Academic freedom apparently doesn’t extend to having academics free to answer questions for themselves.

 

https://michaelwest.com.au/former-fattie-rory-robertson-ups-the-ante-on-sydney-unis-connections-with-big-sugar/

 

 

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carbohydrates....

Carbohydrates: quality matters

What’s most important is the type of carbohydrate you choose to eat because some sources are healthier than others. The amount of carbohydrate in the diet – high or low – is less important than the type of carbohydrate in the diet. For example, healthy, whole grains such as whole wheat bread, rye, barley and quinoa are better choices than highly refined white bread or French fries. (1)

Many people are confused about carbohydrates, but keep in mind that it’s more important to eat carbohydrates from healthy foods than to follow a strict diet limiting or counting the number of grams of carbohydrates consumed.

What are carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates are found in a wide array of both healthy and unhealthy foods—bread, beans, milk, popcorn, potatoes, cookies, spaghetti, soft drinks, corn, and cherry pie. They also come in a variety of forms. The most common and abundant forms are sugars, fibers, and starches.

Foods high in carbohydrates are an important part of a healthy diet. Carbohydrates provide the body with glucose [SUGAR], which is converted to energy used to support bodily functions and physical activity. But carbohydrate quality is important; some types of carbohydrate-rich foods are better than others:

  • The healthiest sources of carbohydrates—unprocessed or minimally processed whole grains, vegetables, fruits and beans—promote good health by delivering vitamins, minerals, fiber, and a host of important phytonutrients.
  • Unhealthier sources of carbohydrates include white bread, pastries, sodas, and other highly processed or refined foods.  These items contain easily digested carbohydrates that may contribute to weight gain, interfere with weight loss, and promote diabetes and heart disease.

The Healthy Eating Plate recommends filling most of your plate with healthy carbohydrates – with vegetables (except potatoes) and fruits taking up about half of your plate, and whole grains filling up about one fourth of your plate.

Try these tips for adding healthy carbohydrates to your diet:

1. Start the day with whole grains.
Try a hot cereal, like steel cut or old fashioned oats (not instant oatmeal), or a cold cereal that lists a whole grain first on the ingredient list and is low in sugar. A good rule of thumb: Choose a cereal that has at least 4 grams of fiber and less than 8 grams of sugar per serving.

2. Use whole grain breads for lunch or snacks.
Confused about how to find a whole-grain bread? Look for bread that lists as the first ingredient whole wheat, whole rye, or some other whole grain —and even better, one that is made with only whole grains, such as 100 percent whole wheat bread.

3. Also look beyond the bread aisle.
Whole wheat bread is often made with finely ground flour, and bread products are often high in sodium. Instead of bread, try a whole grain in salad form such as brown rice or quinoa.

4. Choose whole fruit instead of juice.
An orange has two times as much fiber and half as much sugar as a 12-ounce glass of orange juice.

5. Pass on potatoes, and instead bring on the beans.
Rather than fill up on potatoes – which have been found to promote weight gain  – choose beans for an excellent source of slowly digested carbohydrates. Beans and other legumes such as chickpeas also provide a healthy dose of protein.

 

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/

 

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sweet uni.....


The veil of secrecy around Jennie Brand-Miller – star nutrition academic and for years the face of low glycemic index (‘low GI’) diets – has been lifted, and it’s far from flattering. After months of obstruction, MWM can now confirm that ‘GI Jennie,’ as she’s affectionately known, has been married to John Miller (for decades until 2013, the medical director at Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals Australasia) from the late 1980s through to at least 2017.

Why does this matter? Economist and bane of Big Pharma and Sydney University, Rory Robertson, believes GI Jennie – who popularised sugary, high-carb (“low GI”) diets as somehow lowering blood sugar – helped cause a “public health disaster” of high blood sugar, obesity and rampant type two diabetes (T2D) among Australians, in turn generating a market for Novo Nordisk, the leading seller of insulin used to treat T2D.

Robertson insists that dozens of Brand-Miller’s ‘peer-reviewed’ published papers are based on erroneous and/or misconstrued data and that other, more credible studies associate sugary, high-carb diets with high blood sugar, obesity and T2D, stating that:

it has been known at the highest level of medical science and by competent GPs for a century that no-sugar, low-carbohydrate diets “reverse” or “fix” T2D.

A conflict of interest?

The central point of this investigation is not that Brand-Miller acted in bad faith but that her employer Sydney University, despite being notified many times by Robertson, failed to ensure that the academic complied with university policy on disclosing conflicts of interest, namely her close, very close association with a company which derived financial benefits from selling diabetes medication.

