Killer Coke
A Never-ending Story of Exploitation, Greed, Lies, Cover-ups and Complicity in Kidnapping, Torture, Murder and other Gross Human Rights Abuses

Killer Coke Update | March 30, 2015


The World Responds to Coke\'s Lies & Abuses

Contents of the Newsletter

  1. Coca-Cola Boycott for Spanish Parliament?
  2. Coca-Cola Forced to Shut Bottling Plant in India
  3. Coke Not Living Up to Promises on Land Grabs
  4. When Coke & Nazis Went Hand-in-Hand
  5. Coke's Money Damages Groups' Credibility & Integrity
  6. Harvard Study: Coca-Cola Puts Girls at Cancer Risk
  7. Lies & Deception: Coca-Cola & Sugar Industry Behave Like Tobacco Companies
  8. 10 Dangerous Sweeteners in Coca-Cola that Can Harm or Kill You
  9. From UK: One Can of Fizzy Drink [Coca-Cola] Increases Heart Attack By a Third
  10. Coca-Cola: Global Face of Obesity
  11. Coke Makes Joke of National Press Foundation
  12. Will Connecticut Be the First State to Enact a Sugar Tax?
  13. Gates Trust Doesn't Trust Coke!
  14. Coke Avoids Risk & Responsibility to Make Loads of Money

1. Coca-Cola Boycott for Spanish Parliament?

"Coca-Cola Boycott for Spanish Parliament?" The Local, February 16, 2015
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"A Spanish politician has requested that the nation's parliament stop all sales of Coca Cola until the company reinstates workers in a bottling plant in the capital.

"Cayo Lara, head of the United Left party, has sent a letter to the president of Spain's Congress of Deputies requesting that all sales of Coca Cola be stopped until the multinational complies with a Spanish court ruling, that the company should reinstate workers at the Fuenlabrada bottling plant in Madrid."

The Campaign received an email from Dani in Spain:

We were in the EU Parliament yesterday. We were invited by IU (United Left) and Podemos (a Left-Wing political party). We were asking justice and promoting the boycott.

A few political parties will write a letter asking Coca-Cola to comply with the law and reinstate us at work...We know there are at least five parties supporting the letter.

We also had an interview with the International Union Association in Brussels and they will also pressure Coke too, asking for union rights and they are going to support us because Coke violated the essential strikers rights.

Dani

2. Coca-Cola Forced to Shut Bottling Plant in India

"Coca-Cola Forced to Shut Bottling Plant in India" by Fatima Hansia, CorpWatch Blog, July 10, 2014
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"Coca-Cola, the world's largest beverage producer, has been ordered to shut down its bottling plant in Varanasi, India following local complaints that the company was drawing excessive amounts of groundwater. After an investigation, government authorities ruled that the company had violated its operating license."

3. Coke Not Living Up to Promises on Land Grabs: Cambodia, Mexico India, Brazil, Swaziland

"No Relief for Evictees One Year on From Coca-Cola Visit" by Zsombor Peter & Aun Pheap, The Cambodia Daily, February 14, 2015
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"Nearly a year after beverage giant Coca-Cola sent a team of re­searchers to Cambodia to probe al­leged human rights abuses by the sugar producers that help sweeten its drinks, NGOs and the families that have lost land to those suppliers' plantations say little to nothing has changed.

"The researchers spent more than a week in late February and early March 2014 visiting families forced off their farms by plantations owned by the Thai companies that supply Coca-Cola. The visit followed the beverage firm's high-profile pledge the year before of 'zero tolerance' for land grabbing by its sugar suppliers."

As previously reported by the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, Coke's land grab policy does not live up to Coke's stated rhetoric:

"Fernando Ponce, a development magnate and chief of Coca-Cola distribution company Bepensa of Merida, Mexico is drawing the ire of Holbox Island residents, visitors and environmentalists for trying to grab local land to build a high-end resort in a pristine area that 'is largely untouched, replete with mangroves, barely navigable and located in a nature reserve.' "

" 'Coca-Cola's land grab in India, as confirmed by government authorities, makes a mockery of their so called "zero tolerance" commitment towards land grabs. If Coca-Cola is serious, they should immediately return the community-owned land to the village council, as demanded by the government authorities,' said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, an international campaigning group."

