Coca Cola

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promoted to primary with stratfor cointeltrump funder?==amy wnext month, the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP), the annual UN Climate Negotiations Conference, will kick off in Cairo, Egypt. Once again, negotiators and politicians from all over the world will join up to talk through what they're willing to do to stave off human extinction. That sounds dramatic, right?But that's kind of what we're talking about here. There will be the usual massive contingent from the fossil fuel industry there as well. Last time, in Glasgow, the fossil fuel industry sent more representatives than any one country did. And there's likely to be more of the same in Egypt. The organizers have, in a much publicized and criticized move, <a href="https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/a031e3be?m=bf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/a031e3be?m%3Dbf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de&source=gmail&ust=1666882285226000&usg=AOvVaw01lmWefosx4b8QuPS-fpGg">allowed major global polluter Coca-Cola to sponsor </a>the event.Even worse, they've also hired Coca-Cola's publicist, Hill & Knowlton, to do PR for the conference. If you missed <a href="https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/c509473f?m=bf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/c509473f?m%3Dbf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de&source=gmail&ust=1666882285226000&usg=AOvVaw3FPuY4CL6N1rZm41F_5YiL">season three of Drilled</a>, go back and listen. We did an entire episode on Hill and Knowlton founder <a href="https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/0f84083a?m=bf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/0f84083a?m%3Dbf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de&source=gmail&ust=1666882285226000&usg=AOvVaw2wbN5fiul1QbIoXX3Wz_yf">John Hill </a>and his work for both the oil industry and the tobacco industry all at the same time.Hill masterminded the strategy of hiring scientists to say tobacco smoking wasn't bad for you and that the jury was still out on whether it caused cancer. At the very same time, his firm was working for the American Petroleum Institute and some of its member companies. In fact, it was Hill who brought tobacco folks into the American Petroleum Institute. The longstanding relationship between oil and tobacco eventually resulted in the creation of the cigarette filter—a money maker for oil and gas companies looking for a new place to sell petrochemicals and a slight of hand for the tobacco industry looking to convince consumers that they could make smoking less harmful by smoking lighter, filtered cigarettes.Hill represented Monsanto around the same time too, so no surprise that the chemical industry embraced a lot of the same tactics. Definitely the folks you want strategizing the messaging for your climate conference! I'm sure they won't be reporting directly back to their clients. Cue head banging against wall video.At any rate, COP isn't just a time for official corporate greenwashing. It's also a period of time that tends to see major spikes in climate disinformation. Social media will almost assuredly be flooded with various memes about the elitists at COP, the failures of renewable energy, and that damn frozen windmill picture that makes the rounds every couple of years.A coalition of environmental groups has come together under the banner of <a href="https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/920ea2a2?m=bf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/920ea2a2?m%3Dbf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de&source=gmail&ust=1666882285226000&usg=AOvVaw0_xN8_Du11IH8bUH7pYGw3">Climate Action Against Disinformation</a> to monitor the disinformation that spawns around some of these big inflection points. They initially got organized around COP 26 in Glasgow, and now in advance of COP 27 in Cairo, they've put together <a href="https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/053adc1a?m=bf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/053adc1a?m%3Dbf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de&source=gmail&ust=1666882285226000&usg=AOvVaw2KN1UhKVpEFufVwRHAw6bR">a report </a>full of information aimed at helping journalists and other communicators avoid unintentionally spreading or amplifying mis- and disinformation.The lead author on that report, Connor Gibson, walked me through it."A little bit more savvyness is needed in newsrooms in the modern era in order to not allow that to happen, because certainly disinformers now know how to exploit that tension between editors and journalists in terms of something like viral sloganeering," he told me, talking about how common it is that journalists need to fight within their own newsrooms against some of the bad habits that spread disinformation."Climate Gate is the example that I use in this report," he says. "You know, how many major news outlets printed the word ClimateGate? That is the tagline of the climate change denial movement, and just putting that in your headline over and over really  created a sense among news readers that there was guilt and that there was fabrication of data and all of the false accusations that had been made after those climate scientist emails were hacked and taken outta context and released. And you know, the fact checking that came after the investigations and exonerations that came after that didn't spread, that didn't spread nearly as widely as the phrase ClimateGate."It never does. And that's the sort of thing this report hopes to help journalists avoid doing, but Gibson and the rest of CAAD are well aware of the biggest obstacle in tackling disinformation in general, and climate disinfo in particular: the lack of investment in journalism.<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 2em 0px; padding: 0px 25px; border-left: 2px solid rgb(1, 0, 0); line-height: 1.6em; letter-spacing: -0.2px;">"I think one of the biggest insurmountable feeling trends that I looked at in this report is just the economics of the newsroom. You know, when there is a revenue incentive that is based around clicks, shares, most emailed articles that precludes the type of tone that is actually to stop misinformation from festering. And so the simple capitalist economics of keeping a news outlet functioning actually creates a breeding ground for misinformation as well, and is something that needs to be taken a lot more seriously than it currently is. But unfortunately, because it's about economics, I think that is one of the biggest obstacles that reporters will face when it comes to that tension between the responsibility of a reporter to communicate something accurately without feeding into conspiracy theory or myth, and the responsibility of an editor to keep the newspaper in circulation and  financially healthy.</blockquote>That's especially true in the years since social media changed the news business. It's increasingly common to see social media promotion that is, itself, wildly misleading even if the article it's promoting isn't.  This report draws on years' worth of research on psychology-based communication techniques from experts like Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook, and a lot of the collaborators on reports like <a href="https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/5ac4a30a?m=bf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/5ac4a30a?m%3Dbf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de&source=gmail&ust=1666882285226000&usg=AOvVaw299mI3K8KwwgcU85e4w3mW">The Debunking Handbook</a> and <a href="https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/ba612f35?m=bf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/ba612f35?m%3Dbf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de&source=gmail&ust=1666882285226000&usg=AOvVaw1ok6C3yPDJKPvBTpigeGOk">The Conspiracy Theory Handbook</a>, as well as guidelines from civil society organizations like First Draft, the Data and Society Research Institute, and the Union of Concerned Scientists."These folks are really experts on helping people avoid the most basic traps, and this stuff has been around for decades, right? Like Richard Nixon, I'm not a crook. Everybody hears the word crook, right?" Gibson explains. "Or George Lakoff wrote the book <a href="https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/8a6db79a?m=bf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de" target="blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.drilledpodcast.com/r/8a6db79a?m%3Dbf6fa0ec-1090-4b3f-b920-7e98d9adb3de&source=gmail&ust=1666882285226000&usg=AOvVaw0B7SKS8qxI6FFML3TPzK1">Don't Think of an Elephant!</a> because the only word that sticks in your brain after you say that is the word elephant."A lot of this stuff has been known for a long time, but Gibson poked around at some headlines from major outlets, and found the same old mistakes happening."It's not because people are foolish, it's just there is an amount of faith in the audience when it comes to an honest journalist and editor writing a report and writing a headline that unfortunately just misses the traps that disinformation relies on in order to spread," he says."And that's gotta be really frustrating when you're a professional who writes something that's very intellectually honest and yet, it helps misinformation and disinformation  spread. So that's really why we wrote this report."Gibson says climate journalists were a key target not just because climate disinformation is on the rise and COP tends to bring big waves of it, but also because they dealt with disinformation before any other type of journalist. "The phenomenon of climate change denial I think has made climate change reporters a little more sophisticated in understanding these trends before social media made disinformation such a rampant problem in the last few years," he says. "And just the, the relentless nature in which that community of climate change deniers, you know, has stayed organized. So I would say that most of the people who are in climate reporting are far more sophisticated now than certainly they were in the 1990s or the 2000s when that phenomenon was a little underreported and the cast of characters wasn't as widely known.""So, you know, we tried to write this report and publish it with acknowledgement that we're not writing it because climate reporters are particularly gullible or anything like that," he continues. "We think it's one of the more relevant fields with which to understand what communication techniques are required in order to mitigate misinformation and disinformation as well as a field where some of that understanding is already a little bit there."Here are a few key highlights:...<div>=</div><div></div><div><div>---</div><div>2006 some corps helped surprised Lewis on re-up? see trms</div><div>andy young dtr grabbed Delta ceo after airport ceremeony got him on bd ~ GA voter supp, coke belated ? follow (after signed) but MLB -->Colo McConn threats corps tp stay out of politics</div><div>
</div><div><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/dan-crenshaw/" aria-label="'Unhinged': Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw mocked for calling companies opposing voter suppression 'fascism'" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height">Unhinged': Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw mocked for calling companies opposing voter suppression 'fascism'</a></h1><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; display: inline-block; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-badash" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">David Badash</a> <a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/the-new-civil-rights-movement" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline;">The New Civil Rights Movement</a></div> <div class="social-date" style="margin-top: 8px; display: inline-block; color: rgb(164, 162, 160); font-size: 1.4rem; vertical-align: top; font-family: Helvetica; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> April 08, 2021</div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2651874528" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; font-size: 17px; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-overflow: ellipsis; display: -webkit-box; -webkit-line-clamp: 4; overflow: hidden; line-height: 31px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Dan+Crenshaw" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Republican U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw</a> of Texas is getting roundly criticized and mocked after attacking the growing number of major corporations publicly opposing voter suppression laws, like Georgia's, and...</div></div></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div></div>=corp acct ballot: hall of shame<h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; line-height: 1; padding: 0px;">Coca-Cola</h3><div class="hos-nominee-detail visibility-enabled" data-visibility-name="info-about" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.75s ease 0s;">Coca-Cola’s sugary products are contributing to a global public health epidemic of diet-related diseases, especially among communities of color. That’s bad enough, but Coca-Cola has taken a page directly out of Big Tobacco’s playbook and is attempting to sow doubt about the dangers of its unhealthy products so it can continue raking in the profits. It is directly funding the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), an industry group that has come under scrutiny for interfering in nutrition policymaking in the U.S., and across the world, and for not always disclosing its troubling ties with the industry while producing questionable studies on junk foods its benefactors, such as Coca-Cola, continue to profit from.Coca-Cola is on the ballot for fueling a public health epidemic of diet related diseases by carrying out a brazen political interference campaign blocking beneficial public health laws across the world, and funding shady industry groups that spread junk science that undermine the health of hundreds of millions of people.</div>=intercept...Sense About Science does not always disclose when its sources on controversial matters are scientists with ties to the industries under examination. And the group is known to take positions that buck scientific consensus or dismiss emerging evidence of harm. When journalists rightly ask who sponsors research into the risks of, say, asbestos, or synthetic chemicals, they’d be well advised to question the evidence Sense About Science presents in these debates as well.<div data-reactid="212" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"> iN 2002, DICK TAVERNE, an English politician and business consultant, founded Sense About Science “to expose bogus science,” he explains in his memoir, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ghSuAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT195&lpg=PT195&dq=%22dick+taverne%22+AND+%22bogus+science%22&source=bl&ots=OZGR2OtqVb&sig=xeCz8LvmrEYtwmqnk2HrOD0_15o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQkNHXx93PAhUFwVQKHQkxBIcQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=%22dick%20taverne%22%20AND%20%22bogus%20science%22&f=false" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">Against the Tide</a>.” Through his consulting work, Taverne had cultivated relationships with energy, communications, food, and pharmaceutical companies. Sense About Science’s early sponsors included some of Taverne’s former clients and companies in which he owned stock.</div><div data-reactid="215" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Taverne must have known the power of media narratives about science firsthand, because he had experience with the tobacco industry, which labored mightily to change the conversation about its product in the face of evidence that cigarettes were lethal. According to internal documents released in litigation by cigarette manufacturers, Taverne’s consulting company, PRIMA Europe, helped British American Tobacco <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tllb0192" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">improve relations with its investors</a> and <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=njpd0116" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">beat European regulations on cigarettes</a> in the 1990s. Taverne himself worked on the investors project: In an <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tllb0192?" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">undated memo</a>, PRIMA assured the tobacco company that “the work would be done personally by Dick Taverne,” because he was well placed to interview industry opinion leaders and “would seek to ensure that industry’s needs are foremost in people’s minds.” During the same decade, Taverne sat on the board of the British branch of the powerhouse public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, which claimed Philip Morris as a client. The idea for a “sound science” group, made up of a network of scientists who would speak out against regulations that industrial spokespeople lacked the credibility to challenge, was a pitch Burson-Marsteller made to Philip Morris in a <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=ygjm0128" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">1994 memorandum</a>.It’s not hard to identify traces of this approach in Taverne’s later work. Writing in his 2005 book, “<a href="http://emilkirkegaard.dk/da/wp-content/uploads/0192804855.Oxford.University.Press.USA.The.March.of.Unreason.Science.Democracy.and.the.New.Fundamentalism.May.2005.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The March of Unreason</a>,” Taverne complained that “eco-fundamentalists” and fearmongers had fomented a backlash against science and technology, which had in turn produced a “multiplication of health and safety regulations.” That year British Petroleum donated 15,000 pounds to Sense About Science, and Taverne <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldhansrd/vo050223/text/50223-24.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">argued in the House of Lords</a> that as much as 80 percent of global warming might be attributable to solar activity, even though that theory had been <a href="http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=4361&method=full" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">discredited</a> two years earlier. Taverne, who stepped down as chairman of Sense About Science in 2012, did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.Sense About Science established an American affiliate in 2014, under the direction of a Brooklyn-based journalist named Trevor Butterworth. In financial documents, Sense About Science claims Sense About Science USA as a sister organization “with close ties and similar aims.” <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/about/corporate-responsibility/sense-about-science" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">High-profile scientific publishers</a>, as well as such reputable institutions as the <a href="http://journalistsresource.org/tip-sheets/reporting/math-journalist-numbers-statistics-research?utm_campaign=9f242baf8c-2015_Sept_1_A_B_split3_24_2015&utm_term=0_12d86b1d6a-9f242baf8c-79990993&utm_content=buffer3951f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy</a> and the <a href="http://www.cjr.org/analysis/statistical_advisory_board.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Columbia Journalism Review</a>, have promoted Butterworth’s services to scientists and journalists.From 2003 to 2014, Butterworth contributed to the website of an organization called STATS, a nonprofit that promoted statistical literacy. STATS had its own connections to the tobacco industry, in this case through founder Robert Lichter, a conservative political scientist and now a communications professor at George Mason University. Lichter also co-founded and continues to run the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which Philip Morris hired in 1994 to survey news reports about tobacco as part of its strategy, <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=hhyh0062" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">outlined in a memo from March of that year</a>, to counter “personal and public bias” in stories about cigarettes’ health risks.</div><div class="img-wrap align-right width-fixed" data-reactid="216" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em -184.438px 1em 1.5em; line-height: 1; max-width: 50%; width: 227px; float: right;"><div data-reactid="217" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="caption" andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" line-height="line-height" margin="margin" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" word-spacing="word-spacing" display="display" inline="inline" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; box-sizing: border-box;">[pix “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming” by Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, S. Fred Singer. <p class="caption source" andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" line-height="line-height" margin="margin" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" word-spacing="word-spacing" display="display" inline="inline" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; box-sizing: border-box;">Photo: Heartland Institute</div></div><div data-reactid="218" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Lichter, like Sense About Science’s Tracey Brown, has argued that industry money doesn’t necessarily taint the science it supports. In 2003, a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20031202184233/http:/www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/pdfs/pdf_politics_and_science_rep.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">congressional report charged</a> the George W. Bush administration with stacking a government committee on childhood lead poisoning with industry scientists. Lichter appeared as an analyst on <a href="http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/08/se.17.htmlhttp:/www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/08/se.17.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">CNN and said</a>, “Studies have found that scientists who have consulted for industry do not differ in their assessment of risks, of health risks, from scientists who have not consulted for industry.” Lichter did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment or citations to these studies.Before STATS was dissolved in 2014, and its web site adopted by Sense About Science USA, it received regular grants from free-market sources. Between 1998 and 2014, STATS received $4.5 million, 81 percent of its donations, from the Searle Freedom Trust, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, Donors Trust (a fund largely sustained by Charles Koch), and other right-wing foundations. Searle, which <a href="http://www.searlefreedomtrust.org/daniel-c-searle-1926-2007/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">describes its mission</a> as promoting “economic liberties,” gave STATS $959,000 between 2010 and 2014. Anti-regulatory foundations, including these, spent over half a billion dollars between 2003 and 2010 to “manipulate and mislead the public over the nature of climate science and the threat posed by climate change,” according to a 2013 study by Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle.</div><div class="img-wrap align-center width-fixed" data-reactid="219" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2em 0px 2.25em; line-height: 1; max-width: none; width: 1000px;"><div data-reactid="220" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
