Coca-Cola Caught Undermining Public Health Initiatives

Coca-Cola Caught Undermining Public Health Initiatives

The British Channel 4 documentary, "Secret of Coca-Cola," featured above, reveals how Coca-Cola Co. is fighting the implementation of health and environmental policies that might impact the company's bottom line.

Leaked internal documents and emails — which have become known as "The Coke Files" — shows the soda industry is in fact working against public health in a very coordinated and comprehensive fashion, using well-known tobacco-industry tactics such as:

•Message coordination and influencing media. As an example of how Coca-Cola deals with journalists who fail to follow corporate talking points, in a May 2016 email, Amanda Rosseter, the global group director of strategic communications at the Coca-Cola Co., wrote:10

"A reporter for Wired reached out to our media line late last night with a series of questions and an immediate deadline … The story, however, posted early this morning without waiting for our input.

The story … focuses on sugar, stevia and the Company's attempts to offer options to consumers with a pessimistic tone … We will be reaching out to this reporter to better understand her decision not to include our perspective, and to build her brain around our strategy."

•Developing close ties with influential scientists and experts who then speak on the company's behalf while presenting themselves as "independent" experts.

As just one example, two years ago, Coca-Cola Company was outed for secretly funding and supporting the Global Energy Balance Network, a nonprofit front group that promoted exercise as the solution to obesity while significantly downplaying the role of diet and sugary beverages in the weight loss equation.11

•Debunking and manipulating science. Research has revealed simply funding a study will significantly influence the results.

As just one example, an investigation by Marion Nestle, Ph.D. and professor of nutrition, food studies and public health, found that out of 168 studies funded by the food industry, 156 of them favored the sponsor.12

•Astroturfing — The effort on the part of special interests to surreptitiously sway public opinion and make it appear as though it's a grassroots effort for or against a particular agenda, when in reality such a groundswell of public opinion might not exist.

•Lobbying at every level of government.

Complexity storytelling

Emergence: Complexity and Organization

The science of complexity within the art of communication

January 20, 2017 · Academic

The art of communication and the science of complexity are intriguing areas of thought and practice that can be examined through storytelling. In an increasingly complex world with many voices, a deeper understanding of complexity communication provides opportunities for researchers and practitioners. This paper discussion centers on Complexity Communication, and the Complex Responsive Processes within the storytelling environment.

Congress Slips CISA Into a Budget Bill That’s Sure to Pass | WIRED

Congress Slips CISA Into a Budget Bill That’s Sure to Pass | WIRED

In a late-night session of Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced a new version of the “omnibus” bill, a massive piece of legislation that deals with much of the federal government’s funding. It now includes a version of CISA as well. Lumping CISA in with the omnibus bill further reduces any chance for debate over its surveillance-friendly provisions, or a White House veto. And the latest version actually chips away even further at the remaining personal information protections that privacy advocates had fought for in the version of the bill that passed the Senate.

“They took a bad bill, and they made it worse,” says Robyn Greene, policy counsel for the Open Technology Institute.

CISA had alarmed the privacy community by giving companies the ability to share cybersecurity information with federal agencies, including the NSA, “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” That means CISA’s information-sharing channel, ostensibly created for responding quickly to hacks and breaches, could also provide a loophole in privacy laws that enabled intelligence and law enforcement surveillance without a warrant.

H.R. 897, Zika Vector Control Act | Republican Policy Committee

H.R. 897, Zika Vector Control Act | Republican Policy Committee

The bill establishes exemptions for the following discharges containing a pesticide or pesticide residue: (1) a discharge resulting from the application of a pesticide in violation of FIFRA that is relevant to protecting water quality, if the discharge would not have occurred but for the violation or the amount of pesticide or pesticide residue contained in the discharge is greater than would have occurred without the violation; (2) storm water discharges regulated under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES); and (3) discharges regulated under NPDES of manufacturing or industrial effluent or treatment works effluent and discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel, including a discharge resulting from operations concerning ballast water held in ships to increase stability or vessel biofouling prevention.

Can We Trust the CDC? British Medical Journal Reveals CDC Lies About Ties to Big Pharma

Can We Trust the CDC? British Medical Journal Reveals CDC Lies About Ties to Big Pharma

Jeanne Lenzer, associate editor of the British Medical Journal, has published an investigative report showing how the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not honest when publishing disclaimers in their studies stating that “they have no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products.”

This news does not come as a surprise to those of us in the alternative media, but it is significant that the report was published in one the world’s most respected medical journals, the British Medical Journal. Lenzer explains why this is so significant:

The CDC’s image as an independent watchdog over the public health has given it enormous prestige, and its recommendations are occasionally enforced by law.

She goes on to quote Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine:

The CDC has enormous credibility among physicians, in no small part because the agency is generally thought to be free of industry bias. Financial dealings with biopharmaceutical companies threaten that reputation.

CDC Receives Millions of Dollars in Industry Gifts and Funding

Lenzer goes on to document in her investigative report how the CDC has been receiving millions of dollars in “industry gifts and funding” since at least 1983.

Despite the agency’s disclaimer, the CDC does receive millions of dollars in industry gifts and funding, both directly and indirectly, and several recent CDC actions and recommendations have raised questions about the science it cites, the clinical guidelines it promotes, and the money it is taking.

Lenzer writes that in 1983 the CDC was “authorised” to accept this funding from pharmaceutical companies, and that in 1995 Congress actually passed legislation that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton “to encourage relationships between industry and the CDC.”

More Massive Conflict of Interest in Drug Industry

More Massive Conflict of Interest in Drug Industry

Former CDC Director Now President of Merck's Vaccine Unit

In the summer of 2011, Merck president Julie Gerberding said in a news interview1 that she's "very bullish on vaccines," as she recounted the various ways she helps Merck sell its products. What she didn't divulge was her motivation for leaving her job as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—an agency charged with overseeing vaccines and drug companies—and join Merck in the first place, back in January 2010.

If you don't see the enormity of the influence her former high-level ties to the CDC can have, just consider the fact that Merck makes 14 of the 17 pediatric vaccines recommended by the CDC, and 9 of the 10 recommended for adults, and while vaccine safety advocates are trying to rein in the number of vaccines given to babies, safety concerns keep falling on deaf ears. The vaccine industry is booming, and it's become quite clear that profit potential is the driving factor behind it.

One of the reasons for this is because vaccine patents do not expire like drugs do, so each vaccine adopted for widespread use has the potential to make enormous, continuous profits for decades to come. Vaccine makers also enjoy a high degree of immunity against lawsuits—and in the case of pandemic vaccines, absolute immunity—so the financial liability when something goes wrong is very low, compared to drugs.

CDC, WHO and Big Pharma: A Dangerous Network of Corruption | AntiCorruption Society

CDC, WHO and Big Pharma: A Dangerous Network of Corruption | AntiCorruption Society

CDC, WHO and Big Pharma: A Dangerous Network of Corruption

Posted on March 2, 2015 | 14 Comments

By AL Whitney © copyround 2015

Permission is granted for redistribution if linked to original and Parents Against Mandatory Vaccines is acknowledged.

Unfortunately it is very profitable for the drug industry to get the medical profession to promote vaccines to the general population. Drug companies are corporations and they do not have a duty to “do no harm”. Their only duty is to make money and “mitigate” any liability the company might be forced to deal with in a court of law. And since the Supreme Court decision in 2011, Bruecewitz versus Wyeth, they have been exempted from all liability regarding their vaccine products. It is important the public doesn’t forget this as it is very unlikely your physician or anyone who works for public health will remind you of this reality.