"Coke's new policy led Survival International to urge Coca-Cola to stop buying sugar from U.S. food giant Bunge, which buys sugar cane from land stolen from Guarani Indians in Brazil. A Guarani spokesperson told Survivor International, 'Coca-Cola must stop buying sugar from Bunge. While these companies profit, we are forced to endure hunger, misery, and killings.' "

"This promise must also extend to a country like Swaziland. All Africa published a commentary titled, 'Swaziland: Coca-Cola Abandons Swazi Workers' saying, 'Coca-Cola has denied that it intends to take any lead in protecting the rights of workers in Swaziland from land-grabbing...where land is taken from poor people in developing countries without their consent...In Swaziland, King Mswati III, who rules as sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, controls all publicly-owned land, and his chiefs do his bidding in ejecting people from the land they live on and cultivate if they disobey him or them in any way. Manqoba Khumalo, General Manager of Conco Limited (trading as Coca-Cola Swaziland), told the Sunday Observer...that Coca-Cola was taking a leadership role across the world in protecting land rights of farmers and communities, but this did not apply to Swaziland...' "

4. When Coke & Nazis Went Hand-in-Hand

"Coca Cola company advertisement celebrates Fanta by giving the feeling of 'the good old times' of 1940's Germany," Daily Mail, March 12, 2015
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"Cola-Cola has gotten rid of a Fanta advertisement that referred to the 1940s, the time period in which the drink was first produced in Germany, as 'the good old times.'

"The advertisement, which was broadcast in German, was in honor of Fanta's 75th anniversary and promoted a new drink recipe."

Mark Thomas Exposes Coca-Cola's Collaboration with the Nazis (2:23 Video)

5. Coke's Money Damages Groups' Credibility & Integrity

"Coke Pays Nutrition Experts To Say Soda Can Be A Healthy Snack," by Candice Choi, AP, 03/16/2015
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"Coca-Cola is working with fitness and nutrition experts who suggest its soda as a treat at a time when the world's biggest beverage maker is being blamed for helping to fuel obesity rates.

"In February, several of the experts wrote online posts for American Heart Month, with each including a mini-can of Coke or soda as a snack idea. The pieces — which appeared on nutrition blogs and other sites including those of major newspapers — offer a window into the many ways food companies work behind the scenes to cast their products in a positive light, often with the help of third parties who are seen as trusted authorities.

"The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, a professional group for dietitians, says in its code of ethics that practitioners promote and endorse products 'only in a manner that is not false and misleading.' A spokesman for the academy, Ryan O'Malley, said he couldn't say whether the posts on mini-Cokes meet those guidelines because there is a formal process for submitting and reviewing such cases.

"Meanwhile, a group called Dietitians for Professional Integrity has called for sharper lines to be drawn between dietitians and companies. Andy Bellatti, one of its founders, said companies court dietitians because they help validate corporate messages."

"Needs of Undocumented Children Tops AAP Resolution List" by Melissa Jenco, AAP News, March 20, 2015
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"AAP leaders deemed the needs of undocumented immigrant children their top priority for the year at the Annual Leadership Forum (ALF) last weekend.

"They also called for action on issues such as sugar-sweetened beverages, marijuana exposure and telehealth.

"The top resolutions were culled from more than 100 that AAP chapters, committees, councils and sections around the country submitted and then debated at this year's forum."

Among the Top 10 list:

1. Addressing the Legal and Mental Health Needs of Undocumented Immigrant Children

2. AAP Terminate Sponsorship(s) on HealthyChildren.org of Companies that Produce Soft Drinks and Sugar-sweetened Beverages

6. Sugar-sweetened Beverage Company Sponsorship of the AAP

From "Buying Respectability: Coca-Cola & the Co-opting of the Corporate Social Responsibility Movement":

"Coca-Cola's hypocrisy and attempted deception with respect to children's well-being is further evident on the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) "healthychildren.org" website. There Coca-Cola posts its "LIVE POSITIVELY Coca-Cola" ad [no longer on the site], which is totally inappropriate and disgusting. Shame on Coca-Cola and shame on the irresponsible, money grubbing AAP whose tagline "DEDICATED TO THE HEALTH OF ALL CHILDREN" which accompanies its logo would be more appropriate if it read "DEDICATED TO PROFIT, CHILDREN BE DAMNED."

Coca-Cola is currently a member of the AAP's Corporate Friends of Children Fund in the $50,000 and above category.