</div><div data-reactid="220" style="box-sizing: border-box;">wITH THESE ROOTS, Sense About Science should not surprise anyone when it promotes anti-regulatory voices on issues like asbestos. In a 2006 brochure called “Science for Celebrities” and purporting to correct misperceptions about synthetic chemicals, Sense About Science offers John Hoskins, a toxicologist formerly of the <a href="http://www.rsc.org/Membership/Networking/InterestGroups/Toxicology/Committee.asp" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit</a> at the University of Leicester. Under the rubric “Toxic effects depend on dose,” Hoskins reassures us: “Away from the high doses of occupational exposure a whole host of unwanted chemicals finds their way into our bodies. Most leave quickly but some stay: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120917080945/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/47/ScienceForCelebrities.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">asbestos and silica in our lungs</a>, dioxins in our blood. Do they matter? No!”</div></div><div data-reactid="221" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">More than two decades ago, the <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/airtoxics/asbes/biddocs/EPA-600-8-84-003F_June%201986_Health%20Assessment.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency</a> and the <a href="http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol1-42/mono14.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">International Agency for Research on Cancer</a> declared asbestos a proven human carcinogen. Since then, as countries continue to mine asbestos, industry groups have argued that certain varieties, including chrysotile and crocidolite, are not so toxic. In response, several groups, including the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19338241003776104" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Collegium Ramazzini</a>, an international body of occupational and environmental health experts, have issued consensus statements warning that no form of asbestos is safe at any dose. In calling for a universal ban on all forms of asbestos in 2010, the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19338241003776104" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Collegium Ramazzini</a> observed that the asbestos industry’s attacks on evidence that “irrefutably” links its product to cancer “closely resemble those used by the tobacco industry.”Brown maintains that Sense About Science has not disagreed with the scientific consensus on asbestos, and she notes that dose and type of exposure are the issue. But when I asked Hoskins why his position differed from the scientific consensus, he shrugged over email, “Once upon a time the consensus was that the earth is flat.” Hoskins further replied, “Unfortunately, to say that within a population low-level exposure of many chemicals must be dangerous is not borne out by reality, much to the chagrin of those who live in the fantasy world of ‘chemical-free.’ ”Hoskins’s résumé states that he has represented the Chrysotile Institute in “discussion with the governments of several countries.” But he did not disclose this relationship to the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health journal when he co-authored two scientific papers disputing claims that <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/10125" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">chrysotile</a> or <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11167" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">crocidolite</a> caused a rare cancer in exposed populations. When his industry ties came to light, the journal issued errata for <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11450/10606" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">both</a> <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11452/10607" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">papers</a> to disclose this competing interest. (Hoskins denies any conflict of interest, insisting that his role in authoring the papers was confined to providing information the other authors requested. Yet all but one of the other authors had also failed to disclose their asbestos interests, which now appear in the errata.)Soon after the first paper appeared, eight public health researchers wrote a letter to the editors of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11367/10623" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">expressing outrage</a> that the journal would publish a paper with “<a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11367/10623" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">gross mistakes</a>” and “no scientific content.” A group that included many of the letter’s signatories asked the journal to consider retracting the second paper, citing “<a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11590/10868" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">seriously misleading information</a>.” But the journal’s editors declined to retract the papers, which remain in the technical literature, casting doubt on the scientific consensus <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajim.10300/epdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">that all forms of asbestos</a> are hazardous to human health.</div><div data-reactid="224" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">IT’S HARD TO make a case for the safety of a substance like asbestos, which most people know causes cancer. Other commercial products are easier to defend, not because they are less hazardous, but because consumers are not as familiar with the evidence questioning their safety and utility. Scientists have known since 1997 that flame retardants, for example, can cause cancer. These brominated and chlorinated chemicals are used in a wide range of consumer products, including nursing pads and car seats. For more than three decades, studies in animals and humans have linked them to cancer, developmental delays, and other serious health problems. By 2010, the evidence was so persuasive that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002201/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">nearly 150 scientists from 22 countries</a> signed a statement warning that flame retardants “are a concern for persistence, bioaccumulation, long-range transport, and toxicity.” Flame retardants’ fire safety benefit not only remains unproven, the scientists asserted, but the chemicals form highly toxic byproducts when burned.Sense About Science has long relied on dubious numbers to insist on the efficacy of these chemicals.  In 2006 it published a pamphlet on “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120325143525/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/5/MakingSenseofChemicalStories_July08-Reprint.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">misconceptions about chemicals</a>” in which it claimed that British laws requiring flame retardants in furniture had <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150413142432/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/5/MakingSenseofChemicalStories_July08-Reprint.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">reduced fire deaths by 20 percent, citing</a> a 2000 European Commission report called “Flame Retardants.” A European Commission press officer told me she knows of no such report. “The reference to the 20 percent reduction in fire deaths is repeatedly quoted in papers and publications from flame retardant industries and associations, and they always refer to ‘Flame Retardants, DG Environment Video 2000,’ which we cannot find.” On the contrary, she told me, it is simply “not possible to correlate fire deaths to non-flammability requirements.”Who did make the claim? Flame retardant industry trade groups, including the <a href="http://slidegur.com/doc/1163534/efra-european-flame-retardant-association" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">European Flame Retardant Association</a> and the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150501142126/http:/www.bsef.com/uploads/Documents/documents/10%20facts%20about%20flame%20retardants.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Bromine Science and Environmental Forum</a>, run by Philip Morris’s longtime PR firm Burson-Marsteller. The U.S.-based <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091203075408/http:/www.cffsi.org/news.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Citizens for Fire Safety</a> also repeated the claim until it disbanded, <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/09/11749/citizens-fire-safety-smoked-out-front-group-folds-after-expos%C3%A9" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">following revelations</a> in 2012 that leading flame retardant producers ran the organization, not the grassroots group of “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20091203075348/http:/www.cffsi.org/about.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">staff and volunteers committed to national fire safety</a>” its literature asserted.The same year, Sense About Science again called on John Hoskins, identified as an independent toxicologist, this time to fact-check a <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/es303471d" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">study</a> that found potentially carcinogenic flame retardants in sofas. In his response, Hoskins wrote: “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150928075112/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/resources.php/107/do-flame-retardants-in-sofas-cause-cancer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The bottom line</a> is that danger of fire is many, many times greater than any imagined danger from chemicals used to prevent it.”“Everything I wrote about flame retardants was taken from published works,” Hoskins told me. “Reviewers at the time found nothing to criticize and I have had no comment from the thousands of people who must have read the pieces.”Sense About Science reprinted its guide on chemicals in 2014. “The trade-off between fire risk and toxicology is changing, and we represented that newer precautionary thinking in our most recent publications,” Brown, the group’s director, told The Intercept in an email. The new guide acknowledged “allegations of side effects” from flame retardants, including persistence in the environment and toxicity to humans and animals. But it also retained the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160729205537/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/154/MakingSenseofChemicalStories2.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">unsupported claim</a> that regulations requiring the chemicals saved lives. The guide even retained the text that countered concerns about traces of flame retardants found in children’s bodies by asserting that because the chemicals protected children from death or injury from fire, “To fail to expose them to such chemicals could be regarded as negligent.”<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653513017293" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Scientists who reviewed human studies</a> had come to a different conclusion the year before. They warned that although such links were impossible to prove conclusively, the evidence suggested that children’s exposure to flame retardants could have serious health consequences, including neurobehavioral and developmental problems. The scientists called for regulatory oversight.</div><div data-reactid="227" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">
OF ALL THE controversial chemicals in the public eye, the one Trevor Butterworth, Sense About Science USA’s director, has most fervently defended is bisphenol A, a <a href="https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">compound used to make plastics</a>. BPA is found in hard plastics, the lining of canned drinks and foods, thermal receipts, and other consumer and industrial products, including <a href="https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-016-0131-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">cigarette filters</a>. Manufacturers <a href="https://mcgroup.co.uk/news/20131108/bpa-production-grew-372000-tonnes.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">produce billions of pounds</a> of BPA each year. Its market value is projected to <a href="http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2014/11/12/682387/10107790/en/Global-Bisphenol-A-BPA-Market-Demand-Is-Expected-To-Grow-At-CAGR-of-4-7-From-2014-To-2020-New-Report-By-Grand-View-Research-Inc.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">reach $20 billion by 2020</a>. And numerous studies and scientific <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2726844/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">consensus statements</a> have linked BPA, which can interfere with hormone signaling, to developmental and reproductive disorders.Leading reproductive biologists released a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2967230/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">consensus statement</a> in 2007 warning that “the wide range of adverse effects of low doses of BPA in laboratory animals exposed both during development and in adulthood is a great cause for concern with regard to the potential for similar adverse effects in humans.”Two years later, while working for STATS, Butterworth published a 27,000-word <a href="http://www.metal-pack.org/docs/pdf/00047081.PDF" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">investigation</a> sharply questioning the validity of the scientific studies and news reports about BPA’s health effects. Butterworth’s central claim was that a handful of scientists, journalists, and environmental activist groups had ignored good science in a crusade to paint BPA as “the biological equivalent of global warming.” He singled out a <a href="http://cironline.org/person/susanne-rust" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">widely acclaimed</a> <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/40037607.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">special report</a> by Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporters Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger called “<a href="http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/34405049.htmlhttp:/www.jsonline.com/watchdog/34405049.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Chemical Fallout</a>.” These reporters, he claimed, relied on flawed studies by independent researchers and unfairly dismissed the industry-funded studies that found no harm. But the independent studies were not, in fact, flawed. Regulators just <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19337501" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">didn’t consider them useful</a>, because, like many such academic studies, they didn’t measure toxicity but tested hypotheses about how BPA could alter living systems.<a href="http://www.bisphenol-a.org/human/herMetabolism.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">BPA trade groups</a> have long insisted that the substance is metabolized too quickly to cause harm. Butterworth cites a 2009 <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19440505" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study</a> that measured BPA concentrations in newborns to make the same case. The study, he argues, “provides important evidence that infants — even those born prematurely — are able to detoxify BPA in the same way as adults.”The CDC study he cited was designed to gauge exposure, not metabolism. BPA has been detected in the urine of nearly every American tested. Premature babies’ fragile systems make them particularly vulnerable to environmental contaminants. The researchers suspected that the use of plastic medical devices in neonatal intensive care units might expose premature infants to higher than average levels of BPA. And that’s exactly what they found: Average BPA concentrations in hospitalized premature babies were about 10 times higher than those measured in adults. The authors noted that although premature babies appear to have some ability to metabolize BPA, their detoxification pathways “are not expected to be functional at adult rates until months after birth.”Butterworth ended his critique of what he called “the BPA is dangerous thesis” by suggesting that banning the chemical could result in greater harm: “What if some parents who turned to glass bottles for fear of … ‘leaching’ BPA drop and break them, causing injury to their babies?”Butterworth’s arguments have reverberated across an echo chamber of <a href="https://www.consumerfreedom.com/2014/04/anti-bpa-crusaders-baseless-fearmongering/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">free-market organizations</a>, including <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=yxhb0089" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Philip Morris</a>’s <a href="http://www.masstortdefense.com/2009/08/articles/bpa-update/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">product defense law firm</a>, <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/the-troubling-case-of-bisphenol-a/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Koch-funded think tanks</a>, chemical and <a href="http://www.metal-pack.org/thirdparty.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">food-packaging</a> industry <a href="http://www.thermalpaperfacts.org/archives/158" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">trade groups</a> in <a href="http://www.bisphenol-a-europe.org/index.php?mact=Mediaroom,cntnt01,default,0&cntnt01language=en_GB&cntnt01orderby=published_on%20DESC&cntnt01limit=10&cntnt01type=article&cntnt01page=5&cntnt01returnid=44" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Europe</a> and <a href="http://www.canmaker.com/online/who-will-watch-the-watchdogs/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">the U.S.</a>, and an ostensibly neutral <a href="http://www.ehrf.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/UpdateBisphenolA_5_23_11.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">environmental health research foundation</a> run by a <a href="http://www.odwyerpr.com/profiles/profiles_february_2009_evniron_pa.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">chemical industry PR firm</a>.Reached by email for comment, Butterworth did not account for his questionable characterization of the CDC study. He said that his critique relied on the work of scientists from regulatory agencies involved in risk assessment, and that these scientists had criticized smaller studies that claimed adverse effects. He maintained that studies assessing the effects of low doses of BPA are inconsistent and unlikely to capture significant results because of methodological and statistical problems.The year after Butterworth’s 2009 investigation, the anti-regulatory Donors Trust awarded STATS $86,000 for its “research efforts,” and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which belongs to the BPA Joint Trade Association, gave Lichter’s Center for Media and Public Affairs $10,000 for “research support.” Butterworth continued to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2014/04/09/bpa-the-scientists-the-scare-the-100-million-dollar-surge/#66f8f69463c3" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">defend BPA in news outlets</a> and in 2013 made his case on a blog <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/coca-cola-unbottled/is-bpa-safe-why-some-are-still-confused-despite-evidence" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">for Coca-Cola</a>, another BPA Joint Trade Association member.That year Coca-Cola <a href="http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/investments-in-health-and-wellbeing/list-of-organisations" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">gave more than $30,000</a> to Butterworth’s future partner, Sense About Science, which hosted a BPA forum the next year. (Since then, Sense About Science has not received corporate donations, which “represented less than 3 percent of our income,” Brown wrote in an email.) In the forum, a <a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/live-plastic-packaging-qa.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Q&A on</a> social media, Sense About Science put forward a representative of the British Plastics Federation and a toxicologist <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6qYGxPSB7QoJ:https://archive.apvma.gov.au/application_summaries/60514.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">whose longstanding ties to the chemical industry</a> the organization did not disclose. Participants were assured that BPA posed no risk to human health. Several <a href="http://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/qa-twitter-session-on-plastics" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">plastic industry</a> trade sites <a href="http://www.britishplastics.co.uk/News/q-and-a-makes-sense-of-science-behind-plastics-packaging/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">praised</a> the event. One welcomed Sense About Science’s efforts, reporting that “<a href="http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20140417/NEWS/140419934/using-social-media-to-answer-consumer-questions-about-plastics" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">plastic packaging</a> was stoutly defended.”</div><div data-reactid="230" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><span data-shortcode-type="dropcap" class="dropcap" andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" font-size="font-size" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height" float="float" left="left" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" px="px" margin-top="margin-top" margin-right="margin-right" box-shadow="box-shadow" white="white" style="box-sizing: border-box;">THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY pioneered tactics to fight regulations by manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that cigarettes kill. So it should be no surprise to encounter a strategy among defenders of the e-cigarette that also centers around doubt. ..</div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/facebook-ramps-up-efforts-to-curb-hateful-content-in-ads/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/facebook-ramps-up-efforts-to-curb-hateful-content-in-ads/</a></div><div>
</div><div>Washington (AFP) – Facebook said Friday it would ban a “wider category of hateful content” in ads as the embattled social media giant moved to respond to growing protests over its handling of inflammatory posts.Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook also would add tags to posts that are “newsworthy” but violate platform rules — following the lead of Twitter, which has used such labels on tweets from President Donald Trump.The initiative comes with the leading social network facing a growing boycott by advertisers — with soft drink behemoth Coca-Cola and Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever join…<a class="nordot-read-more nordot-modal" target="_blank" href="https://this.kiji.is/649357131533403233?c=592532205600719969" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Read More</a></div><div></div>

