A Canadian researcher who co-led a study that challenges well-worn advice to limit meat consumption has responded to criticisms he should have disclosed past ties to the global meat and food industry. Dalhousie University's Bradley Johnston said that he followed the disclosure rules of the Annals of Internal Medicine, which published the work Sept. 30. Those rules required researchers to reveal outside funding received within three years. The university professor said the last time he received money from the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), an industry trade group, was almost five years ago, and that he has cut all ties since. "We seek to be totally independent of industry and in fact we are," Johnston said in an interview the day after the New York Times delved into his background. "Three years is a standard used by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors(ICMJE) and many guideline groups, and my declaration was accurate, and there is no undisclosed conflict."

However, Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University, said that while Johnston followed the letter of the disclosure rule, he "ignored its spirit." Nestle said the report's methodologies and conclusions on red meat are similar to Johnston's industryfunded work on sugar consumption, which also deemed the evidence to cut intake as weak. "It is always better to err on the side of more disclosure, not less," Nestle wrote in an email. "This one would ordinarily be in a grey area, but because the sugar study was so similar in approach, analysis, and conclusions, it would have been better to disclose."

Nestle, said that while the ILSI lists itself as an independent think tank, "it is supported by food and beverage companies. More importantly, it represents food-industry interests in the US and internationally." The institute lists its members and supporting companies as including McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Cargill, one of the largest beef processors in North America. Nestle said the journal editor should add further background to the disclosure information already published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "They should issue a correction, not that anyone will ever see it," she wrote.