Coca-Cola Charged with Paying NAACP Soda Taxes Racist

Calley Means, co-founder of TrueMedicine Care, published a thread on Twitter Monday in which he addressed the problems with soda companies’ control over food regulation. Means stated that his Twitter Blue access had been blocked and that his account was being reviewed. This may have been due to Coca-Cola becoming a major advertiser for Twitter.

“Early in my career, I consulted for Coke to ensure sugar taxes failed and soda was included in food stamp funding,” Means claimed.

“I say Coke’s policies are evil because I saw inside the room. The first step in playbook was paying the NAACP + other civil rights groups to call opponents racist. Coke gave millions to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation – both directly and through front groups like the American Beverage Association This picked up in 2011-2013 – when the Farm Bill and soda taxes were under consideration.”

Means includes a screenshot taken from a The Center for Science in the Public Interest report (CSPI), as published in Nutrition Insight In March 2013.

Both the NAACP & the Hispanic Federation “received grants from Coca-Cola, with the national NAACP receiving at least $2.1 million from the soda giant since 1986, including $100,000 as recently as December. The Hispanic Federation also lists Coke as a donor, and in February 2012 its president, Lillian Rodriguez Lopez, left the nonprofit group to become director of Latin affairs at the company,” Nutrition Insight wrote.

CSPI’s report noted that Coca-Cola gave the American Academy of Family Physicians a $600,000 grant in 2009 for a new website, and gave a $1 million grant in 2003 to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, which was “seemingly enough to get the president of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry to suddenly hedge the group’s position on the extent to which soda causes cavities,” Nutrition Insight reported.

“Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, the American Beverage Association, and Kraft Foods, maker of such sugar drinks as Kool Aid and Capri Sun, are also big donors to two major anti-hunger groups, the Food Research and Action Center and Feeding America,” The report was updated.

“The conversations inside these rooms was depressingly transactional: ‘We (Coke) will give you money. You need to paint opponents of us as racist.’ The effort was successful, and the message was carried in thousands of articles between 2011-2013,” Means continued.

“Coke’s position was clear: soda is one of the cheapest ways to get calories – a flagrantly inaccurate statement when factoring in the health consequences.

“Despite the high obesity rates in the communities they serve, organizations with a long track record of funding from the beverage industry are still in great shape. fighting measures like New York City’s stalled soda ban,” Means added, noting a 2013 article in the New York Times.

“As the FDA funneled money into top universities and think tanks to fund studies that showed soda taxes were harmful to the poor, I was there. They also funded studies showing that drinking soda DOES NOT cause obesity.” Means claimed.

“These studies did not include the undisputed fact that sugary drinks are the leading cause of diabetes and obesity.
 

Means cited in a recent report CNNA new study published in Diabetes Care by the American Diabetes Association last month shows that type 2 diabetes among people younger than 20 years old could skyrocket to 675 percent by 2060, if current rents in the US are maintained.

“Soda companies are deeply embedded in the USDA – so much so that the agency carries discredited talking points like ‘there are no bad food, only bad diets.'”

“This ignores fact that sugar is highly addictive and has negative nutritional value,” Means continued.

“In the end: racial tensions flared, soda spending was kept in SNAP funding, and many of the soda taxes were defeated… Of course, this has been a disaster for low-income communities. Addictive, deadly sugary drinks should never be included in a government nutrition program. People saying that restricting soda from SNAP funding is ‘paternalistic’ or an ‘assault on personal choice’ are unwittingly doing the work of the soda companies.”

“You can’t have a free market if that market is rigged,” Concluded.

Means would then inform his followers that his account was under review and have his check suspended. “This is not the free speech ethos [Elon Musk], childhood obesity and diabetes is urgent issue. It is a simple question. Has Coca-Cola ever had a direct line to Twitter to suspend critics. Do they still?

The Post Millennial reached out to Coca-Cola in order for comments.