The Fast Food Lawsuits

The plan is to put up a phony pretense of fighting the lawsuits, and then in the end just roll over and settle for vast sums of money, just like Philip Morris did in the state lawsuits against the tobacco industry. The biggest target of the fast food lawsuits, the McDonald's Corporation, is controlled by a closely-knit little clique with ties to the Lasker Foundation, the crooked lobby that has controlled the health establishment for six decades. McDonald's plays the role of Judas goats who lead the others to slaughter.

The Trans Fats Scam

The food fascists lie that "There were suggestions in the scientific literature as early as 1988 that trans fats could be a cause of the large increase in coronary artery disease. In 1994, it was estimated that trans fats caused 30,000 deaths annually in the US from heart disease." Except that there hasn't been any such increase - in fact exactly the opposite has occurred - and the health establsihment knows it! They claim that "the FDA estimates that by 2009, trans fat labeling [which became mandatory on Jan. 1, 2008) will have prevented from 600 to 1,200 cases of coronary heart disease and 250 to 500 deaths each year. This benefit is expected to result from consumers choosing alternative foods lower in trans fats as well as manufacturers reducing the amount of trans fats in their products." (Trans fat. Wikipedia, accessed 2/17/09.) Considering that in 2005, there were 445,687 deaths from all forms of ischemic heart disease in the United States; and that from 1999 to 2005, the number of deaths fell by an average of 14,162 per year, this supposed boon to pulic health is undiscernably tiny. (CDC WONDER On-line Database, compiled from Compressed Mortality File 1999-2005 Series 20 No. 2K, 2008.)

The truth: Heart disease death rates from 1900 to1996 have fallen steadily since 1961 to levels below those of the year 1900; average serum cholesterol has been declining since 1960, which was before widespread dietary changes; while the prevalence of overweight has steadily increased. (In: Spanish flu and early 20th-century expansion of a coronary heart disease-prone subpopulation. MI Azambuja. Tex Heart Inst J 2004;31(1):14-21, Fig. 1.) The health fascist parasites and their media lackeys have manufactured a health hysteria out of pure wholecloth! Also note that trans fats were first widely introduced by food manufacturers during the 1960s, in compliant response to health fascist agitation against saturated fats.

Note that Azambuja's hypothesis is that H1N1 subtype influenza caused the rise in heart disease after 1918. (Spanish flu and early 20th-century expansion of a coronary heart disease-prone subpopulation. MI Azambuja. Tex Heart Inst J 2004;31(1):14-21.) It will be interesting to see whether the outbreak of 2009 has such an effect.

Where's the Evidence?

The charlatans at FDA proclaimed that "Scientific evidence shows that consumption of saturated fat, trans fat, and dietary cholesterol raises low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad cholesterol," levels, which increases the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD)." So where is it? Meaning, the EVIDENCE. They went on to declare that "According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, more than 12.5 million Americans have CHD, and more than 500,000 die each year. That makes CHD one of the leading causes of death in the United States." So what! This doesn't establish that trans fats have any role whatsoever in it. Obviously, they think we're stupid people who are awed by grandiose declarations. They also expect people to be impressed merely because some fool bureaucrat has imposed a labelling requirement on manufacturers, and to rush off like good little simpletons and change their lives on command. (Revealing Trans Fats. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, accessed May 22, 2009.)

As for FDA's claims about the health effects of dietary fat, the Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial was the largest long-term randomized trial of a dietary intervention ever conducted. There were 19,541 women in the intervention group and 29,294 in the comparison group. At 6 years, there was an 8.2% reduction in total fat intake and a mean daily increase of 1.1 servings of vegetables and fruits and 0.5 serving of grains. But there were no significant effects on incidence of CHD or stroke during 8.1 years of follow-up. "Analysis of subcomponents of CVD, including MI, coronary interventions, and stroke separately showed no beneficial or adverse effects of the dietary changes." And, there was 30% less major coronary heart disease than projected among the comparison group (an effect which has been observed in every prospective study since the 1960s, which makes it absolutely clear - again - that investigators have been obsessing over trifles while ignoring events of genuine importance). (Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of cardiovascular disease: the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial. BV Howard et al. JAMA 2006 Feb 8;295(6):655-666.)

