Coca-Cola Front Group Aims to
Confuse You About Soda’s Influence on Obesity
September 02, 2015|
Story at-a-glance
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The food, chemical, and biotechnology industries have
all built up intricate and powerful systems designed to
manipulate public and scientific opinion using false
front organizations and industry shills posing as
independent experts
Coca-Cola Company funds the Global Energy Balance
Network, a front group aimed at confusing you about soda
science and diverting attention away from evidence
showing soda is a major contributor to obesity and
diabetes
By placing the sole focus on exercise and making you
think you can exercise your way out of a high-sugar
diet, Coca-Cola is harming consumers
By Dr. Mercola
The food, chemical, and biotechnology industries have all built
up intricate and powerful systems designed to
manipulate public and scientific opinion using false front
organizations and industry shills posing as independent experts.
The mission is to mislead people — including lazy reporters —
about issues that threaten the corporate bottom line.
So-called
astroturfing techniques are frequently used to discredit the
opposition and create the false appearance of scientific consensus
on a particular issue.
Astroturfing refers to the effort on the part of special
interests to surreptitiously sway public opinion by making it appear
as though there's a grassroots effort for or against a particular
agenda, when in reality such a groundswell of public opinion might
not exist.
One hallmark of astroturfing is attacking those who question the
status quo, and using derogatory terms such as "crank," "crack,"
"nutty," "pseudo-science," and "conspiracy theorist" to describe
them and their argument.
These shills also inject themselves into social media
discussions, pretending to be "regular people," when in fact they
have a very clearly defined agenda to steer the conversation.
By Dr. Mercola
The food, chemical, and biotechnology industries have all
built up intricate and powerful systems designed to
manipulate public and scientific opinion using false front
organizations and industry shills posing as independent experts.
The mission is to mislead people — including lazy reporters —
about issues that threaten the corporate bottom line.
So-called
astroturfing techniques are frequently used to discredit the
opposition and create the false appearance of scientific
consensus on a particular issue.
Astroturfing refers to the effort on the part of special
interests to surreptitiously sway public opinion by making it
appear as though there's a grassroots effort for or against a
particular agenda, when in reality such a groundswell of public
opinion might not exist.
One hallmark of astroturfing is attacking those who question
the status quo, and using derogatory terms such as "crank,"
"crack," "nutty," "pseudo-science," and "conspiracy theorist" to
describe them and their argument.
These shills also inject themselves into social media
discussions, pretending to be "regular people," when in fact
they have a very clearly defined agenda to steer the
conversation.
Arguing for more exercise is not a bad thing in and of
itself, but by placing the sole focus on exercise and making you
think you can exercise your way out of a high-sugar diet,
Coca-Cola is doing a lot of harm. The fact is, your diet can
make or break your exercise efforts. Not the other way around.
The finest destruction of the calorie and exercise myth can be
viewed in this lecture featuring Dr. Zoe Harcombe, who wrote the
best book I ever read on the subject, The Obesity Epidemic.
I recently interviewed her and will publish that interview
shortly.
Research8
shows exercise is largely ineffective for producing any
significant amount of weight loss on its own. If you want any
chance of weight reduction, you have to cut calories as well.9
Part of this is because while you certainly burn more
calories when you exercise, you cannot burn off thousands of
excess calories each day. For example, to burn off the calories
of a single Snickers bar you'd have to walk about five miles,
and to offset a one soda per day habit, you have to walk one
hour per day!
Now, if you normally eat a candy bar or drink a soda each
day, and you decide to skip the candy or soda AND walk a few
miles each day, THEN you'd be looking at potential weight loss.
Otherwise you're just fighting for maintenance. And if you're
overweight as it is, without changing your diet your exercise
routine will simply help you maintain your current weight at
best...
In addition to cutting calories, you also need to consider
their source. Calories from processed fructose will affect your
body differently than calories from healthy fat, for example.
Research also shows that fructose promotes metabolic disorders
such as type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease to a greater
extent than glucose, so not even all sugars are the same.
Refined fructose is actually broken down very much like
alcohol, damaging your liver and causing mitochondrial and
metabolic dysfunction in the same way as ethanol and other
toxins.
