News Release

For Immediate Release: Thursday, March 15, 2018

For More Information Contact: Gary Ruskin (415) 944-7350

The Coca-Cola Company proposed and financed the now-defunct group Global Energy Balance Network as a “weapon” in the “growing war between the public health community and private industry” over obesity and the obesity epidemic, according to a new study published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The study is based on documents obtained via state Freedom of Information request by U.S. Right to Know, a consumer and public health group.

The study states that “The documents reveal that Coca-Cola funded and supported the GEBN because it would serve as a ‘weapon’ to ’change the conversation’ about obesity amidst a ’growing war between the public health community and private industry’.”

“This study reveals The Coca-Cola Company’s true intentions to go to war with the public health community over obesity and who is responsible for it,” said Gary Ruskin, co-director of US Right to Know, a co-author of the study.

Other co-authors of the study are: Pepita Barlow, University of Oxford; Paulo Serôdio, University of Oxford; Professor Martin McKee, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and Professor David Stuckler, Bocconi University.

The title of the article in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health is: “Science organisations and Coca-Cola’s ‘war’ with the public health community: insights from an internal industry document”.

U.S. Right to Know is a nonprofit consumer and public health organization that investigates the risks associated with the corporate food system, and the food industry’s practices and influence on public policy. For more information, see usrtk.org.

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