"Bantransfats.com brought its lawsuit against McDonald's because the food chain failed to live up to a promise it made in September 2002 to customers that it would reduce its use of trans fats. Plaintiffs claimed in the lawsuits that McDonald's did not take sufficient steps to inform the public that it had not changed the oil. The settlements require McDonald's to give effective notice to the public that the oil was not changed. In addition, McDonald's will donate $7 million to the American Heart Association to be used for public education regarding trans fat and encouraging substitutions. McDonald's is also required to spend up to $1.5 million on publishing notices to ensure that the public knows the status of its trans fat initiative. If the cost of publishing the notices is less than $1.5 million, the difference will be donated to the American Heart Association. McDonald's will pay $7,500 to bantransfats.com, and $7,500 to plaintiff Katherine Fettke which she said she is donating to charity. McDonald's will pay legal fees, costs and expenses to plaintiffs' counsel, in an amount to be determined by the court, which will be separate from and in addition to the $7 million donation to the American Heart Association and the $1.5 million to notify McDonald's customers about the delay." (McDonald's Settles Fat Lawsuit for $8.5 Million. Insurance Journal, Feb. 15, 2005.) So, there were no claims involved in this lawsuit; it was merely a nitpick over labeling. But the American Heart Association pocketed millions of dollars from it!

Other corporations limply kowtow to the health fascists and remove trans fats from their products, including Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Wendy's International Inc., Starbucks Corp., and Burger King Holdings Inc. "The announcements come amid a national push to rid diets of trans fat. New York City and Philadelphia have required restaurants to phase out trans fat by next year, and bills to restrict or ban trans fat in restaurants or school cafeterias have been introduced in a number of states. Doctors say trans fat listed on food labels as partially hydrogenated vegetable oil can raise bad cholesterol and lower healthy cholesterol." And it's all a big stinking lie! (KFC to Announce That All 5,500 of Its U.S. Restaurants Will Stop Frying Chicken in Trans Fat. By Bruce Schreiner. AP News, Apr. 30, 2007.)

MY PREDICTION HAS COME EXACTLY TRUE! McDonald's Corporation flopped on their bellies and shoveled $8.5 million into the pockets of the scientific fraud-perpetuating American Heart Association, without so much as a squeak of protest against the Heart Association's 30-year suppression of research on the role of infection in heart disease, and their deliberate use of confounding to falsely blame lifestyle.

The hallmark of an impending consumer ripoff is a health fascist occupation directorate (e.g., directors from those gigantic, historically paternalistic corporations, which meddle in their employees' lives, and spout PC bilge about "corporate responsibility." They are true believers in fraudulent lifestyle questionnaire studies, whose object is to throw lawsuits to benefit the health fascists, just like the tobacco industry did.

The Obesity Scam

Health fascists rant that increasing rates of obesity since the 1960s, especially among young people, will cause an "epidemic" of heart disease. But, after more than 30 years, there is no indication in the death rates from acute myocardial infarction that such an "epidemic" is even beginning to occur. Since 1979, the death rates from AMI have steadily declined among all ages. (CDC WONDER On-line Database, compiled from Compressed Mortality File 1999-2005 Series 20 No. 2K, 2008.)

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Straight talk about high-fructose corn syrup: what it is and what it ain't. JS White. Am J Clin Nutr 2008 Dec;88(6):1716S-1721S. "High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a fructose-glucose liquid sweetener alternative to sucrose (common table sugar) first introduced to the food and beverage industry in the 1970s. It is not meaningfully different in composition or metabolism from other fructose-glucose sweeteners like sucrose, honey, and fruit juice concentrates."

A critical examination of the evidence relating high fructose corn syrup and weight gain. RA Forshee, ML Storey, DB Allison, WH Glinsmann, GL Hein, DR Lineback, SA Miller, TA Nicklas, GA Weaver, JS White. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 2007;47(6):561-582. "The fructose:glucose (F:G) ratio in the U.S. food supply has not appreciably changed since the introduction of HFCS in the 1960s.... Based on the currently available evidence, the expert panel concluded that HFCS does not appear to contribute to overweight and obesity any differently than do other energy sources."

