Takes readers deep inside the secret world of corporate science, where powerful companies and allied academic scientists mold research to meet industry needs. The 1990s were tough times for the soda industry. In the United States, obesity rates were exploding. Public health critics pointed to sugary soda as a main culprit and advocated for soda taxes that might decrease the consumption of sweetened beverages—and threaten the revenues of the giant soda companies. Soda Science tells the story of how industry leader Coca-Cola mobilized allies in academia to create a soda-defense science that would protect profits by advocating exercise, not dietary restraint, as the priority solution to obesity, a view few experts accept. Anthropologist and science studies specialist Susan Greenhalgh discovers a hidden world of science-making—with distinctive organizations, social networks, knowledge-making practices, and ethical claims—dedicated to creating industry-friendly science and keeping it under wraps. By tracing the birth, maturation, death, and afterlife of the science they made, Greenhalgh shows how corporate science has managed to gain such a hold over our lives. Spanning twenty years, her investigation takes her from the US, where the science was made, to China, a key market for sugary soda. In the US, soda science was a critical force in the making of today’s society of step-counting, fitness-tracking, weight-obsessed citizens. In China, this distorted science has left its mark not just on national obesity policies but on the apparatus for managing chronic disease generally. By following the scientists and their ambitious schemes to make the world safe for Coke, Greenhalgh offers an account that is more global—and yet more human—than the story that dominates public understanding today. Coke’s research isn’t fake science, Greenhalgh argues; it was real science, conducted by real and eminent scientists, but distorted by its aim. Her gripping book raises crucial questions about conflicts of interest in scientific research, the funding behind familiar messages about health, and the cunning ways giant corporations come to shape our diets, lifestyles, and health to their own needs. “Greenhalgh’s book is a painstaking . . . exercise using interviews, internal emails, and other source documents to trace the evolution and impact of what she terms ‘soda science,’ funded by corporations. . . . Greenhalgh’s objective is to illustrate the way the food and drink industry has pushed its agenda and to hold companies to account. Pressure from her and others seems to have had an effect.” ― The Lancet “The story [Greenhalgh] tells here is fascinating in its own right and a great read. It also makes one other point: social science methods are really useful in getting information unavailable any other way.” -- Marion Nestle ― Food Politics “ Soda Science  is a critical contribution to a growing body of literature on corporate influence in science and public health. Greenhalgh’s compelling narrative not only exposes the tactics used by Coca-Cola to protect its interests but also serves as a broader warning about the dangers of corporate-funded science. By shining light on how global corporations like Coca-Cola can shape scientific research and public policy to serve commercial rather than public interests, Greenhalgh has produced a work that is both timely and essential. This book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the intersections of science, policy, and corporate power in the modern world.” ― H-Sci-Med-Tech "Study after study has shown that consumption of sugar sweetened beverages poses clear health risk. So how have the big soda companies, Coke and Pepsi in particular, reacted to this news and to public health policies that have aimed to restrict their business dealings like marketing, labeling, and even taxes? A fascinating and important part of this history has been told in a new book by [Greenhalgh] called Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca Cola. " ― Leading Voices in Food “Greenhalgh’s dogged research pulls from open records requests and ILSI tax forms to trace how Coke used its deep pockets to influence ostensibly independent researchers, offering multimillion-dollar grants to ‘scientists whose research was friendly to corporate interests’ and whom the company would then call on to represent its favored outlook at medical conferences across the globe.” ― Publishers Weekly “Greenhalgh’s book is not simply about the manipulation of science by Big Food. It is also a groundbreaking analysis about the differences in the practice of science in the US (and other democracies) and in China (an authoritarian state-centrist regime). . . . Soda Science is an important book for understanding science and policy making in China.” ― China Quarterly “In a deeply researched and engagingly written volume, Greenhalgh tells the story of the Coca-Cola Company’s role in placing scientific emphasi