<a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-thums-up">https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-thums-up</a>...D<span style="" freight="Freight" pro="Pro" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-variant-ligatures="font-variant-ligatures" common-ligatures="common-ligatures" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">uring [Indira] Gandhi’s tenure as prime minister, Parliament passed a set of regulations that would trigger the chucking. The Foreign Exchange Regulation Act of 1973 required many multinationals to hand over 60% of the equity in their local subsidiaries<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/16/archives/ibm-to-leave-india-and-avoid-loss-of-control-disputes-with-other.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(239, 232, 220); text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(173, 143, 104, 0.6) 0px -2px 0px inset;" freight="Freight" pro="Pro" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-variant-ligatures="font-variant-ligatures" common-ligatures="common-ligatures"> to Indian partners.</a><span style="" freight="Freight" pro="Pro" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-variant-ligatures="font-variant-ligatures" common-ligatures="common-ligatures" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> Coca-Cola would have had to release its top-secret syrup recipe and IBM its computer codes in order to comply. Faced with an ultimatum from Fernandes, Coca-Cola—along with Mobil, Kodak, and 54 other<a href="http://www.forbesindia.com/article/independence-day-special/economic-milestone-exit-of-the-mncs-(1977)/38431/1" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(239, 232, 220); text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(173, 143, 104, 0.6) 0px -2px 0px inset;" freight="Freight" pro="Pro" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-variant-ligatures="font-variant-ligatures" common-ligatures="common-ligatures"> companies—left</a><span style="" freight="Freight" pro="Pro" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-variant-ligatures="font-variant-ligatures" common-ligatures="common-ligatures" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">.
<a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/coca-cola-groundwater-depletion-in-india-1204204">https://www.thoughtco.com/coca-cola-groundwater-depletion-in-india-1204204<threatened groundwater="groundwater" /></a> supplies across India, and many villagers in rural areas are blaming...