A recent meta-review10
published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings found that
once you reach 18 percent of your daily calories from added
sugar, there's a two-fold increase in metabolic harm that
promotes pre-diabetes and diabetes. Moreover, research suggests
sugary beverages are to blame for about 183,000 deaths
worldwide each year, including 133,000 diabetes deaths, 44,000
heart disease deaths, and 6,000 cancer deaths.
Not surprisingly, compared to studies with no financial
conflicts of interest, research funded by the beverage and sugar
industries are five times more likely to conclude there's "no
link" between sugary beverages and weight gain.11
Yet the reality just doesn't match up with the industry's
well-crafted fantasies.
Nearly 30 percent of American children and teens are now
either obese or overweight, and blacks and Hispanic kids are not
only disproportionally more overweight than their Caucasian
peers, they're also disproportionally exposed to soda ads,
according to a 2014 report12
from the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at the University
of Connecticut, the African-American Collaborative Obesity
Research Network, and the University of Texas Health Science
Center at San Antonio.
Big Food Astroturfing
As noted in a recent Campaign US article,13
Coca-Cola isn't the only company engaging in astroturfing
efforts to save their bottom-line as people are getting savvier
about nutrition and health:
"Coke
is far from alone in quietly pushing junk science to reframe
health issues and help win over consumers and regulators.
Under pressure from the organic and clean-eating movement,
Big Food is upping its game in this newest form of
astroturfing: backing groups that look and sound like
educational resources while supporting the goals of the
corporations that help the bills. Unlike astroturf groups of
the past, these organizations don't go to great lengths to
hide their corporate connections.
Most of them name their major backers right on their
site. Instead, they trust that carefully crafted visuals and
scientifically accredited spokespeople will dissuade the
average consumer — or journalist — from looking too closely.
Take a look at the Food Dialogue website, the online face of
the US Farmers and Rancher Alliance...
The site says it's devoted to giving agriculture a
voice in enhancing consumers' trust in food production...
Ketchum PR helps the organization get its message out to
city folks. But dig deeper into the site and you find that
USFRA's backers include giant corporations tied to
industrialized farming, including biotech company Monsanto,
known for its GMOs, pesticide maker Dow AgroSciences, ag
pharmaceutical provider Merck Animal Health, and food
processor Cargill... No organic farm groups are included
among its membership."
According to a recent report14
by the environmental organization Friends of the Earth, titled
"Spinning Food," the US Farmers and Rancher Alliance and other
such
front groups "craft a narrative about food that is intended
to defuse public concern about the real risks of
chemical-intensive industrial agriculture and undermine the
public's perceptions of the benefits of organic food and
diversified, ecological agriculture systems." And, while most of
industry front groups claim to offer "balanced discussions"
about the issues at hand, they shrewdly promote a single-sided
and single-minded agenda.
As noted by Kari Hamerschlag, senior program manager at
Friends of the Earth:
"Coca-Cola's effort to establish a well-funded front
group and buy the credentials of scientists is a
cookie-cutter example of how a food company spins the story
of food and science to benefit its bottom line."
Another perfect example of an industry front group is the
Coalition for Safe Affordable Food (CFSAF), which is
currently advertising its support for
HR 1599, a bill that would strip states of their right to
enact GMO labeling laws. One of the ads15,16
regurgitates the lie that food prices would rise if genetically
engineered foods were to be labeled, saying:
"Across the country misguided politicians have
threatened polices that could hurt our environment, close
family farms, and increase food prices by $500 per family.
But Congressman Mike Pompeo is fighting for a solution that
would keep food costs down, help farmers, and protect our
environment. Call Congressman Pompeo and tell him to keep
fighting for the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act. It's
the right thing for Kansas and our country."
Transparency Is Crucial to Protect Public Health
As detailed in a recent article17
by Paul D. Thacker and Charles Seife, published in PLOS Biology
Community Blog, transparency is critical for public health.
Unfortunately, while efforts have focused on increasing
transparency in science over the past several years, even former
supporters of transparency are now starting to backpedal.
This includes the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) which,
to quote Thacker and Seife, "has begun a campaign to blunt the
tools with which the public can investigate claims of scientific
malfeasance." More specifically, the UCS is questioning the use
of open-access requests with which journalists and researchers
can request access to correspondence between scientists and
corporations for example. As noted in the article:
"In February, a tiny nonprofit, the U.S. Right to
Know, sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to
several universities. FOIA requests are legal inquiries that
allow citizens and other professionals to obtain certain
information in the possession of various government
entities. These particular requests sought communications
between scientists and several companies, trade groups, and
PR firms, in order to see if the academics were coordinating
their messaging with companies.
