Trump’s New CDC Chief Championed Partnership with Coca-Cola to Solve Childhood Obesity
▻https://theintercept.com/2017/07/08/trumps-new-cdc-chief-championed-partnership-with-coca-cola-to-solve-ch
The new chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which monitors significant public health concerns, including the impact of sugary beverages on obesity and heart disease, will be led by Brenda Fitzgerald, a Georgia physician whose signature childhood obesity project was underwritten by Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola was so fond of Fitzgerald’s approach to obesity issues that an opinion column authored by Fitzgerald is featured prominently on Coca-Cola’s website.
Public health officials around the country have made obesity a top issue of concern. The United States has the distinction of having the highest rate of childhood obesity in the world, according to a recent report from the New England Journal of Medicine. And multiple reports have found that regular consumption of sugary beverages is a leading driver of obesity, which is linked to heart disease, diabetes, kidney diseases, cancers and hypertension.
More exercise, of course, is a good thing, but the Georgia SHAPE program notably eschewed another well-known step toward healthier living: curbing sugary beverage consumption
The CDC in particular has also been targeted by Coca-Cola, which has long disclosed attempts to lobby the agency to influence public health policy.
Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know revealed that executives from Coca-Cola and the International Life Sciences Institute — an organization founded with support from Coca-Cola — had pressured the agency to partner with the soda giant and allow it to weigh in on debates over sugary soft drinks. In one particular email chain with a CDC official, a former Coca-Cola executive discussed strategies for influencing the World Health Organization’s call for greater regulation of soft drinks. The former Coca-Cola executive called the WHO’s efforts a “threat to our business,” and invited the CDC official out for dinner to further discuss ways to sway decisions at the international body. Clyde Tuggle, the former Coca-Cola executive, was included in the email chain.