In the southern Indian village of Plachimada in Kerala state, for example, persistent droughts have dried up groundwater and local wells, forcing many residents to rely on water supplies trucked in daily by the government.defect ew 719
Beverage behemoths Coca-Cola and Pepsico have taken a stand against a trade association that actively works to restrict <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastic-bags" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">plastic bag</a> bans. The two soft drink giants have announced that they will leave the Plastics Industry Association as a response to concerns that their membership in the group contradicted their commitment to reducing plastic waste and packaging, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/coca-cola-pepsi-plastics-industry-association-1450866" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Newsweek</a> reported.<div class="rebellt-item col1" data-id="1" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The exit from the trade group follows pressure from <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Greenpeace</a>, which has urged all companies to reduce their plastic use. Last year, Greenpeace named Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle as the world's biggest producers of plastic trash, according to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/coca-cola-pepsico-break-ties-with-plastics-industry-association.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">CNBC</a>.The Plastics Industry Association has spent millions in state legislatures fighting plastic bag bans and working to draft preemptive restrictions on plastic bag bans so local municipalities are not allowed to implement their own bans on <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">plastics</a>, as the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/07/20/plastics-industry-plastic-recycling/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Intercept</a> reported."We withdrew earlier this year as a result of positions the organization was taking that were not fully consistent with our commitments and goals," said a Coca-Cola spokesperson to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/coca-cola-pepsico-break-ties-with-plastics-industry-association.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">CNBC</a>....</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/cdc-corruption-robert-kennedy-jr-2096438139.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.ecowatch.com/cdc-corruption-robert-kennedy-jr-2096438139.html</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><div class="headline-container" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 10px;"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">CDC Scientists Expose Agency Corruption</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px;"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2096438139" data-authors="Robert F. Kennedy, Jr." data-headline="CDC Scientists Expose Agency Corruption" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description" style="">Last month, <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/301432-the-cdc-is-being-being-influenced-by-corporate-and-political" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Hill published a letter</a> sent by "more than a dozen" senior Center for Disease Control (CDC) scientists charging the agency with nursing an atmosphere of pervasive research fraud.  The group, which claimed to represent scientists across the CDC's diverse branches, calls itself SPIDER (Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence and Ethics in Research). The letter to CDC Chief of Staff, Carmen Villar, expressed alarm "about the current state of ethics at our agency." The scientists complained that "our mission is being influenced and shaped by outside parties and rogue interests" and "circumvented by some of our leaders."The scientists told Villar that, "questionable and unethical practices, occurring at all levels and in all of our respective units, threaten to undermine our credibility and reputation as a trusted leader in public health." The letter charged that staff level scientists "are intimidated and pressed to do things they know are not right," and that, "Senior management officials at CDC are clearly aware and even condone these behaviors."The scientists cited several recent scandals involving scientific corruption at CDC.<ul class="ee-ul" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;"><li>They describe a "cover up," by officials, of mismanagement in CDC's Wise Woman Program, which provides screening in low income neighborhoods for heart disease, diabetes and other chronic health disorders. According to the letter, CDC officials purposefully misrepresented screening numbers in documents they sent to Congress to conceal failures in the multimillion dollar project. "... definitions were changed and data 'cooked' to make the results look better than they were." The scientists accused high level CDC bosses of suppressing the results of an internal review, involving staff across the CDC, "so media and/or Congressional staff would not become aware of the problems." As part of the systematic cover up, CDC then engaged in a coordinated effort to "bury" these deceptions. "CDC staff has gone out of its way to delay FOIAs and obstruct any inquiry."</li></ul><ul class="ee-ul" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;"><li style="">The scientists also complain about the "troubling" adventures of Dr. Barbara Bowman, director of CDC's Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, and Dr. Michael Pratt, Senior Advisor for Global Health at the NCCDPHP. Bowman recently left the CDC following shocking media disclosures that the pair had manipulated scientific studies on soft drink safety in collusion with Coca Cola. The CDC flimflam was part of Coke's campaign to pressure the World Health Organization to relax guidelines for sugar consumption by children in developing nations where the soda industry is aggressively expanding its markets.</li></ul>The scientists complain that the "climate of disregard" at CDC puts "many" agency scientists in difficult positions. "We are often directed to do things we know are not right." The public record supports SPIDER's allegations that scientists who insist on research integrity suffer persecution by CDC supervisors.<ul class="ee-ul" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;"><li>On Sept. 27, the <a href="https://osc.gov/News/pr16-28.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Office of Special Counsel</a>, an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency, announced further investigation of corruption in the agency's Zika testing program. That investigation arose from disclosures by laboratory chief Dr. Robert Lanciotti, supervisor of the CDC's prestigious Fort Collins, Colorado lab, that his CDC supervisors were deliberately using a Zika test that agency officials knew would underestimate the number of Zika cases nationwide by some 40 percent. Dr. Lanciotti initially raised the issues internally at CDC and in an email to state public health officials in April 2016. In May, his CDC supervisor responded to this boat rocking by demoting Lanciotti to a non-supervisory position within his lab. Dr. Lanciotti filed a whistleblower claim alleging that his punishment was retaliation for his disclosures. After its initial investigation, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel forced the CDC to reinstate Dr. Lanciotti as lab chief.</li></ul><ul class="ee-ul" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;"><li>In a 2010 scandal that predated the Flint, Michigan tragedy, <a href="http://newyorkcity.legalexaminer.com/toxic-substances/officials-and-cdc-knowingly-endangered-dc-residents-regarding-lead-in-the-drinking-water/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Congress found that the CDC had deliberately manipulated scientific documents and purposefully made inaccurate claims</a> about the safety of Washington, DC drinking water in order to mislead DC residents into believing that their water was safe. The congressional committee found that the CDC's deceit had caused thousands of DC residents to drink water highly contaminated with lead for years to the detriment of their health. As with the Coca Cola and Wise Woman Program scandals, the immediate victims of CDC scientific fraud and mismanagement were disproportionately poor and minority.</li><li>...</li></ul></div></div></div></div>puerto rico water = disaster capitalism?<div>=</div><div>cult corrup window --> smash and grab?</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/scott-pruitt-epa-industry-2575035190.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/scott-pruitt-epa-industry-2575035190.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>see below</div><div>
</div><div>New Reports Highlight Industry Influence on EPA Head Pruitt</div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2575035190" data-authors="Olivia Rosane" data-headline="New Reports Highlight Industry Influence on EPA Head Pruitt" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description">New evidence emerged Friday and Saturday revealing how U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA</a>) Administrator <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scott-pruitt" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Scott Pruitt</a>'s close relationships with industry leaders and lobbyists might impact his environmental decisions.On Friday, the lobbying firm Williams & Jensen disclosed evidence that its former chairman J. Steven Hart, whose wife <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/pruitt-corruption-scandal-condo-2555549162.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">rented a Washington, DC condo to Pruitt</a>, did in fact lobby the EPA on behalf of three clients during Pruitt's tenure despite his denials, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/390344-firm-discloses-more-epa-lobbying-by-advocate-with-ties-to-pruitt" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Hill reported</a>.  Then, on Saturday, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/02/us/scott-pruitt-coal-joseph-craft.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none;">The New York Times</a> broke the news that Pruitt had attended a University of Kentucky basketball game in December in special, front-and-center seats belonging to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="self" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none;">coal</a> billionaire Joseph W. Craft III, whose close relationship with Pruitt had not been previously examined.Hart, who stepped down from Williams & Jensen in April, told E&E news in March that he did not lobby the EPA in 2017 or 2018. But lobbying disclosures released hours after his departure revealed he did contact the EPA to lobby for Smithfield Foods during that period.In Friday's disclosures to the Senate, the firm revealed further that Hart did more for Smithfield Foods that previously believed and also contacted the EPA on behalf of Coca-Cola and the Financial Oversight and Management Control Board of Puerto Rico.The new information turned up after Williams & Jensen hired Jan Baran at Wiley Rein to review Hart's schedule and communications, as well as the firm's disclosure filings, from 2017 and the first three months of 2018, to make sure the firm was accurately disclosing Hart's activity.Hart and others lobbied the EPA for Coca-Cola on "environmental issues impacting the beverage industry; clean water supply and water conservation," according to the updated disclosures.The EPA told The Hill that the inclusion of Coca-Cola was an error."This meeting involving Coca-Cola and their clean water steward did not occur," EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement. "The request was submitted and it went unfilled."The disclosures said that lobbying by Hart and others for Coca-Cola to the EPA and other government agencies and Capital Hill also included "general market access issues in foreign countries; Commerce 232 investigations, including re: aluminum" and "[e]nvironmental issues impacting the beverage industry, including hydroflourocarbon replacement; commodity pricing legislation."In 2017, Hart also lobbied the EPA for more potable water for Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, on behalf of the Financial Oversight and Management Control Board of Puerto Rico.Even if he wasn't an official lobbyist, coal executive Craft's close ties to Pruitt suggest <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fossil-fuel</a> industry influence on key deregulatory moves such as October's repeal of the Obama-era <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-power-plan-repeal-2494810040.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Clean Power Plan</a>, which Pruitt announced in Craft's hometown of Hazard, Kentucky with Craft in the audience. Craft also served on the board of an industry group that urged the EPA to postpone enforcement of a rule preventing coal plants from dumping toxic metals into rivers, a request Pruitt honored in September, The New York Times reported.The New York Times further uncovered the fact that Pruitt had met with Craft at least seven times during the first 14 months of his tenure at the EPA, more than he met with any environmental advocate. The two are close enough to be on texting basis, and their relationship has deep roots: Craft was a major donor to Pruitt's state government campaigns in Oklahoma.Heath Lovell, vice president for public affairs at Craft's company Alliance Resource Partners, told The New York Times that Pruitt paid "market value" for the basketball tickets.The game was not included on Pruitt's official calendar, but was videotaped and mentioned in university communications requested by The New York Times through public records requests. According to those communications, Kentucky state police provided additional security for Pruitt during the trip, backing up his own detail.</div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div><div>=</div><div>ceo pay</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/shocker-tax-cuts-hand-ceos-admit-they-wont-invest-record-profits-worker-wage-hikes">https://www.alternet.org/shocker-tax-cuts-hand-ceos-admit-they-wont-invest-record-profits-worker-wage-hikes</a></div><div></div><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coca-cola-obesity-public-health-2548323725.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;">Coca-Cola Sees Public Health Debate as 'a Growing War,' Documents Reveal</a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url expanded" data-elid="2548323725" data-authors="Olivia Rosane" data-headline="Coca-Cola Sees Public Health Debate as 'a Growing War,' Documents Reveal" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><div class="widget__brief">Coca-Cola intentionally funded the Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN) as a "weapon" in a "growing war between the public health community and private industry" on the causes of obesity, according to a press release sent to EcoWatch by consumer group <a href="https://usrtk.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">U.S. Right to Know</a>.The quotes come from documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Request filed by U.S. Right to Know that formed the basis for a <a href="http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2018/03/14/jech-2017-210375" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">study</a> published Wednesday in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The study's authors focused on the documents because they definitively proved that Coca-Cola funded the GEBN with the intention of influencing public health debate in their favor.</div><div class="js-appear-on-expand" style="transition: all 350ms; height: auto; overflow: hidden; opacity: 1;">"[C]onclusions about the intentions of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/food/" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">food</a> and beverage companies in funding scientific organisations have been prevented by limited access to industry's internal documents," the abstract said. The revealed documents therefore allowed the study's authors to draw those conclusions.The documents further revealed that Coca-Cola intended the GEBN to appear as an "honest broker" in the national conversation on obesity, but that it's actual purpose was to "promote practices that are effective in terms of both policy and profit," the abstract said.The GEBN was a non-profit dedicated to promoting the idea that exercise, not calorie counting, was the key to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/weight-loss" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">weight-loss</a> and health. It was presided over by scientists from the University of Colorado, the University of South Carolina and West Virginia University. The group imploded after a series of events initiated when <a href="https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">The New York Times</a> reported in August 2015 that it was funded by Coca-Cola. Then, in November of that year, The Associated Press obtained emails showing that the soft-drink company had played a major role in shaping the group's mission and branding, even instructing it not to use blue in its logo, to avoid associations with Pepsi, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/emails-reveal-cokes-role-in-anti-obesity-group/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">CBS reported</a>. The <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anti-obesity-group-funded-by-coke-global-energy-balance-network-disbanding/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">group disbanded</a> a week later.When the scandal broke, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent told the Associated Press, "[I]t has become clear to us that there was not a sufficient level of transparency with regard to the company's involvement with the Global Energy Balance Network. Clearly, we have more work to do to reflect the values of this great company in all that we do."The newly-released documents, however, suggest that transparency was never the goal, and that the shadiness of the GEBN's funding reflected the company's values rather accurately.Even though Coca-Cola has tried to buy scientific weight for its claims that exercise is more important for combating obesity than diet, the scientific consensus actually runs the other way, The Times reported in the article revealing the source of the GEBN's funding. According to the <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/soft-drinks-and-disease/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health</a>, drinking sugary drinks regularly increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, gout, heart disease, and obesity.The authors of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health study expressed concern that Coca-Cola is borrowing tactics from another industry attempting to sell unhealthy products."Coca-Cola's proposal for establishing the GEBN corroborates concerns about food and beverage corporations' involvement in scientific organisations and their similarities with Big Tobacco," the abstract said.Just because the GEBN disbanded doesn't mean Coca-Cola has stopped trying to influence public policy. In February, U.S. Right to Know <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2018/02/21/us-right-know-sues-cdc-documents-about-its-ties-coca-cola" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">sued</a> the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for documents about its relationship to the soft-drink giant. Former CDC chief Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, who <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/01/31/582099166/cdc-director-resigns-due-to-complex-financial-entanglements" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">resigned</a> in January after it was revealed she'd bought shares in a tobacco company, also had ties to Coca-Cola. As Georgia Public Health Commissioner she had co-run with the company an anti-obesity program called Georgia SHAPE that promotes exercise but doesn't mention diet, U.S. Right to Know <a href="https://usrtk.org/tag/global-energy-balance-network/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">reported</a>....</div></div></div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenpeace-coca-cola-2526964744.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/greenpeace-coca-cola-2526964744.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>Friday <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Greenpeace</a> criticized Coca-Cola's <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/press-center/press-releases/the-coca-cola-company-announces-new-global-vision-to-help-create" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">new global plastics plan</a> for failing to address the urgency of ocean <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics" style="text-decoration-line: none;">plastic pollution</a>.The long awaited policy from the world's largest soft drink company featured a series of measures weaker than those previously announced for Europe and the UK.The plan failed to include any reduction of the company's rapidly increasing use of single-use plastic bottles globally, which now stands at well more than 110 billion annually.The massive increase in plastic waste in our oceans, and increasingly in our food chain, is a result of our dependency on throwaway items like single-use plastic bottles. Instead of focusing on reducing the amount of plastic it produces—the sure fire way to reduce ocean plastic pollution—Coca-Cola is trying to offset its huge plastic footprint by investing in a bit more recycling. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/china-plastics-recycling-2515630485.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">China's refusal to accept more plastic waste</a>, and the resulting backlog in plastic exporting nations, shows that we can't recycle our way out of this mess while we continue to make the mess bigger.As the most recognizable brand in the world, and the biggest plastic bottle producer, Coca-Cola has a special responsibility to lead the way in reduction of single-use plastic. Its plan is full of band-aids and will do very little in the way of making a meaningful impact on the amount of plastic entering our waterways and food chain. Coke has a long way to go to show it is taking the plastics epidemic seriously.Coca-Cola produces more than 110 billion single use plastic bottles each year, and billions of these end up in landfills, rivers and the sea.Greenpeace estimates that Coke has increased its number of single-use plastic bottles by nearly a third (31 percent) since 2008 and that they now account for almost 70 percent of Coke's packaging globally. [68 percent in <a href="https://storage.googleapis.com/gpuk-static/legacy/coca-cola.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2016 sustainability report</a>]. Friday's announcement revealed no plans that would reverse this trend.Greenpeace welcomed the announcement that Coke will be increasing the recycled content of its single-use plastic bottles from the current paltry 7 percent to 50 percent globally by 2030, although it is less ambitious than Coke UK's target of 50 percent by 2020 and Coke Europe's target of 50 percent by 2025. Greenpeace has been calling on Coke to move to 100 percent recycled content.And while Coke now backs Deposit Return Schemes in the UK, <a href="http://www.packaging-gateway.com/comment/coca-colas-refillable-trial-finally-signal-end-plastic-bottles/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">following pressure from environmental groups</a>, the company has not announced a similar policy change at a global level and remains opposed to schemes in many other countries, including Canada, the Netherlands and Israel.The plan contrasts starkly with the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-pollution-mcdonalds-2525962206.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">announcement made by UK retailer Iceland</a> earlier this week that it will become the first major retailer globally to eliminate single-use plastic packaging throughout its own brand products within 5 years, a comprehensive solution that removes the problem rather than just trying to manage it.Greenpeace is urging Coca-Cola to make firm commitments to cut its plastic production by investing in alternatives to single-use plastic bottles, including committing to expand its use of new delivery methods such as <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-testing-self-serve-water-station-with-flavors-and-bubbles" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Freestyle dispensers and self-serve water stations with reusable containers</a>....</div><div></div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coca-cola-plastic-bottles-2492093659.html" class="external text" title="https://www.ecowatch.com/coca-cola-plastic-bottles-2492093659.html" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" lock_icon.gif="lock_icon.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" font-family="font-family" georgia="Georgia" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" verdana="Verdana" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size">Coca-Cola Produced More Than 110 Billion Plastic Bottles Last Year </a>10/17.<div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/03/31/19498/senators-seek-better-conflict-disclosures-scientific-articles">https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/03/31/19498/senators-seek-better-conflict-disclosures-scientific-articles</a></div><div>
</div><div><div>Citing the Center for Public Integrity’s recent “Science for Sale” series, a group of U.S. senators has asked the National Institutes of Health to make it easier to tell who funds research published in scientific journals.</div><div>
</div><div>Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, on Wednesday released a letter sent to NIH Director Francis Collins asking that the National Library of Medicine make changes to its public database of 25 million journal articles, called PubMed, to reveal conflicts of interest in research.</div><div>
</div><div>“With industry now employing more scientists than nonprofits, universities and the government combined, and industry funding the research of many independent researchers, there are growing concerns about objectivity in numerous scientific disciplines — including nutrition science and research on health risk from chemicals,” the letter said.</div><div>
</div><div>The letter also cited a New York Times story about Coca-Cola Co. quietly funding academic researchers who blamed lack of exercise, rather than soft drinks and fast food, for the epidemic of obesity and diabetics.</div><div>
</div><div>The Center’s series revealed how scientific consultants working for the chemical industry publish journal articles that almost always claim their clients’ products are safe. Examples included two consulting firms, Gradient Corp. and Exponent, which published articles to help clients win asbestos lawsuits.</div><div>
</div><div>The NIH maintains a public database of medical and life sciences articles in more than 5,600 peer-reviewed journals. While the database often includes an abstract detailing the purpose of a study and its findings, the search results don’t reveal who paid for the research.</div><div>
</div><div>Corporations are steering millions of dollars to scientific consulting firms to cast doubt on health concerns surrounding toxic chemicals.</div><div>Stories in this series</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>The NIH requires researchers with government grants to disclose conflicts of interest in journal articles. Many journals have their own disclosure policies.</div><div>
</div><div>“While scientists regularly use PubMed to conduct and inform research, millions of nonscientists — consumers, journalists, policymakers and others — also make use of this public resource,” the senators’ letter said.</div><div>
</div><div>The Center analyzed the funding of 149 articles published by principal scientists at Gradient and found that 98 percent of the time the articles found that chemicals did not pose risks that would require stricter regulations. In order to obtain the funding information, a reporter had to go to National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, to get the complete copy of each article.</div><div>
</div><div>Senators who signed the NIH letter Wednesday in addition to Blumenthal were Democrats Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Richard Durbin of Illinois.</div></div><div>
</div><div></div><p style="margin: 1em 0px; unicode-bidi: embed;" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" verdana="Verdana" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/nestle-and-coca-cola-attempt-block-national-parks-banning-bottled-water-sales" class="external text" title="http://www.alternet.org/environment/nestle-and-coca-cola-attempt-block-national-parks-banning-bottled-water-sales" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; background: url(" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Nestlé and Coca-Cola Attempt to Block National Parks From Banning Bottled Water Sales </a>11/16.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; unicode-bidi: embed;" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" verdana="Verdana" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/nestle-bottled-water-drought-2012310851.html" class="external text" title="http://www.ecowatch.com/nestle-bottled-water-drought-2012310851.html" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; background: url(" external.png="external.png" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Nestlé Can Keep Piping Water Out of Drought-Stricken California Despite Permit Expiring in 1988</a> 9/16http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-28/coca-cola-may-pull-products-from-vermont-to-comply-with-gmo-law-Cola Co., the world’s largest soft-drink company, expects to pull some of its beverages from Vermont stores as the state imposes a GMO-labeling law this week.All products made with genetically modified organisms must have warning labels in order to stay on sale in Vermont -- the nation’s second-least-populous state -- starting July 1. While the Atlanta-based company’s top beverages will stay on shelves, including Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero, some smaller brands or configurations may disappear for now, according to spokesman Ben Sheidler.“To avoid multiple labeling changes, some lower-volume brands and packages we offer within our broad portfolio could be temporarily unavailable in Vermont,” he told Bloomberg BNA.<div data-view-uid="1|0_3_1_8" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 29.124px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Products made with GMOs are a hot-button topic in the food and agriculture industry, and the U.S. Senate is discussing its own bill that would supersede Vermont’s labeling law.  Consumers are increasingly wary of scientifically altered ingredients, but food companies say the scientific consensus is that GMOs are safe.Kellogg Co., Campbell Soup Co. and Mars Inc. previously announced that they would bow to the Vermont law and begin labeling their products for GMOs.<h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; margin: 1.25rem 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Senate Bill</h3>But the industry is still seeking a national solution, saying a patchwork of state laws isn’t practical. Republicans and Democrats on the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee have struck a deal that would create national GMO-labeling protocol, pre-empting the Vermont law.For beverage companies such as Coca-Cola, the GMO debate adds to bigger problems. Per-person soda consumption in the U.S. fell to a 30-year low last year, according to Beverage Digest. And sales have continued to tumble in 2016.<div data-view-uid="1|0_3_1_9" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 29.124px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PepsiCo Inc. <a itemscope="itemscope" itemprop="StoryLink" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-27/new-pepsi-old-problem-u-s-soda-sales-have-lost-their-fizz" title="New Pepsi, Old Problem: U.S. Soda Sales Have Lost Their Fizz" data-tracker-action="click" data-tracker-category="recirc" data-tracker-label="inline_link.01" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.1s ease-out; text-decoration: none; outline: 0px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(43, 0, 247); background: transparent;">announced</a> that it was revamping its diet-cola line this week after slow sales.=https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/06/29/coca-cola-reportedly-pulling-products-from-vt-over-gmo-labeling-law/Coca-Cola reportedly pulling products from VT over GMO labeling lawHank Campbell | June 29, 2016 | American Council on Science and HealthThe GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis.
Vermont’s somewhat capricious GMO labeling law is set to go into effect next week and one company intends to comply with it by removing its products from store shelves.Coca-Cola is advising stores that individual cans and bottles will no longer be available to Vermont consumers, at least according to one tiny local outlet I had never heard of . . . Coke doesn’t have that decision anywhere on their site yet. The site also claims the Vermont Retail and Grocers Association estimates about 10 percent of products will be pulled from Vermont stores rather than make up a new set of labels for a few hundred thousand people who like to be arbitrary.. . . .I’d have thought for sure Coca-Cola would cave in, like General Mills and Kelloggs. That they didn’t is a big shock, especially for a large company in American corporate culture thinking which insists companies have to apologize for being in business at all.Read full, original post: Coke Agrees To Comply With VT GMO Law – By Removing Coke From VTGoogle -- one of California’s most influential companies that people like me and you use everyday -- still plans to sponsor a Trump-led Republican National Convention and help provide a platform for his brand of hate and violence.

Under pressure from activists, Coca-Cola recently took the bold step to cease its support of a Trump Convention.(1) And Courage Campaign has joined our allies at ColorOfChange, Ultraviolet, CREDO, Bend the Arc, and more to turn up the heat on Google and other corporate sponsors, urging them to follow Coke’s lead

<a href="http://www.alternet.org/food/ethics-selling-sugar-coke-lost-script-it-can-get-it-back">http://www.alternet.org/food/ethics-selling-sugar-coke-lost-script-it-can-get-it-back</a>The University of Colorado School of Medicine recently <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/university-returns-1-million-grant-to-coca-cola/?r=0" style="text-decoration: none;">announced</a> it was returning a $1 million gift from Coca-Cola after it was revealed that the money was used to fund the Global Energy Balance Network, an industry pressure group that has worked to play down the link between sugary drinks and obesity. Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University and the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Soda-Politics-Taking-Big-Winning/dp/0190263431" style="text-decoration: none;">Soda Politics</a>, called the network a "<a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/" style="text-decoration: none;">front group</a>" for Coca-Cola and said she was pleased that the money was returned.The world's largest beverage company has been criticized for pushing a misleading message to the public, blaming the obesity crisis on Americans' lack of exercise and denying that sugary beverages are a main cause of the problem. The company said the returned money would be <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/university-returns-1-million-grant-to-coca-cola/?_r=0" style="text-decoration: none;">donated</a> to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.....diesel spill http://www.alternet.org/environment/coca-cola-poisons-drinking-water-millions-sri-lanka==

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Global Energy Balance Network, astroturf

<a href="http://www.alternet.org/print/personal-health/how-coca-colas-obesity-pr-stunt-blew-companys-face">http://www.alternet.org/print/personal-health/how-coca-colas-obesity-pr-stunt-blew-companys-face</a>

==

July 2007

Coca-Cola had a history of conducting invasive and deadly animal experiments–including cutting open chimpanzees’ faces in order to conduct taste tests and force-feeding chemicals to rats to test “caramel color”–none of which is necessary or required by law.

