Yale School of Medicine & Pepsi: A Questionable Relationship?

As any parent knows, the multinationals' marketing influence is omnipresent in kids' lives. Licensing tie-ins between movies and fast food restaurants abound, while cartoon characters are festooned on the boxes of all types of junk food.

But, shockingly, these tricks are no longer just for kids. In what direction are we headed as a society when one of our great universities allows a food conglomerate entry not just inside its dining halls and sports arenas but into the actual rarefied halls of academia?

According to a Yale University Office of Public Affairs press release from December 2009:
"PepsiCo, one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, will fund a graduate fellowship in the M.D.-Ph.D. Program at Yale School of Medicine to support research related to nutritional science." Excuse me? The Yale School of Medicine is including itself, Pepsi and nutritional science in the same sentence? What happened to the Hippocratic Oath? Did someone at Yale Med do a Google and type "Hypocritic Oath" by mistake?

And the "I've Lost My Marbles" quotation of the year goes to Dr. Robert Alpern, dean and the Ensign Professor at Yale School of Medicine:
"PepsiCo's commitment to improving health through proper nutrition is of great importance to the well-being of people in this country and throughout the world." I may sound passionate about the Yale-Pepsi connection, but for Big Gulp-sized fervor read Michele Simon's take on the subject. Simon, a public health lawyer who graduated from the Yale School of Public Health, offers a more personal and detailed account of the deal. Click here for Simon's blog and make sure to scroll down to her March 7 post.