Company Profile
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Company Overview
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is a non-profit health-advocacy group based in Washington, DC, that focuses on protecting the public from diet-related health problems. CSPI publishes Nutrition Action Healthletter, the nation’s largest circulation health newsletter, and has led efforts that resulted in healthier diets, more-nutritious school foods, safer foods, and more honest food labeling. CSPI provides objective information to the public and represents citizens’ interests before legislative, regulatory, and judicial bodies. CSPI is supported largely by subscribers to Nutrition Action Healthletter, individual donors, and foundation grants.
Company History
Founded by executive director Michael Jacobson, Ph.D., and two other scientists, CSPI carved out a niche as the organized voice of the American public on nutrition, food safety, health and other issues during a boom of consumer and environmental protection awareness in the early 1970s. CSPI has long sought to educate the public, advocate government policies that are consistent with scientific evidence on health, and counter industry’s powerful influence on public opinion and public policies.
Over the years, CSPI has grown along with its reputation as an influential and independent science-based organization. When he was Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, David Kessler credited CSPI with "one of the greatest public health advances of the century" by promoting the importance of the link between diet and health to the government, industry, and the public. In 2007, the FDA Commissioner awarded CSPI the agency’s highest honor, the Harvey W. Wiley Special Citation.
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
CSPI's accomplishments include leading the efforts to win passage of laws that require Nutrition Facts on packaged foods (and, later, to include trans fat on those labels), define the term "organic" for foods, and put warning notices on alcoholic beverages. CSPI also conducted eye-popping studies on the nutritional quality of restaurant meals and movie theater popcorn, helped to increase funding for the government's food safety inspections and nutrition and physical activity programs, and led the lobbying effort to get soda and junk food out of schools nationwide. CSPI started the successful movement to put calorie counts on chain restaurant menus and menu boards—a policy that the FDA is now on the verge of implementing.
In recent years, CSPI has also led the fight to eliminate partially hydrogenated oil (the artificial kind of trans fat) from the food supply, successfully advocated for the addition of “added sugars” on Nutrition Facts labels, and spurred the FDA to issue voluntary sodium reduction targets for packaged and restaurant foods.