After discussions with PETA and after we learned that Coca-Cola was funding a deadly physiology test on sour taste reception in rats, Coca-Cola wrote: “I want to assure you that The Coca-Cola Company does not conduct animal tests and does not directly fund animal tests on its beverages. … We are sending letters to our partners and research organizations who may conduct safety evaluations on … ingredients insisting they use alternatives to animal testing, when such testing is both available and accepted by governments. … Recently senior management became aware that research involving rats was being conducted as part of a grant we had funded at Virginia Commonwealth University to study taste reception. We have contacted the University and have discontinued our funding.”

==

Coca-Cola worried about threats at Vancouver Olympics

WikiLeaks releases emails over security firm's assessment of protest threat

The Associated Press Posted: Feb 28, 2012 5:04 AM ET Last Updated: Feb 28, 2012 10:58 AM ET

Private intelligence firm Stratfor was paid by Coca-Cola to gauge the threat of protesters at the Vancouver Olympics, provided Dow Chemical information on environmental activists, and sells what clients and subscribers consider some of the best geopolitical analysis that money can buy.

Now the Texas-based think-tank is the latest target of WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange, who says his anti-secrecy group has more than five million of Stratfor's emails and is promising to release damaging material in the coming weeks.

The first, small batch published Monday contained little that was particularly scintillating — but revealed clients that Stratfor has long safeguarded and refused to disclose. They range from local universities to megacorporations like Coca-Cola, which apparently worried about animal-rights supporters crashing and disrupting the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

"To what extent will U.S.-based PETA supporters travel to Canada to support activism?" a Coca-Cola manager asked a Stratfor analyst in a 2009 email.

An initial examination of the emails turned up a mix of the innocuous and the embarrassing. But Assange has accused Stratfor of serious deeds, such as funnelling money to informants through offshore tax havens, monitoring activist groups on behalf of big corporations and making investments based on its secret intelligence.

"What we have discovered is a company that is a private intelligence Enron," Assange told London's Frontline Club, referring to the Texas energy giant whose spectacular bankruptcy turned it into a byword for corporate malfeasance.

'Nothing improper,' says Stratfor

Stratfor denied there was anything improper in the way it dealt with its contacts.

"Stratfor has worked to build good sources in many countries around the world, as any publisher of global geopolitical analysis would do," the company said in a statement. "We have done so in a straightforward manner and we are committed to meeting the highest standards of professional conduct."

Headquartered on the fourth floor of a bank building in downtown Austin, Stratfor might be one of the smallest targets on which WikiLeaks has set its sights. Founded in 1996, the company was reported to have the equivalent of around 40 full-time employees in Austin in 2008 and regularly plucks interns from the nearby University of Texas campus.

According to an internal Stratfor document released by WikiLeaks, the company boasted having 292,000 paid subscribers but also acknowledged that the actual number of people reading its products is far fewer. Stratfor uses analysts to scour the internet for open-source information, which they then use to determine where the world's next crisis might strike.

But the company also pays for information. One email released by WikiLeaks described a $6,000-a-month payment made to a Middle Eastern source, and another carried bits of gossip dropped by a retired spy. In December, Stratfor founder George Friedman gave advice on handling sources to one of his analysts gathering information on the health of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez.

"If this is a source you suspect may have value, you have to take control od (sic) him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control to the point where he would reveal his sourcing and be tasked," the email read. "This is difficult to do when you are known to be affiliated with an intelligence organization."

VP bragged about 'trusted former CIA cronies'

Stratfor vice-president of intelligence Fred Burton bragged in other emails about his "trusted former CIA cronies" and promises to "see what I can uncover" about a classified FBI investigation.

Messages left for Burton weren't immediately returned. Stratfor has speculated that some of the leaked emails may have been altered or forged, although the firm did not provide any evidence of tampering. Anonymous said in a Twitter message that the suggestion of forgery was "pathetic."

Bobby Inman, former director of the National Security Agency and former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, called Stratfor's paid intelligence service competent and said the company has delivered "high-quality" analysis in the past.

Inman said Monday that the leaked list of clients would almost "certainly be damaging" to Stratfor's business.

"If you think who might find that information useful, it would be a competitor out there looking for clients," he said.

Some clients are already facing questions. Among the emails are reports apparently compiled for The Dow Chemical Co. on activists who have targeted the company over its links to the Bhopal gas leak disaster, which killed thousands of Indians and spawned a long-running legal battle.

Dow said in a written statement that "major companies are often required to take appropriate action to protect their people and safeguard their facilities," adding that it operated within the law.

Coca-Cola defends using firm

Coca-Cola also defended reaching out to Stratfor before the 2010 Olympics, releasing a statement Monday that read, ""We consider it prudent to monitor for protest activities at any major event we sponsor, as such activities may affect our partners, customers, consumers or employees."

How WikiLeaks got the company's emails remains unclear. Assange refused to answer questions about the matter Monday, but Stratfor said the messages appeared to be the same ones stolen by hackers in December. That breach, claimed by the internet activist group Anonymous, ravaged the company's servers and led to the disclosure of thousands of credit card numbers and other information.

Wired magazine quoted an unnamed member of Anonymous as saying that the stolen data had been transferred to WikiLeaks, which allegedly acknowledged receiving the transfer using a coded message on Twitter. Anonymous appeared to confirm that account, pointing to the cryptic message "rats for donavon," which WikiLeaks posted Dec. 30.

Several media groups, including Rolling Stone magazine and German broadcaster NDR, said they have been offered advance access to the emails and will publish stories based on the documents if appropriate.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/coca-cola-worried-about-threats-at-vancouver-olympics-1.1294564

==

===

http://www.alternet.org/print/food/watch-out-these-buzzwords-food-companies-use-hype-their-products-are-healthy-they-dont-mean

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title" style=" font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Watch Out for These Buzzwords Food Companies Use to Hype That Their Products Are Healthy—They Don't Mean Anything</h1>

===

malaspina VP runs ILSI toxicology front, 2ndhand smoke:

http://www.who.int/tobacco/media/en/ILSI.pdf

The Tobacco Industry and Scientific Groups

ILSI: A Case Study

The Tobacco Free Initiative, WHO

February 2001

Executive Summary:

A July 2000 report of an independent committee of experts outlined a number of ways in

which the tobacco industry had attempted to undermine WHO tobacco control efforts in

recent decades. One such method of subverting tobacco control involved the industry’s

funding of and involvement in seemingly unbiased scientific groups to manipulate

political and scientific debate concerning tobacco and health. This paper presents a brief

chronology of the industry’s relations with one such group, the International Life

Sciences Institute (ILSI), between 1983 and 1998. Findings indicate that ILSI was used

by certain tobacco companies to thwart tobacco control policies. Senior office bearers in

ILSI were directly involved in these actions.

Introduction:

In July, 2000, an independent committee of experts issued a report addressing the efforts

of the tobacco industry to undermine tobacco control initiatives of the World Health

Organization (WHO).1

Information in the report, based upon thousands of industry

documents released as a condition of United States tobacco lawsuit settlements, revealed

that tobacco companies had engaged in deliberate subversion of WHO tobacco control

objectives through, inter alia, using outside organizations, such as tobacco-company

created front-groups, as well as legitimately established scientific groups, to influence

WHO decision-making and to manipulate scientific debate surrounding the health effects

of tobacco.2

Control of such groups played a crucial role in the industry’s strategy to

prevent tobacco control from taking priority on the WHO agenda.

The International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) is a key scientific group which the

tobacco industry sought to control during the public and scientific debate concerning

environmental tobacco smoke. ILSI is a worldwide foundation which aims to “advance

the understanding of scientific issues related to nutrition, food safety, toxicology, and the

environment” through the exchange of ideas and information between scientists from

various backgrounds: academia, government, industry, and the private sector.3

ILSI headquarters are located in Washington, D.C., with branch offices throughout the world.4

Current public health issues on the ILSI agenda include the role of nutrition in human

health, the safety of food ingredients and additives, food-related allergies, safe water and

air, chemical safety and environmental health, and the identification and assessment of

human health and ecological risks.5

ILSI primarily uses sponsored research, workshops, conferences, educational projects,

and publications to increase awareness about its scientific research and viewpoints. The

organization enjoys nongovernmental status with the WHO and specialized consultative

status with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.6

Additionally, ILSI works closely with two WHO groups: the International Agency for

Research on Cancer (IARC) and the International Programme on Chemical Safety

(IPCS).7

The Tobacco Industry Document Report outlines Philip Morris’ intense

campaign to influence IARC studies on Environmental Tobacco Smoke.8

This paper examines many of the tobacco industry documents establishing political and

financial connections with ILSI and concludes that ILSI has enjoyed a long and serious

collaboration with the tobacco industry. The information comes primarily from the Philip

Morris9 and R.J. Reynolds10 tobacco company document sites. Over 700 documents

from these websites reference ILSI conferences, publications, and communications

between the years 1983 and 1998.

Chronology:

The earliest tobacco website documents demonstrate that tobacco industry involvement

with ILSI had been established by the early 1980’s. The first reference to ILSI among

the released Minnesota Settlement documents occurs in 1983, mentioning current R.J.

Reynolds membership and activities in technical associations, including ILSI, as

constituting one example of the research activities which could benefit from the

centralized activity of a Corporate Research Center.11 Philip Morris representatives

attended a European Toxicology Forum meeting in October of that year.12 A 1984 R.J.

Reynolds report on resource management points out the necessity of maintaining an

active liaison with the ILSI project officer.13

In August of 1985, Dr. Francis Roe of Philip Morris wrote a brief report of the

proceedings from the International Congress of Nutrition, including a description of a

speech given by Alex Malaspina (then-president of ILSI and also vice-president of Coca

Cola) on the organization’s activities.14 A few months later, Dr. Roe corresponded with

Dr. Ulrich Mohr of Medizinische Hochsule Hannover, discussing the content of the ILSI

International Symposium on the Design, Conduct, and Interpretation of Inhalation

Studies.15 In response to Dr. Mohr’s request for comments on a proposed list of topics,

Dr. Roe suggested eliminating clinical or epidemiological evidence from the discussion

and stated that he hoped to be involved in “some way” in the symposium.

A 1986 interoffice correspondence from Philip Morris containing minutes of a Strategic

Issues Committee meeting demonstrated that Philip Morris officials were concerned

about a lack of focus and organization in ILSI activities, a problem attributed to ILSI

president Dr. Alex Malaspina. (then Vice President of Coca Cola)16 These problems

were apparently resolved by 1989, when a handwritten note regarding Dr. Malaspina’s

desire to meet with senior management outlined the necessity of supporting an individual

who could set the agenda a meetings, arrange for ILSI to co-sponsor meetings, enhance

Philip Morris credibility, and establish third party links between ILSI and WHO.17 In

exchange, the note suggested, Philip Morris would provide Dr. Malaspina’s organization

with the money it desired.

This tactic would apparently complement Philip Morris’ hope to use ILSI in execution of

an industry strategy to attack the scientific basis of ETS accusations through ILSI’s risk

assessment symposium and through its inhalation toxicology studies.18 Philip Morris

----

<li style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px 14px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: url(http://www.globalpossibilities.org/wp-content/themes/Magnificent/images/footer-bullet.png); background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; background-position: 0px 8px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;"><a href="http://www.globalpossibilities.org/coca-cola-now-owns-zico-coconut-water-honest-tea-odwalla-and-vitamin-water-the-dark-side-of-cokes-healthy-brands/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 1px 0px;">Coca-Cola Now Owns Zico Coconut Water, Honest Tea, Odwalla, and Vitamin Water: The Dark Side of Coke’s “Healthy” Brands</a></li>

</ul>

===

Coca Cola hired the “global intelligence” spy firm Stratfor to investigate People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, according to company emails <a href="http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/5282628_re-public-policy-question-for-coca-cola-.html" target="_blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">released by Wikileaks</a>.

In a reply email, Stratfor’s vice president for counterterrorism and corporate security said: “The FBI has a classified investigation on PETA operatives. I’ll see what I can uncover.”

The exchange is part of the 5 million Stratfor emails that Wikileaks promises to release in coming weeks. Stratfor, an intelligence firm that works closely with corporations and the government, has verified that company emails were stolen but refuses to say anything more.

In a June 2, 2009 email, Anya Alfano of Stratfor relays the intelligence request from Coca Cola (as background, Peta has protested <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/business/31testing.html" target="_blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">Coca Cola for its involvement in animal testing</a>):

From: Anya Alfano [mailto:anya.alfano@stratfor.com]

Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 10:56 AM

To: Fred Burton; scott stewart

Subject: Public Policy Question for Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola just sent me a long list of questions regarding PETA/Animal

Activism and the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver–I’ve pasted the

questions below. I’m not entirely clear on how much we can task the

public policy group at this point–is there any guidance you can give me

on that front? Coke has asked for a short teleconference with one of

our analysts to discuss this issue–is that something I could ask Kathy,

Bart or Joe to do, or would that be off the table at this point? Stick,

are these questions something that you have a handle on, if we aren’t

able to get info from the policy folks?

Any thoughts or guidance would be helpful. Thanks, Anya

Questions—

– How many PETA supporters are there in Canada?

– How many of these are inclined toward activism?

– To what extent will US-based PETA supporters travel to Canada to

support activism?

– What is PETA’s methodology for planning and executing activism?

(Understanding this better would certainly help us to recognize

indicators should they appear.)

– To what extent is PETA in Canada linked to PETA in the US or

elsewhere?

– To what extent are the actions of PETA in one country controlled by

an oversight board/governing body?

– To what extent could non-PETA hangers-on (such as anarchists or ALF

supporters) get involved in any protest activity?

</blockquote>

In response, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart/catalog/author.pperl?authorid=72572" target="_blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">Fred Burton</a>, which Random House describes as “one of the world’s foremost experts on security, terrorists, and terrorist organizations,” said the FBI has a classified file on PETA.

These emails reflect an ongoing pattern of surveillance and misinformation by the FBI, Stratfor, and corporations against animal rights and environmental groups. In fact, the<a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/justice-department-warned-fbi/3423/" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">Justice Department warned the FBI</a> against wasting resources investigating PETA and other activist groups (the FBI refused to alter its policies). Also, the <a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/peta-terrorists-usda-form/2374/" target="blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">USDA has classified PETA as a terrorist threat</a>.