Diabetes "Prevention"

Ten-year mortality and cardiovascular morbidity in the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study--secondary analysis of the randomized trial. M Uusitupa, M Peltonen, J Lindström, S Aunola, P Ilanne-Parikka, S Keinänen-Kiukaanniemi, TT Valle, JG Eriksson, J Tuomilehto; Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study Group. PLoS ONE 2009 May 21;4(5):e5656. "Middle-aged, overweight people with IGT (n = 522) were randomized into intensive intervention (including physical activity, weight reduction and dietary counseling), or control "mini-intervention" group. Median length of the intervention period was 4 years and the mean follow-up was 10.6 years. The population-based reference study cohort included 1881 individuals (1570 with normal glucose tolerance, 183 with IGT, 59 with screen-detected type 2 diabetes, 69 with previously known type 2 diabetes) with the mean follow-up of 13.8 years.... Among the DPS participants who consented for register linkage (n = 505), total mortality (2.2 vs. 3.8 per 1000 person years, hazard ratio HR = 0.57, 95% CI 0.21-1.58) and cardiovascular morbidity (22.9 vs. 22.0 per 1000 person years, HR = 1.04, 95% CI 0.72-1.51) did not differ significantly between the intervention and control groups. Compared with the population-based cohort with impaired glucose tolerance, adjusted HRs were 0.21 (95% CI 0.09-0.52) and 0.39 (95% CI 0.20-0.79) for total mortality, and 0.89 (95% CI 0.62-1.27) and 0.87 (0.60-1.27) for cardiovascular morbidity in the intervention and control groups of the DPS, respectively. The risk of death in DPS combined cohort was markedly lower than in FINRISK IGT cohort (adjusted HR 0.30, 95% CI 0.17-0.54), but there was no significant difference in the risk of CVD (adjusted HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.64-1.21)." They also note that "Low total mortality among participants of the DPS compared with individuals with IGT in the general population could be ascribed to a lower cardiovascular risk profile at baseline and regular follow-up."

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Funds the Assault

Legal themes concerning obesity regulation in the United States: Theory and practice. JG Hodge Jr, AM Garcia, S Shah. Aust New Zealand Health Policy 2008 Jun 25;5:14. "This article analyzes the theoretical and practical roles of law as a tool to curb obesity in the U.S. It proffers ten major legal themes to address obesity among the U.S. population, including: (1) use of incentives to encourage healthier behaviors; (2) use of financial disincentives to discourage unhealthy behaviors; (3) requirements to improve food quality, diversity, or availability; (4) compensation for injured persons seeking recourse; (5) restriction of access to unhealthy foods; (6) regulations aimed at influencing consumer choices; (7) control of marketing and advertising; (8) creation of communities that support healthy lifestyles; (9) physical education/fitness requirements; and (10) insurance coverage mandates."

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant No. 65314: Expanding the ability of practitioners and scholars to assess law as a tool to improve public health. $268,323, Dec 1, 2008-Feb 28, 2010, to Research Foundation of the City University of New York, James G. Hodge, J.D., L.L.M. (Project Director)

The Stampede to "Healthy" [sic] Foods

After the takeover of RJR Nabisco by KKR, when Charles M. Harper was named chairman and CEO, it became Nabisco's policy to nurture and pander to the forces of health fascism. Harper was touted for starting the "Healthy Foods" line while he was chairman of ConAgra, "which spawned at least a dozen other lines named 'healthy.'" (Tobacco Manufacturers Association. Tobacco Weekly, May 27, 1993.)

McDonald's Corporation

H. Ladd Plumley of State Mutual Life Insurance was the original financier of McDonald's in the 1950s and 1960s. Plumley was a descendant of relatives of the notorious 19th century anti-smoker, the Rev George Trask. Plumley was also a business crony of Lewis B. Cullman, of the family that controlled Philip Morris.

"Coca-Cola's largest customer is McDonald's Corp. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal has been the hamburger chain's lead law firm for decades. DDB Needham Worldwide Inc. and Leo Burnett Co. are two of its longtime ad agencies. And Dean Foods Co. supplies the Arches with pickles.

"What else do these firms have in common? Each has an executive, retired executive, or director on the McDonald's board. In fact, by current standards of corporate governance, only 4 of McDonald's 15 directors can be called independent--meaning they don't work for the company, do outside business with it, or have a McDonald's exec sitting on their own board.

