The main researcher of the National Health Institutes on Ultra Processed Foods announced Wednesday that he would resign the agency, the main aid to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or censorship.
“Unfortunately, recently the events have made me wonder if NiH is still a place where I can freely carry out impartial science,” Dr. Ir. Kevin Hall, wrote in a publication on social networks on Wednesday.
Hall told CBS News that the department blocked him to be interviewed directly by a New York Times reporter, asking recent research on how ultra processed foods can be addictive.
The study found that ultra prosecuted food did not seem to be addictive in the same way as addictive drugs, which triggered dopamine responses superior to the right in the brain. That means that excessive consumption of ultra processed foods could be happening for more complex reasons.
“It simply suggests that they may not be addictive because of the typical mechanism that many drugs are addictive. But only this daylight between the preconceived narrative and our study was too equipped,” Hall said in a message.
Andrew Nixon, a Kennedy spokesman, minimized the results of the study to the journalist, Hall said. Hall’s written responses were edited and sent to the journalist without his consent, he said.
“The truth is that it was the greatest study of his son and no previous study had the same level of dietary control, much less admitted to a hospital to guarantee adherence to the diet,” Hall said.
An HHS spokesman denied that HHS has edited Hall’s responses. In a statement, another HHS spokesman said it was “disappointing that this individual is making false statements.”
“NIH scientists will continue to conduct interviews about their research through written responses or other media. We remain committed to the promotion of standard gold research and the progress of public health priorities. Any attempt to paint this as censorship is a deliberate distortion of the facts,” the statement said.
In response to the Department’s statement, Hall asked: “I wonder how they define censorship.
Hall said he had also blocked his leg to present his research on ultra processed foods at a conference and give an ultimatum to meet the editions required by officials in a manuscript in which he had worked with external scientists or eliminate Himhor.
“I expected this to be an aberration. So a week ago I wrote to my agency’s leadership expression my concerns and requested time to discuss these issues, but I never received an answer,” he said in his publication.
Before this week, Hall had considered one of NIH researchers in ultraprocessed foods. It was among the experts that appear in the research of CBS Reports on how ultraprocessed foods have become so generalized in the US diet.
“He led a seminal clinical trial that shows that ultra processed foods led to calorie consumption,” Susan Mayne, former director of the Safety and Nutrition Center for Food and Medicine Drug Administration, said in a message.
Mayne said that the most recent work has focused on unpacking Hall’s findings on how ultra -process foods lead to excessive consumption.
“This work is essential to understand what is mechanically about UPF which may be promoting obesity. Few different places of NIH have metabolic rooms to even do such research,” Mayne said.
The early retirement of Hall marks the last high profile deviation of the NIH, which has seen its ranks from the main scientists detered through those expelled and dismissal Under the Trump administration Since February.
It also marks the last division between Kennedy and federal scientists who have encountered their priorities.
Kennedy also recently promoted the autism investigation of the centers for the control and prevention of diseases that experts and defense groups say that they micharacterize the agency’s findings.
Unlike the previous releases of the study of the study ongo Previously reported.