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Objective: There are concerns that some non-profit organisations, financed by the food industry, promote industry positions in research and policy materials. Using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, we test the proposition that the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), one prominent non-for profit in international health and nutrition research, promotes industry positions.Design: U.S. Right to Know filed five FOI from 2015 to 2018 covering communications with researchers at four US institutions: Texas A&M, University of Illinois, University of Colorado and North Carolina State University. It received 15 078 pages, which were uploaded to the University of California San Francisco's Industry Documents Library. We searched the Library exploring it thematically for instances of: (1) funding research activity that supports industry interests; (2) publishing and promoting industry-sponsored positions or literature; (3) disseminating favourable material to decision makers and the public and (4) suppressing views that do not support industry.Results: Available emails confirmed that ILSI's funding by corporate entities leads to industry influence over some of ILSI activities. Emails reveal a pattern of activity in which ILSI sought to exploit the credibility of scientists and academics to bolster industry positions and promote industry-devised content in its meetings, journal and other activities. ILSI also actively seeks to marginalise unfavourable positions.Conclusions: We conclude that undue influence of industry through third-party entities like ILSI requires enhanced management of conflicts of interest by researchers. We call for ILSI to be recognised as a private sector entity rather than an independent scientific non-profit, to allow for more appropriate appraisal of its outputs and those it funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares dairying in southwestern Puerto Rico with dairying in southeastern Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois. Southeastern Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois is a gently rolling area, which was shaped largely by advancing and retreating lobes of the Wisconsin ice sheet. Irregular deposits of drift resulted in drumlins, moraines, and swamps. Soils which have developed on deposited glacial drift vary considerably in fertility depending on the physical and chemical characteristics of the drift and the degree to which it has weathered. The vegetation and soils are indicators of climatic type, since they have developed in partial response to it. Southwestern Puerto Rico is divided into three distinct physical sub-divisions. The flat floored, low lying Lajas Valley occupies approximately the northern one-half of the area. South of the Lajas Valley, a zone of hills forms a low discontinuous range, which reaches a maximum elevation of 800 feet, but which has an average elevation of about 500 feet. The land south of the southern hills is occupied by the gently undulating south coastal plain. Dairying in southeastern Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois developed in response to a number of physical and cultural factors. From a physical standpoint the approach to dairying was probably negative rather than positive.