"'NOT EVEN CLOSE.' That's not all: Cross-directorships, in which directors serve on each other's boards, are common, too. Gordon C. Gray, for example, chairman of a Canadian mining company and an independent director, also sits on the board of a subsidiary of Stone Container Corp., a McDonald's packaging supplier whose CEO, Roger W. Stone, is a fellow McDonald's director.

"Thanks to pressures from shareholders and regulators, Corporate America over the past decade has raised the quality of its boards and increased its directors' accountability. But that trend has passed McDonald's by. 'They are not even close to keeping up with corporate-governance standards that most other companies their size meet,' says Anne Hanson, deputy director of the Council of Institutional Investors in Washington. Adds Warren Bennis, a University of Southern California professor who studies leadership: 'For a company that size, it's stunning.'" (They don't bite the hand that feeds them. By David Leonhardt, BusinessWeek March 9, 1998.)

Walter E. Massey, a McDonald's director since 1998, was a trustee of the RAND Corporation during the time it produced its Manning smoking cost study.

In 2002, some directors have been replaced by others, but the board is still as closely knit as in 1998. Brennan and Greenberg are also directors of Allstate; McKenna and Turner are also directors of Aon; Adams, Brennan and Cantalupo are also directors of Sears; and Hernandez, McKenna and Turner are also directors of The Tribune Co.

The Illinois Interlock

More significantly, these firms are all part of a group whose directors are mainly drawn from within that group. This group includes Allstate; Aon; Baxter International; William Blair & Co.; Cummins Engine Company; Emerson; GE; WW Grainger; Household International; Illinois Tool Works; Inland Steel (now merged with Ryerson Tull); McDonald's; Molex; Morton International (now part of Rohm & Haas); Motorola; Pepsico and Quaker Oats (which merged in 2001); Sara Lee; Sears; Stone Container (now Smurfit Stone); and the Tribune Co. Also present on various boards may be representatives of William Blair & Co.; the Bank of Montreal or its Illinois subsidiary, Harris Bank; and Northern Trust. Other common interests include the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Rush Medical College. And this group has ties to the Lasker Foundation through Mrs. William McCormick Blair Jr., who is its Vice President; and Hugo F. Sonnenschein, the former president of the University of Chicago, who is a member of the Lasker Foundation's Funding First "Leadership Team." He is an economist, but probably has family connections to the law firm of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, which counts most members of the group among its clients.

Sonnenshein, Nath, and Rosenthal

In 1931, the firm was called Sonnenschein Berkson Lautman Levinson & Morse. It was counsel to the the Allstate Insurance Company when it was established in 1932, and Hugo Sonnenshein was on its board of directors. Partner Donald Lubin became a director of McDonald's in 1966. They also did business for Allstate, Travelers and Prudential in the 1980s, and handled Allstate's $2.4 billion IPO in 1993. (Commemorating 100 years of Partnering for Progress 2006-2007. Sonnenshein Nath & Rosenthal.)

James Wiehl, formerly of Sonnenshein, Nath and Rosenthal and now with Fulbright & Jaworski, is Secretary/Treasurer and a member of the Executive Committee of The Health Project at Stanford University, of which former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is Honorary Chairman. Bruse Fried of Sonnenshein, Nath and Rosenthal was once a director.

The involvement of John Banzhaf of ASH

Anti-smoker lawyer John Banzhaf gloats about making McDonalds into the new Philip Morris. But the similarities involve more than this slimy reptile of a lawyer lets on - NAMELY, IT IS INTENDED TO BE A DELIBERATE SELLOUT BY CORPORATE CONSPIRATORS ON BOARDS OF DIRECTORS, to loot the public and non-inside stockholders, and promote their agenda of health fascist tyranny, with their parasitical bureaucrats manipulating every detail of the peoples' lives.

Banzhaf's celebrated "Fairness Doctrine" ruling which compelled the networks to air anti-smoking hate propaganda was set up by stacking the Federal Communications, by Newton Minow and cronies with ties to the Ford Foundation.

Burger King

"US Investors Agree to Buy Burger King From Diageo for $2.26 Billion." By Sherri Day. The New York Times, July 26, 2002. Burger King was sold to Pillsbury in 1967; Pillsbury was acquired by Grand Metropolitan in 1987; and in 1997 Grand Metropolitan and Guinness merged to form Diageo. Now Burger King has just been sold to a group of investors called Texas Pacific, plus Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital.