Brand-Miller did not declare what was a serious conflict of interest over the 2011 paper at the centre of this controversy, The Australian Paradox, despite enjoying what Robertson calls “a major multi-decade boost to her household income from her life/financial partner (John Miller’s) high-level employment driving Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug sales.”

MWM is not suggesting the Millers have acted unethically or allowed any personal relationship to affect their professional work, but it should be noted that Novo Nordisk, the 23rd most valuable company in the world with a profit of $US22.24B for the year ending March 2023, appears not to have been displeased with the scholarly work.

For his part, John Miller also failed to openly acknowledge his marriage to Brand-Miller – despite clear conflict of interest implications – when it was his turn to write a PhD dissertation at UNSW in 1989. Miller was already working for Novo Nordisk’s predecessor at the time, and his PhD was co-supervised by a Dr J C Brand.

That’s right, readers: in a triumph of arms-length academic integrity, John Miller’s supervisor was none other than his spouse, Jennie Brand-Miller. MWMconfirmed the pair’s collaboration and marriage via documents helpfully available online (the latter has since mysteriously vanished from the University of Sydney’s website).

“Amazingly, John Miller acquired a UNSW PhD and ‘expert’ status under the (hidden) ‘supervision’ of his own wife while embedded in the Human Nutrition Unit at the University of Sydney, with the Unit’s taxpayer-funded facilities gifted to him by his wife’s boss, Stewart Truswell – notably, the main scientific author for decades of our influential Australian Dietary Guidelines – all while Miller was employed by CSL-Novo, soon to be Novo Nordisk Australasia,” Robertson told MWM.

Robertson says the Millers’ union has long been ‘common knowledge’ around the corridors of Sydney University’s Human Nutrition Unit and the Charles Perkins (medical research) Centre (the latter subsumed the former from 2012), yet the university appears to have given Brand-Miller what he calls:

a decades-long free pass to hide her links to Novo Nordisk and its predecessors, allowing her to carefully exclude it from conflict-of-interest disclosures she published in hundreds of formal diet-and-health papers, in clear violation of university policy.

“The global nutrition, scientific and medical communities are still haplessly unaware that Brand-Miller’s sugary ‘low-GI’ diet research was conducted under the cloud of the Novo Nordisk conflict,” he added.

A (sugar) scandal in the making?

With their marriage confirmed, we can sum up what appears to be a hitherto insoluble headache for public health, government waste and academic integrity. Jennie Brand-Miller: (a) popularised sugary, high-carb “low GI” diets, (b) wrongly, in the eyes of many, exonerated sugar as a key driver of Australia’s diabetes/obesity epidemic, and (c) may have derived a financial benefit as she and her husband made money from the latter’s work in a company which sells the (insulin) T2D drug treatment.

This could turn out to be a massive scandal … if anyone will listen, says Robertson.

He wants a new, independent inquiry into Sydney University academics’ links to Novo Nordisk, claiming they’re a party to years of scientific malpractice that significantly benefits Big Pharma and the sugar industry. He persists in the face of what seems like systematic stonewalling from the University, which MWM also experienced when researching this story.

Confronted with documents confirming the Millers’ marriage and financial relationship, the university’s media office had a one-line response: “I’ve checked, and our statement from last year stands,” media manager Rachel Fergus wrote. That earlier statement, sent to MWM last July, was that “for over a decade (Robertson) has made … public claims about a number of our researchers and their scientific work (and) any matters have been appropriately, repeatedly and thoroughly examined … with no evidence of any misconduct found”.

Perhaps the lack of action by the university is where the misconduct lies. Is it not the responsibility of esteemed public institutions to ensure their researchers adhere to ethical and compliance guidelines?

Sydney University ‘examination’

One wonders how Sydney University can claim it “thoroughly examined” the matter when startling documentary evidence of massive conflicts was right under its proverbial nose. Earlier recommendations following a 2014 inquiry by Professor Robert Clark – that Brand-Miller’s Australian Paradox be “sent to the shredder” and replaced by a new paper prepared for publication, “in consultation with the Faculty, that specifically addresses and clarifies the key factual issues examined in this Inquiry” – were not meaningfully addressed. And there was little media attention.

Neither Brand-Miller nor her bosses ever appeared to do what Clark recommended: “The new paper should be written in a constructive matter that respects issues relating to the data in the Australian Paradox paper raised by the Complainant”

Robertson says the stonewalling of MWM and other media over the past decade is part of a strategy to “starve the issue of oxygen” and keep it away from the pages and bulletins of our fourth estate. The strategy has worked: after two brief flurries of interest from mainstream outlets years ago, media interest has dropped off a cliff, with the exception of MWM.

https://michaelwest.com.au/sydney-uni-big-pharma-conflict-of-interest/

 

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