As I have reported here previously, Stratfor is one of many private intelligence firms that have profited signficantly from post-9/11 “terrorism” hysteria. Stratfor and others, such as the <a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/inkerman-report-stickers-on-suvs-are-eco-terrorism/571/" target="_blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">Inkerman Group</a>, are paid by corporations to identify business “threats,” including special interest groups, key activists, and legislation. It is a niche industry built upon fear: the business of risk mitigation depends upon the identification of a constant stream of threats.

Let’s step back and look at how Orwellian this has become:

-Corporations<a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/green-scare" target="_blank" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"> created the term “eco-terrorism,”</a> and manufactured it as a national security threat.

-The FBI and homeland security got on board, labeling animal rights and environmental groups the “number one domestic terrorism threat.”

-Corporations hire other corporations to investigate this “threat.”

-In turn, intelligence firms like Stratfor consult with the FBI about the bureau’s own classified files.

It’s a cycle of fear that flows between corporations, counter-terrorism firms, and the FBI. It’s self-replicating and self-fulfilling, and a reflection of the erasure of all lines separating corporations and the state.

===

<a href="http://www.alternet.org/activism/how-major-turf-war-between-pepsi-and-coke-reveals-theres-no-good-multinational-beverage">http://www.alternet.org/activism/how-major-turf-war-between-pepsi-and-coke-reveals-theres-no-good-multinational-beverage</a>

==

stratfor <a href="http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-02-27-12-coca-cola-contracting-stratfor-to-spy-on-peta.html">http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-02-27-12-coca-cola-contracting-stratfor-to-spy-on-peta.html</a>

<a href="http://rt.com/usa/news/stratfor-fbi-investigation-peta-093/">http://rt.com/usa/news/stratfor-fbi-investigation-peta-093/</a>

===

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">Why Coca-Cola's New Ad Campaign May Be Dangerous to Your Health</h1>

</div>

<div class="story-date">August 29, 2013  |  </div>

It was laughable when Coca-Cola launched a campaign to fight obesity. And even more laughable when the king of soda’s anti-obesity campaign shifted all the blame for those extra pounds to lack of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r_9HPzMZTU&feature=player_embedded" style="">exercise</a> [4] and chairs (yes, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PMLjHwwpAdg" style="">chairs</a> [5]).

But now, the company that <a href="http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_26620.cfm" style="">donated $1.7 million</a> [6] to defeat last year’s GMO labeling initiative in California has gone from laughable to dangerous. In the wake of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/soda-sales_n_3645822.html" style="">declining sales</a> [7] of its Diet Coke brand, Coke has rolled out an ad campaign carefully and deceptively crafted to convince consumers that aspartame, the artificial sweetener (whose patent was at one time owned by Monsanto) in Diet Coke, is a “healthy alternative” to sugar.

The <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/13/coca-cola-aspartame-diet-soft-drinks/2650755/" style="">new campaign</a> [8], being tested in the Atlanta and Chicago markets, takes the form of full-page advertisements disguised as public service announcements. The message? Don’t believe all that bad stuff you’ve heard about aspartame. Aspartame is perfectly safe. It’s better for you than sugar. Drinking Diet Coke will help you stay thin and healthy.

It’s a sweet story, concocted by the marketing wizards at Coke who are desperate to keep the diet soda money train rolling. But it’s not true. Multiple studies, including <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/" style="">one </a> [9]published in 2010 by the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine have concluded just the opposite. Aspartame, they say, actually contributes to weight gain by stimulating your appetite. Other <a href="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/12/04/saccharin-aspartame-dangers.aspx" style="">studies</a> [10] have revealed that aspartame increases carbohydrate cravings and stimulates fat storage and weight gain.

The link between aspartame and increased weight gain is old news. So is the fact that aspartame, far from being a “healthy alternative” to sugar or anything else, has for years been the focus of studies declaring it unequivocally unhealthy, and suggesting that it has no place in our food supply. Aspartame has been linked to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCoBuTr0Or0" style="">brain cancer </a> [11]and to the <a href="http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/DOCKETS/dailys/03/Jan03/012203/02P-0317_emc-000196.txt" style="">accumulation of formaldehyde</a> [12], known to cause gradual damage to the nervous system, the immune system and to cause irreversible genetic damage at long-term, low-level exposure.

In1995, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) <a href="http://www.dorway.com/92symptomsfotocopy.html" style="">documented</a> [13] 92 aspartame-related symptoms, including migraines, memory loss, seizures, obesity, infertility, dizziness, change in seizures, fatigue, neurological problems and a host of others.

Aspartame is not food. It’s <a href="http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/aspartame" style="">defined as</a> [14] a synthetic compound of two amino acids (l-aspartyl-l-phenylalanine o-methyl ester). The compound was discovered accidentally in 1965, by James M. Schlatter, a chemist at G.D. Searle Company. Schlatter was testing an anti-ulcer drug. When he licked his finger and discovered that his concoction tasted sweet, the market for artificial sweeteners was born.

Is aspartame safe? Not according to multiple studies conducted over decades. And, at one time, not according to the FDA. In 1975, the FDA put a hold on aspartame’s approval, citing deficiencies in the studies conducted by Searle and its contractors. An <a href="http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/DOCKETS/dailys/03/Jan03/012203/02P-0317_emc-000196.txt" style="">analysis</a> [12] of 164 studies of aspartame’s potential impact on human safety found that of the 90 non-industry-sponsored studies, 83 identified one or more problems with aspartame. Of the 74 industry-sponsored studies, all 74 claimed that aspartame was safe.

So how did aspartame get into our food supply? We have Donald Rumsfeld, former U.S. Secretary of Defense to thank. In 1981, Rumsfeld, who had previously served as CEO of Searle, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/donald-rumsfeld-and-the-s_b_805581.html" style="">hand-picked</a> [15] Reagan’s new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr. It was Hull who ultimately gave aspartame the green light.

Here’s how it went down. On January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan's inauguration, Searle re-applied to the FDA for approval to use aspartame as a sweetener in beverages. Hull, the brand new FDA commissioner, recommended by Rumsfeld, appointed a five-person Scientific Commission to review the board of inquiry's prior decision. (A board of inquiry had been formed in 1975 when the FDA first questioned the validity of Searle’s studies on aspartame). When it became clear that the Scientific Commission was on track to uphold the 1975 ban by a 3-2 decision, Hull installed a sixth member on the commission. That led to a deadlocked vote. Hull then personally cast the tie-breaking vote. Voila. Aspartame was approved.

Hull soon left the FDA and eventually landed at Burston-Marsteller, the PR firm for Searle and for years, Monsanto. In 1985, Monsanto bought Searle and later spun off the company under the name NutraSweet. But not before Rumsfeld earned a handsome $12-million bonus, presumably for his role in greasing the wheels for aspartame’s approval.

In an <a href="http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27075.cfm" style="">article</a> [16] published earlier this year in the New York Times, entitled “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food,” Michael Moss exposed the junk food industry for employing chemists to concoct additives intended to hook people on the very food that is making us, including our children, not only obese, but chronically ill.

When one of the leading Junk Food Giants says it wants to help fight obesity by selling you more Diet Coke, nothing could be further from the truth. But when it takes that campaign a step farther, by paying newspapers to run full-page ads disguised as scientific articles, that’s deceptive advertising at its worst.

We should be celebrating a 3-percent decline in sales of Diet Coke. And we should be boycotting any product that contains aspartame, a synthetic chemical compound linked to a host of health issues, including obesity, and brought to market under the shadow of dirty politics.

Coke is “testing” its new ad campaign in Chicago and Atlanta. <a href="http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11892" style="">Let’s tell</a> [17]Coca-Cola’s CEO, Muhtar Kent, and other executives at Coke, that we don’t appreciate their new ad campaign, and we’d like them to pull it immediately. Ads intended to pass for “scientific articles” are an insult to our intelligence and a threat to the health of consumers.

</div>

<div class="tags">See more stories tagged with:

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/apartame" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">apartame</a> [18],</div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/sugar" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">sugar</a> [21],</div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/health-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">health</a> [22]</div>

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Links:

[1] http://alternet.org

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/katherine-paul

[3] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ronnie-cummins

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r_9HPzMZTU&feature=player_embedded

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PMLjHwwpAdg

[6] http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_26620.cfm

[7] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/soda-sales_n_3645822.html

[8] http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/13/coca-cola-aspartame-diet-soft-drinks/2650755/

[9] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/

[10] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/12/04/saccharin-aspartame-dangers.aspx

[11] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCoBuTr0Or0

[12] http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/DOCKETS/dailys/03/Jan03/012203/02P-0317_emc-000196.txt

[13] http://www.dorway.com/92symptomsfotocopy.html

[14] http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/aspartame

[15] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/donald-rumsfeld-and-the-s_b_805581.html

[16] http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27075.cfm

[17] http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11892

[18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/apartame

[19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/coke-0

[20] http://www.alternet.org/tags/soda

[21] http://www.alternet.org/tags/sugar

[22] http://www.alternet.org/tags/health-0

[23] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

</div>

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<div class="byline environment">OtherWords / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/jill-richardson" style="">Jill Richardson</a> [1]</div>

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">Companies That Profit From Unhealthy Food Say Keep Eating Junk, Just Exercise More</h1>

</div>

<div class="story-date">August 21, 2013  |  </div>

New rule (as Bill Maher would say): If you make billions of dollars a year selling unhealthy food, you don’t get to tell us to work out.

It was one thing when Cookie Monster began telling kids to eat vegetables. Cookie Monster doesn’t earn a living by selling cookies, and vegetables are a fantastic alternative to cookies.

But it was a totally different story when <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43011-2005Jan27.html" style="">Ronald McDonald</a> [2] went all Richard Simmons on us, visiting schools to tell kids to work out.

Exercise is a great idea, but it’s not diet advice. Yet this is a frequent tactic of many of the corporations that rake in profits by selling us junk.

Take Coca-Cola’s shameless <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/think-share-act" style="">new fitness campaign</a> [3]. “Are you sitting on a solution?” asks a photo on the company’s website, depicting two people cuddled up, sitting on a beach. The thing is, they’re drinking the problem: Coca-Cola.

Let me translate Coke’s new campaign into plain English: “Don’t blame us for America’s public health crisis.” The company is also asking you to not notice that while the <a href="http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/Sugars-101_UCM_306024_Article.jsp" style="">American Heart Association recommends</a> [4] no more than six teaspoons of sugar per day for women (nine for men), <a href="http://www.sugarstacks.com/beverages.htm" style="">a single can of Coca-Cola</a> [5] has nearly 10 teaspoons of the sweet stuff.

Or maybe this is what the ad campaign is really saying: “Please ignore the fact that, over the years, we’ve sold our flagship product in larger and larger containers. Just exercise a bit more — here, we’ll even help with some tips — and then you won’t notice that our product is terrible for you. Keep drinking Coke, and don’t regulate us.”

That’s the message, anyway. And what’s more pathetic is that some folks are falling for it.

The BlogHer conference <a href="http://www.blogher.com/Track-Your-Steps-Coca-Cola-BlogHer" style="">enthusiastically announced</a> [6] that its sponsor, Coca-Cola, will help attendees stay fit by giving out free pedometers as well as other prizes like yoga mats and jump ropes. (Yeah, and I bet Coke will help attendees get Type II diabetes by serving them Coca-Cola.)

As far as our bodies are concerned, eating well and exercising are not an either/or thing. Nor is avoiding smoking, managing stress, getting enough sleep, or brushing your teeth. A healthy body requires all of the above.

So let’s leave exercise out of it and talk about diet. The average American drank <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/annual-review/2012/pdf/TCCC_2012_Annual_Review.pdf" style="">401 servings of Coke products</a> [7] in 2012. Sure, that includes juices, sports drinks, and water, but Coca Cola’s <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/annual-review/2011/pdf/TCCC_2011_Annual_Review.pdf" style="">top four brands</a> [8] — each bringing in more than $10 billion in sales per year — are all soft drinks.

McDonalds’ top sellers worldwide are <a href="http://money.howstuffworks.com/10-popular-mcdonalds-menu-items.htm#page=10" style="">french fries</a> [9] and <a href="http://money.howstuffworks.com/10-popular-mcdonalds-menu-items.htm#page=9" style="">Big Macs</a> [10], but even the fast food giant’s “healthy” offerings tend to be <a href="http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2013/06/27/the-myth-of-healthy-processed-food" style="">terrible for you</a> [11].

Many Americans enjoy these unhealthy foods and beverages. And yes, drinking a soda or eating some nachos once in a while won’t kill you.

But these days, eating anything but junk can feel like an uphill battle. Healthy food is often more expensive, more perishable, and, well, less addictive. Not to mention less available 24/7 through a drive-thru.

Unhealthy diets have reached the point of a public health crisis. And while there can be debate over the role food companies have played in causing the crisis, it’s clearer than Sprite that they’ve profited from it.

The purveyors of junk food and fast food know they have some responsibility too. That’s why they are so worried.

These companies are trying to shift the blame. They want you to believe that it’s your fault that you didn’t run a marathon to burn off the calories from your meal at Taco Bell.

</div>

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<div class="byline environment"><a href="http://www.alternet.org">AlterNet</a> [1] / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/jill-richardson-0">Jill Richardson</a> [2]</div>

<h1 class="node-title">How Coca-Cola's Ruthless Business Tactics Created a Despicable Global Powerhouse</h1>

</div>

<a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780465029174-0">For God, Country, and Coca-Cola</a> [3] by Mark Pendergast is the definitive history of the product so many see as a symbol of America itself. This impressive tome – recently released as a third edition with added new material – is not a critique of Coca-Cola, nor is it a fan’s tribute, as Pendergast reveals things the Coca-Cola Company doesn’t want you to know. (Yes, it used to contain cocaine.) He even reveals the drink’s original secret formula (which is less exciting than you might think).

Coca-Cola is not fascinating for what it is – colored sugar water with bubbles – but for what it represents. And that’s a point long known by the company’s marketers, with the exception of when they forgot it during the New Coke fiasco in the 1980s. Today, marketing students in business schools everywhere study that famous gaff.

Despite the decades-old slogan, “Delicious and Refreshing,” people do not drink Coca-Cola for the taste. They drink it because they associate it with positive things like friendship, fun, patriotism, and athleticism. Careful to market the drink to all people, everywhere, without alienating anyone, the ads are often vague. “Coke is It!” What is “it”? It’s whatever you want it to be, just as long as it makes you want to buy more Coke!

The book guides readers through the decades of marketing campaigns that built this image, most significantly during World War II, when Coca-Cola was made available to U.S. soldiers everywhere in the world, often at the government’s expense. When sales slumped, the answer was never changing the flagship product; it was a new ad campaign. Remind consumers that Coke = fun (or simpler times, or hope, or whatever feeling they crave) and they will drink more of it.

Because constant, never-ending growth is seen as essential, the other necessity is finding new channels to facilitate more Coke-drinking than ever before. Today, you can be 50 miles from nowhere in any country except Cuba and North Korea and if you crave an ice-cold Coca-Cola, you can get one. Even in places where few have clean drinking water or electricity, both needed to produce ice-cold Coke, some enterprising entrepreneur will have electricity and a cooler and plenty of Coke. The same cannot be said of nearly any other product.

