Certain people would really like you to really like certain chocolate milk

Some people are working to persuade you to really like some chocolate milk — a particular brand of chocolate milk. Some other people — many of them doctors and scientists and journalists who write about medicine and science — are working to make you think about whether you should or should not like that particular brand of milk, and whether you should find the Official Story of that milk to be laughable.

Julia Belluz, writing in Vox, tells about it:

The incredible tale of irresponsible chocolate milk research at the University of Maryland

Academic press offices are known to overhype their own research. But the University of Maryland recently took this to appalling new heights — trumpeting an incredibly shoddy study on chocolate milk and concussions that happened to benefit a corporate partner.

It’s a cautionary tale of just how badly science can go awry as universities increasingly partner with corporations to conduct research.

The story started when the University of Maryland issued a press release about a new study on the effects of a single brand of chocolate milk on cognitive and motor skill tests in high school athletes….

UPDATE January 20, 2016. Jesse Singal writes, for New York magazine: “The University of Maryland Has a Burgeoning Chocolate-Milk Concussion Scandal on Its Hands“