Paying for Expert Opinion: Dietitians Paid by Coke to Take
Anti-Soda Tax Position
By Kurtis Bright
Coca-Cola Secretly Pays Low-Life Dietitians to Look the Other
Way
Living in a state where a soda tax was on the ballot this
last election? If so, did you happen to notice how many registered dietitians
came out against the issue on Twitter and in letters to the editor in the weeks
running up to November 8?
It has recently come to light that you may have Coca-Cola to
thank for that.
Last year we learned that Coca-Cola, the world’s biggest
producer of sugary soft drinks is in the habit of paying university researchers
and health experts to downplay the dangers of drinking soda and instead try to
force the focus onto getting more exercise and never mind about caloric intake.
So it should come as no surprise that the corporation was at it again, muddying
the waters by using secretly paid “expert opinion” to toe the corporate line on
the soda tax issue.
The American Beverage Association--a big soda lobbying
group--along with Coca-Cola was found to have--surprise surprise--resorted to
sleazy tactics to get their message out.
Many of those dietitians who were “concerned” about the
proposed soda taxes on the ballot in California and Boulder, Colorado among
other places suddenly turned up on Twitter and in the pages of local newspapers
in the weeks just before the election. But it turns out their concern may have
been more with their own pocketbook than anything else.
An investigative reporter for Ninjas For Health grew
suspicious when these tweets and letters to the editor started rolling out all
at once, all of them repeating the industry talking points that a soda tax is a
stealth grocery tax (it isn’t) and suggesting that reducing soda intake may not
even help make people healthier (it does). The reporter discovered a nest of
these sleazy dietitians who turned out to be on the payroll of Coca-Cola--and
who are surely planning for a long and cozy afterlife in the darkest corners of
hell, where they will be forced to swill gallons of Coke while strapped to
chair a la Homer Simpson and the hellish donut machine.
Of course there is nothing illegal about paying people to
say things for you, even things that are demonstrably false, and which those
paid shills then tweet publicly or send to the letters to the editor section of
newspapers.
The tricky part about this group of dietitians is that they
have been less than candid about where their money comes from. The tweets they
posted were purportedly the opinions of “health experts” who are simply
weighing in on a public controversy as concerned public citizens. But as the
NFH reporter said, shouldn’t they at least have to listed as “sponsored posts?”
The industry, as usual, has evaded any admission of
responsibility for its huge part in the obesity and diabetes crisis. They’ve
been trying to walk an ever-narrower line, for instance by using these
dietitians to write blog posts downplaying the importance of avoiding sugar
without going so far as to actually recommend drinking soda.
A recent AP story illustrated this nicely: when confronted
with evidence of its PR campaign disguised as health advice, Coca-Cola
acknowledged that they have been “...working with health experts on such social
media efforts for several years.” But of course such an admission only came
once they’d been caught with their hand in the cookie jar full of paid liars.
If a company finds the need to resort to tricks to promote
its position, you can be sure it is a terrible position. Click this link for a
list of shame naming the Coca-Cola-sponsored dietitians that have thus far been
identified and samples of their posts.
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