The New Coke failure punctuates this strange phenomenon – that the world loves and guzzles an unhealthy beverage, but not for its good taste. Pepsi showed that in blind taste tests, more people prefer Pepsi over Coke. New Coke was tastier than both Coke and Pepsi in blind taste tests. Surely consumers would love it. Except, they didn’t. They wanted fun, hope, patriotism, and everything else they associated with good, old-fashioned Coca-Cola, not some new, better-tasting concoction.

Readers seeking the dirt on Coca-Cola’s sordid past with Columbian paramilitaries and Guatemalan death squads will find these episodes covered briefly in this book. But the completeness of the company’s history in this book paints a bigger picture, and Coca-Cola’s tangles with death squads fit in as just one piece.

This is a company devoted to, above all else, making as much money as possible and selling as much Coca-Cola as possible. Period. Nazis get thirsty, too, you know. In almost every case, the company tried to please everyone and sell to everyone, without taking sides, unless it had no choice.

It’s no good that Coca-Cola did business with a Guatemalan bottler who allegedly hired death squads to murder employees trying to unionize. But that is all part of a larger pattern, a larger scandal – although there’s no conspiracy at all. The drive to increase profits and sales and market share at all cost is the company’s story, plain and simple. It took us from a 6.5-ounce drink only available at soda fountains to one available everywhere in sizes as large as 64 ounces.

Coca-Cola told us it wanted to teach the world to sing, but it’s far more likely it is giving the world diabetes. Today, a small Coke at McDonalds is 16 ounces. Pendergast, ever the balanced journalist presenting both sides, fails to definitely state that Coca-Cola is unhealthy. He generously points out that Coca-Cola creates jobs and donates to charity, even though he notes the company’s policy of “strategic philanthropy” – i.e. using “charitable” donations to gain access to valuable markets, particularly children.

The book is a long and somewhat exhausting read, but it’s also a captivating history of the development of America’s consumer culture (and terrible dietary habits) and it contains fascinating profiles of the men (yes, mostly men) behind the company, making readers wonder what a psychologist might have to say about these often tyrannical, driven workaholics.

Here are some answers Pendergast gave about his book and the company he wrote about.

Jill Richardson: Why did you choose the title For God, Country, and Coca-Cola?

Mark Pendergast: Coca-Cola has been a kind of religion to many people, including the inventor, John Pemberton, who died two years after he came up with it, and Asa Candler, who took it over and used to lead the singing of "Onward Christian Soldiers" at his sales meetings.

These were days when the drink was under attack for having cocaine in it and even afterwards for its caffeine content. So they felt like early Christian martyrs in a way, fighting for a just cause. Candler called Coca-Cola "a boon to mankind." Coke employees have always joked that they have Coca-Cola syrup flowing in their veins.

The drink has also become a kind of religion for consumers, a symbol of the American way of life as well. During World War II the drink was deemed an "essential morale booster" for the troops, and it was served in lieu of communion wine during the Battle of the Bulge. When New Coke was introduced in 1985, people wrote anguished letters as if they had killed God. Here is an actual letter I quoted in the book: "There are only two things in my life: God and Coca-Cola. Now you have taken one of those things away from me." I could go on....

JR: Can you explain Coca-Cola's relationship with the two ingredients in its name, coca and kola nuts? How much cocaine was initially in the product and when was it removed?

MP: Coca-Cola was named for its two principal drug ingredients. Coca leaf from Peru contained cocaine. Kola nut from Ghana contained caffeine. Original Coca-Cola had a very small amount of cocaine in a six-ounce drink, about 4.3 milligrams. The company took out all but a minuscule amount of cocaine in 1903 and the final amount in 1928.

JR: You imply in the book that it's attempted to sugarcoat (no pun intended) this part of its past, saying at some points that the product never contained cocaine. Is that true? Can you elaborate?

MP: Every time I go to the World of Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta, I ask the guides if Coca-Cola ever contained cocaine. They assure me that it did not. The official company line seems to be that Coca-Cola never contained added cocaine -- i.e., they didn't add white powdered cocaine, which is true. But it did contain fluid extract of coca leaf, which contains cocaine. For years, the company line has also been that the name "Coca-Cola" is just a "euphonious combination of words" -- i.e., it sounds nice. True, but the drink was also named for its two principal drug sources.

JR: How did Coca-Cola use World War II to establish its dominance abroad? And what impact did its role in the war have for their market at home?

Robert Woodruff, the head of Coca-Cola, declared shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor that, "We will see that every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola for five cents, wherever he is and whatever it costs our company." Coke was subsequently declared an essential product and Coke men called Technical Observers were sent overseas in army uniforms at government expense to establish 64 bottling plants behind the lines. As a result, Coca-Cola was put in position for global expansion in the postwar world.

American soldiers came home with an overwhelming preference for Coca-Cola. In a 1948 poll of veterans, conducted by American Legion Magazine, 63.67 percent specified Coca-Cola as their preferred soft drink, with Pepsi receiving a lame 7.78 percent of the vote.  In the same year, Coke’s gross profit on sales reached a whopping $126 million, as opposed to Pepsi’s $25 million; the contrast in net after-tax income was even more telling, with Coke’s $35.6 million towering over Pepsi’s pathetic $3.2 million.

Soon after the war, when the Army quizzed 650 recruits, 21 had never drunk milk, but only one soldier had never sampled a Coke. As the company’s unpublished history stated, the wartime program “made friends and customers for home consumption of 11,000,000 GIs [and] did [a] sampling and expansion job abroad which would [otherwise] have taken 25 years and millions of dollars.” The war was over, and it appeared, at least for the moment, that Coca-Cola had won it.

JR: The impact when Coca-Cola entered new markets was increased sales for all beverages, not just Coca-Cola -- and less consumption of water and milk. Can you explain that?

Yes. As Coca-Cola and subsequently other competing soda companies increased marketing and other campaigns to out-do one another, that's what expanded the total soda market. When the market for soft drinks expanded, it helped competitors such as Pepsi, and when people are paying attention to the cola wars, they are less focused on water or milk.

JR: Coca-Cola's history practically reads like a marketing textbook. Can you tell us about its revelation of the little girl's Pooh bear? Why do Coke-drinkers love Coke so much?

Archie Lee, who was the ad man behind "The Pause That Refreshes" slogan during the Depression, noticed during a beach vacation, that his four-year-old daughter lavished such attention on her Pooh bear that other children fought over it, though other toys appeared more attractive. Lee took the incident as a parable. “It isn’t what a product is,” he wrote to Robert Woodruff, “but what it does that interests us”—and set out to plant the proper thoughts about Coca-Cola, which he wanted to make as popular and well-loved as the Pooh bear.

Coke lovers care so much about the drink for many reasons -- not least the ubiquitous, effective advertising that associates the drink with youth, energy, happiness. But many people also really do associate the drink with some of the best times in their lives.

JR: How has soda consumption changed in the U.S. from the drink's introduction over a century ago, back when a serving was 6.5 ounces? Was there ever a "turning point" when Americans switched from more modest per capita soda consumption to the amount they drink today, or has it been a gradual change over time?

MP: Amazingly, Coca-Cola was served in 6.5 ounce bottles for a nickel until 1955, when King-Size Coke was finally introduced. (“King-Size” drinks were 10 and 12 ounces, smaller than a McDonald’s small today.) Since then, the sizes grew steadily larger, and PET bottles meant they wouldn't break and weren't too heavy. Super-size me, indeed. But over the last decade, concern over the obesity epidemic has made Coca-Cola back off a bit, and now the company has introduced smaller mini-cans, along with the huge containers.

JR: Over the years, Coca-Cola has dealt with Nazis, dictators, South Africa's apartheid government, and even allegedly Guatemalan death squads. Should consumers hold Coke accountable for this dark part of its history, or is it all water under the bridge? Do you agree with Coke's position that it doesn't play politics, it just sells soda?

MP: Of course, the company, like any other business, should be held accountable for its actions, although as you suggest, many of these episodes are safely in the past. The Guatemalan death squads were in the late 1970s. Paramilitaries in Colombia killed union employees in similar fashion in Coke bottling plants in the 1990s.

Quite recently, human rights violations have once again occurred against Guatemalan bottling employees. The Coca-Cola Company has usually attempted to distance itself from such violence, saying that it doesn't control its bottlers, but that seems disingenuous, since the bottlers rely on Coca-Cola syrup from Big Coke.

On the other hand, let me point out that while Coke did business inside South Africa during the apartheid regime, it left the country for a while and then was very instrumental in helping to ease a peaceful transition to black rule under Nelson Mandela.

JR: The past decade has ushered in an enormous change in Coca-Cola's product portfolio. How has it changed and why? Do you think the day will come when Coca-Cola's flagship product is no longer its top seller?

MP: Coca-Cola has diversified in the face of increased competition from other types of beverages and in response to concern over the obesity epidemic. It purchased Glaceau, maker of Vitaminwater, for $4.1 billion, for instance, in 2007. Today the Coca-Cola Company sells 3,500 beverages worldwide, and about a quarter of them are low- or no-calorie.

The future is hard to predict, but I don't think that Coca-Cola will lose its place as the flagship product in the foreseeable future -- but I do predict that the combined sales of Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero will eventually surpass sales of regular sugary Coca-Cola.

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<div class="tags">See more stories tagged with:

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/mark-pendergast">mark pendergast</a> [6]</div>

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Links:

[1] http://www.alternet.org

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jill-richardson-0

[3] http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780465029174-0

[4] http://www.alternet.org/tags/coke-0

[5] http://www.alternet.org/tags/coca-cola

[6] http://www.alternet.org/tags/mark-pendergast

[7] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

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lobbying white house

SHORTER LIFESPAN?

Health experts and Harkin say the food industry has employed some of the same tactics as Big Tobacco in its efforts to fight stricter regulations -- chief among them the argument that the industry should regulate itself.

Although no major legislative action on childhood obesity is pending during this election year, the public debate is expected to resume next month. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will hold a conference in Washington from May 7-9 called "Weight of the Nation." It will include an Institute of Medicine update and the premiere of an HBO documentary series of the same name. Health advocates also plan a "Sugary Drinks Summit" in Washington from June 7-8.

"We haven't reversed the epidemic," Dr. William H. Dietz, director of the division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity at the CDC, said in an interview. "This may be the first generation of children that has a lower life span than their parents."

Food and beverage manufacturers and advertisers say they aren't to blame for obesity. Indeed, they say they are part of the solution.

The American Beverage Association says its members have cut 88 percent of the calories shipped to schools since 2004 by offering less sugary drinks and emphasizing water, low-fat milk and juice in elementary and middle schools. The drinks now list calories on the front of labels.

Sixteen major companies with about 75 percent of the food ads on TV aimed at children under 12 are regulating themselves under the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative of the Better Business Bureau. They are limiting ads for certain foods and adopting nutrition standards.

"It's made a big difference," said Elaine D. Kolish, the initiative director and a former head of enforcement at the Federal Trade Commission. More than 100 products have been changed or created to cut salt, fat, sugar or calories, she said. Tougher self-regulation is promised by 2014.

At the same time, Kolish said, there is no proof of "a causal effect between food advertising and obesity."

The Institute of Medicine had found strong evidence that TV watching was associated with child obesity. But researchers have found no proof that obesity is directly caused by ads for sweets or junk food.

Armed with those arguments and a bulging political war chest, the $1.5 trillion food and beverage industry has defeated soda taxes and marketing restrictions in cities and states across the nation, mounting referendums to overturn the taxes in the two states that passed them and persuading 16 states to prohibit lawsuits over fatty foods.

Reuters analyzed spending reported by more than 50 food and beverage groups that lobbied against the federal effort last year to write tougher -- but still voluntary -- nutritional standards for foods marketed to children.

The groups have spent more than $175 million lobbying since President Barack Obama took office in 2009 -- more than double the $83 million spent in the previous three years, during the Bush Administration.

The totals do not include broader lobbying efforts by the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and media and advertising interests that also opposed the federal plan. Those groups lobby on other issues, and lobbying disclosure reports do not specify how much they spent targeting the food marketing proposal. The Reuters analysis was based on records from the Federal Election Commission, the Secretary of the Senate and the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.

In a stark example of lobbying muscle, PepsiCo Inc, Coca-Cola Co, bottlers and the American Beverage Association spent more than $40 million lobbying in 2009 when Congress was considering a soda tax. That was more than eight times the $4.8 million they had spent the previous year, the analysis showed. After the proposal died, the groups cut spending to $24 million in 2010 and $10 million in 2011.

In recent interviews, lobbyists, lawmakers, policy leaders and industry insiders described the power of money in politics and the appeal of self-regulation to explain how they have been so successful countering legislation backed by public health interests that they portrayed as overreaching.

The public health advocates "hit a nerve," said Marshall Matz, a Washington lawyer and industry lobbyist who advised the 2008 Obama campaign on agricultural issues. "There's a bipartisan feeling you can tell someone to eat less fat, consume more fiber, more fruits and vegetables and less sugar. But if you start naming foods, you cross the line."

...

BIG TOBACCO'S PLAYBOOK

Although food and beverage companies say they are making dramatic strides in self-regulation, their critics say they are moving too slowly and trying to influence public opinion by using some of the same approaches that tobacco companies used to defend their products.

Kraft Foods, the nation's largest food company, was owned by Philip Morris, the nation's largest tobacco company, from 1988-2007. Philip Morris makes Marlboro cigarettes.

Brownell and Kenneth E. Warner, a professor and former dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health, have written papers comparing Big Food to Big Tobacco.

Both industries dispute links between their products and ill health, Brownell said -- tobacco companies claiming cigarettes don't cause cancer and food companies saying there is no proof that sugar causes obesity. Both have rewritten product labels without making major changes, he said. And both emphasize self-regulation -- to Brownell, an effort to preempt government standards.

"I can't think of a single thing the food industry is doing that the tobacco industry hasn't done," Brownell said.

Both industries also have relied on marketing to kids, he said, and both use what Brownell called "front groups" with consumer-oriented names that would not show their industry connections.

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit group led by Washington lawyer and public relations executive Rick Berman. Formerly known as Guest Choice Network, it was founded in 1995 with a $600,000 pledge from tobacco giant Philip Morris. Today, the center attacks "food radicals" and runs websites including obesitymyths.com. The group says it is funded by food and restaurant companies but declines to name specific benefactors.

A group called Americans Against Food Taxes, calling itself a "coalition of concerned citizens," was formed in 2007 and has been financed by sugary beverage makers to fight soda taxes. It bought a 30-second ad during the 2011 Super Bowl.

Spokesmen for the food and beverage industries say comparing their tactics to tobacco's is unfair.