James McLamore, founder of the Burger King Corp., was one of the five Miami investors who joined Joe Robbie in purchasing the Miami Dolphins. (Red Peppers. By Gus Schrader. Cedar Rapids Gazette, Jun. 1, 1969.)

PepsiCo

The health fascist occupation directorate: John F. Akers, former chairman and CEO of IBM; Robert E. Allen, former chairman and CEO of AT&T, who is also a director of Bristol-Myers Squibb; Sharon Percy Rockefeller and former Ford Foundation President Franklin A. Thomas are longtime directors. They have been joined by directors from other big, paternalistic health fascist-controlled corporations, including: Dina Dublon, former Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of JP Morgan Chase & Co. 1998-2004; Arthur C. Martinez, former Chairman, President and CEO of Sears, Roebuck and Co. Cynthia M. Trudell, an alumnus of Ford and General Motors; Daniel Vasella, Chairman and CEO of Novartis and former CEO of Sandoz. Also, Victor J. Dzau, chancellor for health affairs at Duke University and President and CEO of the Duke University Health System since July 2004, formerly Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston Massachusetts from 1996 to 2004; Ray L. Hunt, CEO of Hunt Oil Inc. and Chairman of Hunt Consolidated; and Steven S. Reinemund, Chairman & CEO of PepsiCo, is a director of the militantly health fascist Johnson & Johnson.

PepsiCo also has a so-called "Health and Wellness Advisory Board," consisting of corrupt health fascist scum, including Gro Harlem Brundtland, M.D., Former Director-General of the World Health Organization; Bush crony Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D., M.P.H.; David Heber, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Medicine & Public Health, Director, UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, a "magic foods" quack; diet & exercise quack James O. Hill, Ph.D., Professor of Pediatrics & Medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center; corrupt former FDA Commissioner James A. Kessler, true believer of the "nicotine addiction" smear; famous heart quack Dean Ornish; media celebrity doctor Pamela Peeke, M.D., MPH; lie-spewing pediatrician William Sears, M.D.; and Fernando M. Treviño, Ph.D., M.P.H., Past President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations.

Smokefree Restaurants (Proxy Item No. 5) by the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, Mount St. Dominic, Caldwell, New Jersey, who own 3,500 shares of PepsiCo Capital Stock. Response includes: "PepsiCo's corporate headquarters is smoke-free and all of Pepsi's divisions ban smoking in their headquarters."

Sharon Percy Rockefeller

She has been a trustee, director, president and CEO of WETA, the public radio and TV station in Washington DC, since 1989. She is the daughter of former Sen. Charles Percy of Illinois, and the wife of West Virginia Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV. "He is now a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, with jurisdiction over Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care policies. He currently serves as ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health Care. He is also ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, responsible for oversight of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which operates the largest health care system in the country.... For more than two decades, Rockefeller has been the Senate's strongest advocate for comprehensive health care reform, an effort he began in the late 1980s when he served as Chairman of the Pepper Commission (the Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care)...." (Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV bio. Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute.) His nephew, Theo Spencer, is a director of the Trust For America's Health, which was founded by his sister.

Sharon Percy Rockefeller was a director of Save the Children in 1989. Peter G. Bourne, former Special Assistant for Health Affairs to President Carter, was vice chairman, and Marjorie C. Benton was honorary chairman. Other directors included Mary E. King (Bourne's wife), Marian Javits (wife of the late Sen. Jacob Javits), Joshua Lederberg, Robert Rodale, and Jonas Salk. (Group Watch.)