Will Coca-Cola's corrupted AAP leadership change and choose integrity over Coke's money?

6. Harvard Study: Coca-Cola Puts Girls at Cancer Risk

"Fizzy drinks cause early puberty and increases cancer risk in girls, study finds
"A Harvard study has shown a link between fizzy drinks and cancer in girls"
The Telegraph, By Agency, January 28, 2015

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"Girls who frequently drink fizzy sugary drinks are putting themselves at risk of breast cancer, research warned. Drinking just one-and-a-half cans a day causes early puberty and that increases their cancer risk.

For each year they mature earlier, it is estimated breast cancer risk increases by five per cent.

"The Harvard Medical School study of 5,583 girls aged nine to 14 found those who drank more than 1.5 servings of sugary drinks a day had their first period 2.7 months earlier than those who drank two or fewer drinks a week...

"This research shows that it's even more important that children switch to water."

7. Lies & Deception: Coca-Cola & Sugar Industry Behave Like Tobacco Companies

"Tooth decay: sugar industry behaved like tobacco manufacturers" by Markus MacGill, MNT, March 11, 2015
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"When the science first established that sugar was the damaging component in tooth decay — and when the sugar industry saw there was this unquestionable harm — its trade organizations ignored dentists' calls for restricting intake, and instead deflected the debate elsewhere, influencing public health research in food producers' favor. Those are the allegations of researchers who have trawled a previously unexplored source of industry documents from the 60s...

"...documents suggest that the industry, simply put, decided to focus on ways to reduce sugar's harms instead of answer the scientific charge that the damage to teeth was so clear and direct that the best way to reduce it was to restrict the addition of sugars to foods."

8. 10 Dangerous Sweeteners in Coca-Cola that Can Harm or Kill You

"10 Dangerous Sweeteners in Coca-Cola," Examiner.com, This article was originally published on Stefan Pinto's blog, PintoFactory.
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Read this article to find out the horrible health risks in Diet Coke and other of Coke products due to the artificial sweeteners:

"Sold in over 200 countries, Coca-Cola is one of the most familiar brands of beverages in the world. As Coke is flavored mostly with caramel and sugar, the latter being such a controversial ingredient, the makers of Coke have long since began using artificial sweeteners instead of sugar.

"Studies continue to show that these artificial sweeteners can cause weight gain, disruption of sleep patterns, sexual dysfunction, increases in cancer, MS, Lupus, diabetes, and a list of epidemic degenerative diseases. How ironic that a product originally intended for medicine can actually make you sick."

1. Aspartame (phenylalanine)
2. Acesulfame-K (acesulfame potassium) or Ace-K
3. Neotame (dimethylbutyl)
4. Saccharin
5. Cyclamate or sodium cyclamate
6. Sucralose (E955)
7. Maltodextrin
8. Sucrose
9. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS 55)
10. Alitame

9. From UK: One Can of Fizzy Drink [Coca-Cola] Increases Heart Attack By a Third

"Just ONE can of fizzy drink a day increases heart attack risk by a third and could lead a STONE of weight gain over a year" by Sean Poulter, Daily Mail, February 16, 2015
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"Drinking one can of a sugary drink a day increases the risk of dying from heart disease by a third, health campaigners warn. Heart health experts have launched a hard-hitting poster campaign to challenge the damage they claim is caused by the likes of Coca-Cola and Pepsi. One poster highlights the risk of heart disease, while a second warns that drinking one can of full sugar fizzy drink a day could lead to weight gain of 6kg — over a stone — in a year...

"Recent research by the University of Liverpool claimed that added a 20p tax to the drinks would save thousands of children from diabetes, cancer and heart disease...

10. Coca-Cola: Global Face of Obesity

"Message about sugar-packed soft drinks gets through at last, says nutritionist" by Beau Donelly, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 17, 2015
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"Coca-Cola Amatil posted its lowest profit in eight years, with a 25 per cent drop in net profit to $375.5 million in 2014...

"Rob Moodie, professor of public health at the University of Melbourne, said consumers realised they had been 'duped'. '[Coca-Cola] is the biggest advertiser and most recognised brand and seen as one of the global faces of obesity.' "

11. Coke Makes Joke of National Press Foundation

"Another conflicted journalism training event by the National Press Foundation" by Gary Schwitzer, Health News Review, March 10, 2015
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The announcement by the National Press Foundation states:

"Any journalist who wants to improve her or his work on scientific topics will benefit from this webinar. It will highlight common challenges in communicating science and offer specific tips to enhance the fidelity and richness of [bogus] scientific reporting.

