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Business & Economics

PR campaign may have fuelled food study backlash, leaked document shows

Guardian
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Leaked document shows vested interests may have been behind mud-slinging’ PR campaign to discredit study.

PR firm Red Flag represented Animal Agriculture Alliance , a meat and dairy industry coalition set up to protect the sector against “emerging threats’ The report recommended that if global red meat eating was cut by 50% , the planetary health diet’ would provide nutritious food to all while tackling the harms caused by animal agriculture.

Red Flag turned Eat-Lancet into a culture-war issue, expert says.

Online backlash was one of the earliest examples of a culture war around dietary change.

Study of social media posts in months after the report’s publication found opponents used misinformation, conspiracy theories, and personal attacks’ to discredit the work.