The health fascist media lie in our faces: Pepsico Inc. owns 43.4% of PepsiAmericas. When the Dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School, Deborah Powell, joined its board of directors, the lying media falsely framed it as an issue of Pepsi-Cola supposedly corrupting science to protect its profits, instead of the TRUTH - that THE HEALTH FASCIST PARASITES TOOK OVER THE BOARD OF PEPSI-COLA, IN ORDER TO LOOT THE COMPANY FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT, UNDER HEALTH PRETEXTS BASED ON JUNK SCIENCE, JUST LIKE THEIR FELLOW LEECHES DID TO THE TOBACCO COMPANIES. "The dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School is defending her decision to join the corporate board of PepsiAmericas, even though doctors and public health officials increasingly name Pepsi and other sugary drinks as a major factor in rampant childhood obesity and tooth decay." Simpered Powell: "I really thought about that a lot," Powell told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "I thought it was an opportunity for me as a health professional to have my voice heard by the leadership of a major beverage distributor with a global reach." What a bunch of folderol! The health fascists toally control its directorate, as well as the entire mass media who spout this drivel at us, and nobody else has any opportunity to utter so much as a squeak of opposition to them! "The selection last week of Powell, one of Minnesota's key medical leaders, comes as doctors, dentists and health researchers increasingly link the marketing and heavy drinking of soft drinks to a series of adolescent health problems including obesity and poor dental hygiene." No, this is the bloodsucking Lasker Lobby propaganda machine gearing up for another giant loot-a-thon of consumers! "While PepsiAmericas is expanding its product base to include more bottled water and healthier drinks, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew remain its most important brands, accounting for $3 billion in U.S. sales. That could put Powell in a delicate position, on the board of a company whose success rests on products often reviled by her medical peers." Oh, what a "delicate position," surrounded by fellow health fascist conspirators, who can't wait to flop on their bellies and hemorrhage the company's money! "But Powell believes she can bridge the two worlds." Oh, what a heroine! "Powell said she wouldn't serve on the board of a tobacco company." Oh, what a paragon of virtue, when it's her slimy ilk who've lied in the public's faces and committed all the scientific fraud! "PepsiAmericas Chief Executive Robert Pohlad serves on the dean's board of visitors for the University of Minnesota Medical School." Because he's a health fascist, too. (U Med Dean Questioned Over Service On Pepsi Board. (AP) WCCO - Minneapolis News, Dec 25, 2006.) [In fact, particular pathogenic strains of bacteria are the cause of tooth decay, and the health fascist establishment has for decades neglected the potential benefits of antibiotics in favor of rants about tooth brushing.]

The Coca Cola Company

The Coca Cola Company's ties to health fascist activism go back to Eugene W. Stetson of the Guaranty Trust. "Gene Stetson was a key original participant in a group formed by Ernest Woodruff in 1919 to purchase the Coca-Cola Company from the Asa Candler family. He initially negotiated the purchase on behalf of the Woodruff group, and after the purchase became one of three trustees of a trust which retained voting control of the company. He was instrumental in keeping the New York banks with loans to the company calm during several difficult years after the purchase. (About Eugene W. Stetson. Stetson School of Business and Economics, Mercer University.) The company's outstanding capital consisted of 500,000 shares of common stock of no par value, all of which was held by the Guaranty Trust Company under a five-year voting trust which began in 1919. (Coca-Cola Company Postpones Dividend. New York Times, Oct. 25, 1920.)

Stetson was a member of the advisory committee of the New York City Cancer Committee campaign in 1946, and James S. Adams, a member of the Lasker ASCC takeover group, directed solicitation by the commerce and industry committee. The general campaign chairman was Gen. John Reed Kilpatrick. Other members of the advisory committee were Sidney J. Weinberg, president of Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Maj. Gen. William J. Donovan, of the law firm Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Lumbard; and Stanton Griffis, chairman of the executive committee of Paramount Pictures. (Named to Head Division in Cancer Fund Campaign. New York Times, Mar. 11, 1946.) Stetson was also president of the Council for Heart Diseases in 1946, in which Guaranty Trust vice president Alfred C. Howell and director Charles Proctor Cooper were also involved.

James A. Farley, chairman of the Coca-Cola Export Corp. and former Democratic National Committee chairman, was a member of the expanded board of the New York Heart Association. Howard S. Cullman was also a member. (Heart Board Enlarged. New York Times, Feb. 6, 1951.) Farley was also a member of President Eisenhower's Arden House advisors.

