The Good Scientist and the Good Multinational

Abstract

This chapter examines the practice of ethics in the making of Chinese obesity science. A disease in itself and a risk factor for many other diseases, obesity's prevalence is rising rapidly around the world, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to label it one of the greatest public health threats of the century. Obesity is also a pressing concern because the private industry is intensely interested in the condition. Companies in the soda and fast food industries, widely seen as major contributors to the obesity epidemic, have sought to protect their profits from core foods and beverages by reshaping the scientific narrative about the causes of and solutions to the epidemic. The chapter considers the case of a prominent nutritionist and chronic disease specialist, Chen Chunming, who, after decades as a government health researcher and official and facing limited state funding for chronic disease work, in the early 1990s established an NGO-type organization that took the lead in naming and addressing the obesity epidemic in China.