documents related to WSRO that could inform public health efforts by illuminating sugar industry activities designed to undermine or subvert policies to restrict sugar consumption .
We analyzed previously unexplored sugar industry documents to trace industry interactions with the US National Institute of Dental Research (NIDR, which changed its name to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research [NIDCR] in 1998) between 1966 and 1971, a critical period for dental caries control policy when the NIDR planned the launch of the National Caries Program (NCP) with the goal of eradicating dental caries within one decade . Reflecting the research priorities of the sugar industry, the 1971 NCP research priorities ignored strategies to limit sugar consumption and focused instead on fluoride delivery, reducing the virulence of oral bacteria, and modifying food products with additives to counter sugar’s harmful effects . Ultimately, the NCP, which drove the US dental caries research agenda for more than a decade, failed to significantly reduce the burden of dental caries , a preventable disease that remains the leading chronic disease in children and adolescents in the US .
Sugar industry documents.
This study drew substantially on previously unexplored WSRO-related internal documents from between 1959 and 1971 . WSRO was formed from a number of related sugar industry trade organizations including the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) and the International Sugar Research Foundation (ISRF) (Fig. 1) [6,34–36]. The first author located these documents in 2010 in an inventory of the papers of Roger Adams housed in the University of Illinois Archives through a Google search using the terms “International Sugar Research Foundation” and “archives” . Roger Adams, Emeritus Professor of Organic Chemistry, served on the SRF and then ISRF Scientific Advisory Board  from 1959 until his death in 1971 [38,39]. Adams’s files contain correspondence with sugar industry executives, meeting minutes, and other relevant reports. After reviewing the inventory of the Roger Adams papers and consulting with University of Illinois archivists, the first author identified 319 documents (1,551 pages) related to SRF/ISRF. Additional material authored by SRF, ISRF, and WSRO was located through a WorldCat search, including annual reports, symposium proceedings, and reviews of research. Documents were carefully reviewed for relevance to dental caries research and policy.
In 1943, SRF was founded in New York, New York. In 1949, SA was created to oversee the research activities of SRF (the research arm) and the newly created Sugar Information (the public relations arm). In 1968, SRF dissociated from SA and was reorganized as ISRF. SA joined ISRF as a member (shown as a dotted line). In 1973, SA discontinued Sugar Information because there was no longer a meaningful separation of duties between SA and Sugar Information. In 1978, ISRF was reorganized to become WSRO, and SA joined WSRO as a member.
National Institute of Dental Research documents.
We located sources related to the NIDR NCP through searches of PubMed and WorldCat, and by contacting NIDCR directly. Materials included NCP primary publications [40–45] and two historical reviews commissioned by the NIDR: a description of the first decade of the NCP by its project officer, William E. Rogers , and a history of the NIDR by historian Ruth Roy Harris .
Findings were assembled chronologically into a narrative case study. Part of the analysis called for systematically comparing two key reports for similarities: (1) Dental Caries Research—1969 , a document submitted by ISRF to the NIDR, and (2) the NIDR’s 1971 Opportunities for Participation in the National Caries Program , which defined the research priorities at the launch of the NCP. Both documents were entered into Microsoft Word using a monospaced font at 12 characters per inch (average of 12 words per line). After line numbering both documents, we compared the documents, classifying each line of the 1971 NIDR document and the 1969 ISRF document as d