The speakers in the webinar were David Allison Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham and Andrew W. Brown, Ph.D., Nutrition and Obesity Research Center & Office of Energetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

As it turns out, The Coca-Cola Company underwrites this Webinar.

"The first speaker...David Allison...has extensive ties to Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and the American Beverage Association.

"...Brown...published a paper in April, 2013 in which he argued that all kinds of popular public-health interventions to prevent obesity can have unintended consequences, making the obesity problem worse. He argues against such things as taxing sugar-sweetened beverages and labeling calories on vending machine drinks...

"...why on earth is a journalism organization allowing Coke to use its cred to legitimize this webinar? This is a scandal."

12. Will Connecticut Be the First State to Enact a Sugar Tax?

"Sugar tax a slurp closer for Connecticut" by Bill Cummings, Stamford Advocate, March 10, 2015
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" A bill which would make Connecticut the first in the nation to slap a penalty tax on sugary soda products passed a legislative committee Thursday and moved a few inches closer to becoming law...

"State Rep. Diana Urban, D-North Stonington and the children's committee chairwoman, said even if the bill does not become law — she acknowledged similar efforts failed in New York City and California — the discussion helps educate the public about the dangers of surgery drinks.

"'The more we put this out there I think we are educating the public because we are highlighting the issue,' Urban said, referring to obesity and other diseases linked to surgery food products."

13. Gates Trust Doesn't Trust Coke!

"Bill and Melinda Gates' trust sheds Coca-Cola, adds UPS to holdings" by Christopher Seward, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 17, 2015
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"The Gates Foundation Asset Trust, which manages the assets of the $42.3 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has sold its [almost $2 billion] holdings of Coca-Cola stock and added UPS to its portfolio, according to a Bloomberg report, citing filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission...

"A spokesman for the Gates trust reportedly did not provide a reason for the change in investment strategy. Coca-Cola declined to comment.

"Coca-Cola recently reported that its fourth-quarter profit fell 55 percent from the year-ago period. The company said 2015 will be a transition year and initiatives to strengthen its business will take time to materialize..."

Coke's Biggest Cheerleaders: Warren Buffett and Bill & Melinda Gates (from 'Buying Respectability...')

[We have been critical of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett for their investments and the way they have personally promoted Coca-Cola. Perhaps the Gates finally realized that concerns they have shown for children's health and well-being worldwide conflicted with their investments and their personal promotions of Coke.]

"The interests of Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett and The Coca-Cola Company are intimately linked... The Gates Foundation and Coca-Cola would seem to make strange bedfellows in that the Foundation promotes the image of purity and concern for the welfare of children worldwide. One has to wonder why Bill and Melinda Gates promote The Coca-Cola Company so much and invest so heavily in it. For decades, Coca-Cola has done, and continues to do, great harm to the health and well being of children on a global scale in the name of profit. The Gates/Buffett/Coca-Cola altruism image has many serious contradictions and flaws."

14. Coke Avoids Risk & Responsibility to Make Loads of Money

"Killer Coke: Coke is indeed 'the real thing' if reality is about shrewdly offloading risk and responsibility in order to make loads of money."
(Review of "Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism" by Bartow J. Elmore)
By Nicholas Freudenberg, The American Interest, February 3, 2015

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"A central theme of Citizen Coke is that Coke has created a brand of capitalism that increasingly dominates the global economy. What are the essential elements of Coca-Cola capitalism?

"First, Coke capitalism looks to protect profit by outsourcing expensive or risky operations to others...

"Second, Coca-Cola avidly pursues government subsidies...

"Third, Coca-Cola has lots of local partners who look out for the company's interests...

"Finally, Coca-Cola capitalism is well-suited to the age of globalization...

"So what's wrong with Coca-Cola capitalism?...Elmore's detailed examination of Coke's history highlights some of the problems. It turns out that what's good for Coke's bottom line is not so good for American or global health, the environment, democracy, or most typical workers. Furthermore, as Elmore shows, the support that governments and taxpayers provide Coca-Cola allows the company to ship and sell more products and, in the process, deplete public goods such as water and land that could grow healthier crops. This in turn generates more diet-related disease and solid waste that consumers and taxpayers must pay to remedy."