"Food processing is not an evil thing," said Derek Yach, PepsiCo's senior vice president of global health and agricultural policy and a former World Health Organization official who was well-known as an adversary of sugar and tobacco interests. He was hired by Pepsi, which also owns snack-food maker Frito-Lay, five years ago.

"I might not agree with a lot of things we do, but are we on a track where we're struggling to get to the right place? Absolutely," Yach said. The industry is well-intentioned, he said, focused on improving products and transparent in its fight against higher taxes and marketing restrictions.

CANNING THE SODA TAX

Beverage companies showed their political clout in 2009 when they faced a proposed penny-an-ounce tax on sugary drinks in a Congress eager to raise money to pay for obesity-related health care costs. The soda tax died in committee.

Other plans to tax soda have fizzled from coast to coast in the past two years. Twenty-four states and five cities considered them, according to the beverage association. None passed except in Washington state, where legislators approved a 2-cent-a-can soda tax on the last day of the 2010 session.

Within a month, a trade group for Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Dr. Pepper Snapple mounted a referendum campaign. It spent $16 million, a state record for an initiative effort, to gather signatures and flood the airwaves. The public voted 60 percent against the tax.

The pro-tax group, outspent $37-to-$1, grumbled that the soda group misled voters with TV ads that the Seattle Times concluded were "mostly false" because they suggested a wide range of grocery items also would be taxed. The beverage industry mounted a similar $3.5 million campaign that knocked out a soda tax in Maine in 2008.

When Governor David A. Paterson of New York proposed an 18 percent tax on sweetened drinks in 2009, he said he wanted to raise money to treat obesity-related disease. Soda makers spent $12.8 million lobbying and advertising against it, and PepsiCo said the tax could affect its decision on whether to move more than 1,000 bottling jobs to Connecticut. The governor withdrew the proposal, and the company decided to keep its headquarters in New York.

"We got smashed," Paterson said in an interview. Labor unions had joined the attack because they worried about losing the Pepsi jobs, he added, comparing the soda lobby to a Mack truck. Paterson also said soda makers "bought off" lawmakers with donations and advertising even in districts where 40 percent of minority children were overweight or obese.

"We ran into the machine the way anti-smoking activists did in the early '60s," he said. "It's not a fight you're going to win right away."

Pepsi spokeswoman Gina Anderson said the proposed soda tax was "a serious concern and consideration" in the company's siting plans before the proposal died. The company decided last year to renew its lease through 2015.

Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, also compared the industry tactics with those of alcohol, tobacco and nuclear power.

"It's all the same playbook, isn't it?" he said. "You lobby. You make campaign contributions. You buy advertising. You threaten to move your plant. You use your workers as lobbyists."

The beverage association rejects the analogy. Its website says, "If anyone is using the ‘tobacco playbook' in their tactics, it is some of these activists." The group pointed to two recent examples, both involving the New York City Department of Health and both first reported by The New York Times.

In one, an email showed a city official asking, "What can we get away with?" in anti-soda advertising. In the other, a photo was altered on a subway poster that warned of the risks of diabetes from sugary soda. It portrayed an overweight man as an amputee. His right leg had been photographically removed. The city health department declined to comment further on these incidents.

Christopher Gindlesperger, a spokesman for the beverage association, explained the group's success in staving off soda taxes this way: "People feel very confident they can decide what to eat or drink without government help."

===

While we are not surprised to see Koch Industries, the National Rifle Association, Phillip Morris, RJ Reynolds and Big PhRMA at the table, we were surprised to see Coca-Cola on the "Private Enterprise Board" a.k.a. the corporate governing board of ALEC. We were surprised to see Coke linking itself to an extreme right-wing agenda that works to disenfranchise voters, bash immigrants, privatize Medicare and Social Security and dismantle public education for the benefit of private for-profit schools.

<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/10/11053/alec-and-coca-cola-classic-collaboration">http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/10/11053/alec-and-coca-cola-classic-collaboration</a>

What is <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Coca-Cola" title="reference on Coca-Cola" target="self">Coca-Cola</a> doing behind closed doors with Koch Industries and other multinational corporations in the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="reference on American Legislative Exchange Council" target="self">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC)? Coca-Cola Refreshments' Director of Public Affairs and Communications, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gene_Rackley" title="reference on Gene Rackley" target="self">Gene Rackley</a>, represents Coke on ALEC's <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ALEC_Boards_and_Task_Forces#governing" title="reference on " private="" target="self">"Private Enterprise" Board</a>, along with <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_Industries" title="reference on Koch Industries" target="self">Koch Industries</a>' <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Morgan" title="reference on Michael Morgan" target="_self">Michael Morgan</a>.

Coke and ALEC have a lot in common. Both love free trade and have been big boosters of free trade agreements, such as the Korea, Panama and Columbia agreements facing votes this week in Congress. Both are dubious about recycling, especially taxes applied to industry to pay for mandatory recycling. But in one area, ALEC policy benefits Coke and other sweet drink makers directly.

<h2>Resisting Regulation of "Liquid Candy"</h2>

<img src="/cbdc7a3d-a8c3-5cd9-b7f0-5d809f70cbf2.jpg"/>(Image Credit: Reuters)A Centers for Disease Control <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/207246/20110901/sugary-drinks-americans-obesity.htm" title="reference on study" target="blank">study</a> recently found that "sugary drink intake in the U.S. has increased over the last 30 years, and sugared beverages" (defined for the study as fruit drinks, sodas, energy drinks, sports drinks, and sweetened bottled waters -- all of which <a href="http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/brands/brandlist.html" title="reference on Coca-Cola produces" target="blank">Coca-Cola produces</a>) "have been linked with weight gain, obesity, poor diet, and, in adults, type 2 diabetes."

Obesity remains a pressing and growing public health problem that can be quite costly to taxpayers, who subsidize much of the treatment of obesity, diabetes, and other expensive health problems. According to the <a href="http://www.cspinet.org/new/201108311.html" title="reference on Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)," target="blank">Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI),</a> which has dubbed sugary drinks "liquid candy," only sugary drinks have been shown to have a causal role in promoting obesity. "Unlike milk or juice, soda provides nothing but empty calories to the diet -- it is a <a href="http://www.cspinet.org/liquidcandy/" title="reference on totally unnecessary and worthless product" target="blank">totally unnecessary and worthless product</a> that everyone would do well to avoid," says CSPI Director Michael Jacobson.

Nevertheless, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Beverage_Association" title="reference on American Beverage Association" target="self">American Beverage Association</a> (ABA), which lobbies on behalf of its members including Coke, <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/american-beverage-association-statement-on-nchs-data-brief-128820943.html" title="reference on claims" target="blank">claims</a> that "sugar-sweetened beverages are not driving health issues like obesity and diabetes."

<h2>Is Soda the Next Tobacco?</h2>

States and localities are seeking policy options that work to cut consumption of sugary beverages for kids and adults. Many school districts, cities and states have banned sugary drinks in schools. Boston's ban is paying off, as new data indicates that the ban means high school students drink less of such beverages even when they're not in school. New York is seeking a ban on use of food stamps to purchase sugary drinks. California is seeking a ban on sugary drinks in day care settings. In addition, policymakers are looking hard at soda taxes to discourage the consumption of these beverages overall, in much the same way that tobacco taxes have discouraged the use of tobacco.

As of 2009, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr0905723" title="reference on 33 states" target="_blank">33 states</a> already have sales tax on soft drinks, but the taxes (mean tax rate 5.2%) "are too small to affect consumption and the revenues are not earmarked for programs related to health." Nutrition and health groups have been working hard to convince legislators both at the federal and state level that taxes on "liquid sugar" will lower obesity rates and be a new revenue source for cash-strapped states.

In 2009, soda taxes were actively discussed as a way to pay for the Obama health care plan. The ABA spent $18.9 million in 2009 on lobbying, compared with about $668,000 in 2008, with most of the money going toward ads against a federal soft-drink tax. In the same year, soda taxes were introduced in 12 states. In 2010, some 20 states considered new taxes, or the removal of tax exemptions for these drinks. <a href="http://www.cspinet.org/new/200909301.html" title="reference on Data from CSPI" target="blank">Data from CSPI</a> indicates that states could generate a total of more than $10 billion per year by levying a tax of 7 cents per 12-ounce can of Coke or Mountain Dew and offers a "liquid candy calculator" on its website for public officials to calculate the <a href="http://www.cspinet.org/liquidcandy/" title="reference on revenue new taxes could generate." target="blank">revenue new taxes could generate.</a>

Coke and the ABA are campaigning hard against these measures, largely successfully. In Philadelphia, they defeated a modest tax on soft drinks by using the tobacco industry tactic of applying strategic philanthropy to purchase leverage in the form of goodwill. The ABA <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/spin/2011/04/10628/big-soda-uses-philanthropy-silence-opposition-neutralize-soda-taxes" title="reference on formed a deceptively-named front group" target="blank">formed a deceptively-named front group</a>, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Foundation_for_Healthy_America" title="reference on Foundation for Healthy America" target="self">Foundation for Healthy America</a>, that they then used to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704904604575262530291194198.html" title="reference on funnel a $10 million donation" target="_blank">funnel a $10 million donation</a> to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to, of all things, expand its obesity program.

Coke and the ABA have successfully resisted bills and overturned laws imposing taxes on soft drinks in <a href="http://www.americanindependent.com/162707/ag-commissioner-took-61k-in-contributions-from-sugardairy-before-seeking-to-halt-ban-on-sugary-drinks-in-schools" title="reference on Florida" target="blank">Florida</a> -- thanks to Agriculture Commissioner and <a href="http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Search&template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=3954" title="reference on ALEC alumnus" target="blank">ALEC alumnus</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Adam_Putnam" title="reference on Adam Putnam" target="self">Adam Putnam</a> -- <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/drink_makers_lead_lobby_gusher_OwDIGhJ4PVJNFI3la7mV5K" title="reference on New York" target="blank">New York</a> and <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=11815133" title="reference on Washington State" target="_blank">Washington State</a>.

<h2>Effects on "Hardworking Americans"</h2>

In 2009, when soda taxes were front page news with some frequency, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="reference on American Legislative Exchange Council" target="self">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC) approved "<a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/e/ef/8D0-A_Resolution_in_Opposition_to_Discriminatory_Food_and_Beverage_Taxes_exposed.pdf" title="reference on A Resolution in Opposition to Discriminatory Food and Beverage Taxes" target="blank">A Resolution in Opposition to Discriminatory Food and Beverage Taxes</a>" (pdf). This fill-in-the-blank resolution is couched in pro-worker language, concluding that (fill-in-the-blank State) "fully supports hardworking Americans, and opposes all efforts -- federally and on the state level -- to impose discriminatory taxes on food and/or beverages."

When ALEC and its deep-pocketed corporate members like Coke cry "discrimination" and claim to support "hardworking Americans," consumers should take a closer look at Coke's legislative and marketing agenda.

It is hard to imagine why a name-brand corporation like Coke wants to associate itself with the far-right policies of ALEC, such as ALEC's voter suppression bills which disenfranchise college students in states like Wisconsin, ALEC efforts to privatize Medicare and Social Security and ALEC's immigrant bashing policies.

If you think Coke should get out of ALEC, you can take action! <a href="http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=-1&url_num=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsalsa.democracyinaction.org%2Fo%2F632%2Fp%2Fdia%2Faction%2Fpublic%2F%3Faction_KEY%3D8261" title="reference on Click here" target="_blank">Click here</a> to send a letter today to President and CEO of Coca-Cola, Mr. Muhtar Kent, telling him to DUMP ALEC!

As most of you know, after nearly 2 1/2 years of “fighting the system,” Crystal Geyser decided last November to build their bottling plant in a location other than Orland. According to<a href="http://www.mtshastanews.com/article/20120824/NEWS/120829867/0/SEARCH"> a story by the Mount Shasta Herald</a> it looks like Crystal Geyser may have found a place for their water bottling operations. The size of this water bottling plant, located at the base of Mount Shasta, is 145,000 square feet, 30% larger than the building planned for Orland. There have been recent rumblings that Crystal Geyser was considering other locations in Glenn County to build their plant. However, assuming a deal can be negotiated with Coca Cola, this huge Mount Shasta plant would likely fulfill all of the current production needs of Crystal Geyser in the region.

Coca Cola ceased bottling operations at this Mount Shasta plant at the end of 2010. The article mentions market conditions and overcapacity in the bottled water industry as contributing to the plant closure. Coca Cola distributes bottled water under the Dasani brand name.

The stumbling block for the proposed water bottling plant in Orland was the Environmental Impact Report (EIR).* Because this plant in Mount Shasta was in operation for about 10 years, the EIR should not be an issue. When operated by Coca Cola, the plant employed 46 people. I am certain that Mount Shasta, like Orland and every other city, needs the jobs. I can not imagine Coca Cola turning down any reasonable offer for this building, unless Coca Cola wants to suppress bottled water competition from Crystal Geyser....

===

Slapped’ Into Submission

By Sunita Narain

<a href="http://www.business-standard.com/">Business Standard</a>

10 December, 2003

A few weeks ago, the doctor working with the victims of pesticide poisoning in Kerala’s plantation districts was served a legal notice from pesticide company giants. His crime: writing a letter to the fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth, on the recent moves of a government committee to exonerate the use of endosulfan, a pesticide that has been indicted for causing reproductive, congenital and neurological disorders in these areas.

Interestingly, the committee, which cleared the pesticide, dismissed the findings of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) institute on the health impacts, saying it lacked scientific credibility.

The same results, published last week in Environmental Health Perspectives — an established peer-reviewed scientific publication in the US — conclude that the toxicity of the pesticide has led to changes in sexual maturity and sex hormone synthesis of children exposed to endosulfan, which the scientists found in the blood of these young victims.

But for the government committee there was no evidence to prove “toxicity” because of the spraying of the pesticide in the cashew plantations in their vicinity. The bizarre explanation for the crippling diseases in the village was the indiscriminate use of the pesticide by people to poison fish in the stream.

The suffering victims are to blame, concludes this committee, headed by agricultural scientist, O P Dubey. But suggest collusion between industry and the committee’s findings, and you will be threatened or sued, as the doctor found out.

This is a distinct and predictable pattern of corporate response to public concerns. The two cola giants responded to the study on pesticides in their soft drinks in a similar manner. Hours after we, at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), released our report, the two companies — PepsiCo and Coca-Cola — convened a press conference to condemn the report and to question the credibility of our testing laboratory.

They followed it up with a public relations blitz. The strategy was simple: denigrate the report, the institution and the individuals who work there. In the process, the findings of the report will also be rubbished.

But what is new, at least for India, is an emerging line of attack to question the “right” of a non-governmental organisation to raise public issues. PepsiCo filed a writ petition in the court, which said that CSE is a “a non-governmental organisation having no legal authority or recognition” and therefore, “the report prepared by a private person does not have any sanctity in law and could not have been binding upon any person, much less the governmental authorities.”  <a href="http://www.countercurrents.org/en-narain101203.htm">http://www.countercurrents.org/en-narain101203.htm</a>

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