A journalist reporting on this FOIA request in
Science noted that the Organic Consumers Association
funds the U.S Right to Know and that many of the scientists
targeted are involved with a website called GMO Answers. He
did not mention that GMO Answers is run by the PR firm
Ketchum, on behalf of GMO companies.
Upon hearing of these inquiries, a lead analyst at
UCS stated, 'These requests to the genetic engineering
researchers, just like other overly broad open records
requests that seek excessive access to scientists' inboxes,
are inappropriate.' [But requests] under FOIA for personal
correspondence are not just appropriate, but crucial to
ensuring transparency."
The authors go on to provide specific examples of instances
where access to scientists' personal correspondence led to the
discovery of industry-orchestrated disinformation campaigns,
scientific fraud, medical ghostwriting, and other corrupt
practices.
"Scientists' emails have also revealed other
mechanisms by which industry exerts control over the
scientific literature. A recent Senate investigation
released scientists' emails to show that the device maker
Medtronic edited the scientific manuscripts — written by
supposedly independent researchers — to support one of their
products," the authors write.
Take Notice of Who's Behind the Messages You Hear
In short, without transparency laws, there's no way to
monitor scientific misbehavior, and as noted by Thacker and
Seife, scientists shouldexpect to be
subjected to a high level of outside scrutiny. When scientists
are working on issues that affect public health, watchdog groups
and journalists would be remiss were they not to look for
potential misconduct that might put the public's health in
jeopardy.
And as universities become increasingly enmeshed with
corporations funding their research, and corporations keep
building networks of front groups, the need for transparency and
laws that provide access to "behind-the-scenes" information will
only increase as time goes on. As Thacker and Seife states:
"In short, those working to improve public welfare
should oppose attempts to embolden government entities to
withhold public information, thus threatening public health
and the public trust in science."
It's high time to pull back the curtain and see who's really
pulling the strings and levers. In the case of the Global Energy
Balance Network (GEBN), that entity is Coca-Cola, and whenever
you hear the talking points from GEBN, you know exactly who is
talking, and why. To stop you from ditching soda from your diet,
they simply redirect the blame for your weight and health
problems to a lack of exercise. Coca-Cola doesn't necessarily
want you to die; they just don't want you to stop drinking their
beverages because then they'll go out of business. It's that
simple. So believe what they tell you at your own risk...
Tell Coke They're a Joke!
Obesity is a serious public health problem in the United
States, and you are being sorely misled by companies pretending
to have a solution that, in reality, only worsen the problem. I
strongly urge you to let the Coca-Cola Company know how you feel
by telling them to stop their deceptive marketing of soda
products.
Join me in taking a stand against false advertising and let
your voice be heard. If you’re on Twitter, send a tweet to
#CokeCEO to let the Coca-Cola Company know you disapprove of
their deceptive advertising. If you’re on Facebook, please share
your thoughts with them on their
Facebook Page. You can also
e-mail Coca-Cola Company to let them know how you feel about
their strategy for fighting obesity — which does not include
giving up soda and other sugary beverages.
Already, in response to growing criticism, Coca-Cola CEO
Muhtar Kent has issued a public apology,18
acknowledging that the company’s approach was “poorly planned.”
But Coca-Cola’s campaign was hardly the result of poor
planning! It was about disseminating poor science and
perpetuating misleading information in order to deceive you
about the influence of soda on your weight — a Big JOKE!
Coca-Cola also says “the way we have engaged the public
health and scientific communities… is not working.” But this is
not about engaging public health and scientific communities.
It’s about trying to defend the indefensible using plain old
bad/misleading information — a Big JOKE!
Coke even has a “work it out calculator”19
that supposedly tells you how much you have to exercise to burn
off your favorite beverage, but look at the numbers for Diet
Coke... According to them, you don’t have to spend a single
minute exercising if you drink Diet soda, yet overwhelming
amounts of research shows artificially sweetened beverages
promote weight gain to the same degree or more as regularly
sweetened beverages — a Big JOKE!