Arthur L. Montgomery: "ARTHUR L. MONTGOMERY*l Atlanta, Ga.; Director-at-Large (1958- ). Board Chairman and President, The Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Co. ACS Georgia Division: Past Board Chairman. Member, Executive, Finance Committees; Past President, Fulton Co. Unit; Recipient, ACS Annual National-Divisional Award (1958). Vice Pres., Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Trustee, Treas., Univ. of Ga. Foundation; Atlanta Art Assn.; Westminster Sch.; Atlanta Sym. Dir.: Atlanta Traffic and Safety Council; Trust Co. of Ga.; Life Ins. Co. of Ga.; Carl Fisher Corp. Chairman. Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation (Stadium) Authority." (1966 House of Delegates and Board of Directors. American Cancer Society Inc.)

"In 1959, the Board established the Committee on Tobacco and Cancer to succeed the Ad Hoc Committee which had guided the Board since 1957. Dr. Taylor was named chairman, a position he held until the fall of 1963. The Committee was composed of distinguished physicians and laymen, including: James M. Brittain, Director of the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Co.; Dr. Frank W. Foote, Jr., of Memorial Hospital, New York City; Dr. [John R.] Heller; Dr. Leonard W. Larson, Bismark, N.D., pathologist and former president of the American Medical Association; Mr. [William B.] Lewis; Arthur L. Montgomery, President of the Atlanta, Ga., Coca-Cola Bottling Co., and Allied Plants; James T. Mountz, Boston, Mass., attorney; Dr. Ochsner; Dr. I. S. Ravdin of the University of Pennsylvania and in 1963 President of the American Cancer Society; Victor A. Scholis, Louisville, Ky., Vice President and Director of Stations WHAS and WHAS-TV; Dr. Wendell M. Stanley, Director of the Virus Laboratory, University of California, and 1946 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry; Dr. Stebbins; Waldo I. Stoddard, Grand Rapids, Mich., banker; and Dr. Ashbel C. Williams, Jacksonville, Fla. surgeon." (The Position of the American Cancer Society Regarding Tobacco and Lung Cancer. To the City Editor [form letter]. American Cancer Society News Service, Jan. 7, 1964.)

Robert W. Woodruff and the Woodruff Foundation

Robert Winship Woodruff (1889-1985) was the son of Ernest Woodruff, the president of the Trust Company of Georgia. (Robert Winship Woodruff bio. The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation.) "Robert's Sunday school teacher was Asa Griggs Candler, a wholesale druggist who had recently acquired Coca-Cola, which had been devised by John S. Pemberton, a patent-medicine blender in 1886." His father, Ernest W. Woodruff, ordered him to attend Emory College, which he dropped out of after about a year in 1909. His father hired him at the Atlantic Ice Coal Co., then fired him after he bought a fleet of White trucks for the company. The White Motor Company then hired him, and he became its vice president and general manager. Asa Candler's interests sold the Coca-Cola Company to a group of investors which included Ernest Woodruff in 1919, and Robert W. Woodruff was brought in as president in 1923. "At one time or another he was on the boards of the Trust Company of Georgia; the Empire Cotton Oil Company; the White Motor Corporation, of which he was also president; the Erie Railroad; the First National Bank of Atlanta; the Atlantic Steel Company; the Union Trust Company of Cleveland; the Wabash Railroad; the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York; the Southern Railway Company; the General Electric Company; the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company; the American Express Company; the Guaranty Investment Company; the Whitehead Holding Company; and the Piedmont Securities Company." (Robert Woodruff Dies; Built Coca-Cola Empire. (AP) New York Times, Mar. 8, 1985.) Robert W. Woodruff was one of President Eisenhower's close golf buddies. (Inner Circles of the White House. By Sidney Hyman. New York Times, Jan. 5, 1958.) He was a director of the Guaranty Trust from 1946 until after the merger with J.P. Morgan & Co. in 1960.

In 1979, Robert W. Woodruff and his brother, George W. Woodruff, gave Emory University $105 million from the Ernest and Emily Woodruff Fund, which at that time the largest single donation to an educational institution in US history. The Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center is named for him. (Robert Winshop Woodruff Bio. The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation.) "The university's ability to stay competitive has been aided largely by Robert W. Woodruff, the retired chairman of Coca-Cola, whose $100 million donation brought to $210 million the amount he has given the university in the last 45 years. Emory is one of the top 100 recipients of Federal research funds and its medical center, which accounts for more than half the university's $175 million budget, is the best known part of the institution. The Yerkes Center, a pioneer in learning experiments with primates, is a division of the center, and the United States Public Health Service's Center for Disease Control is an affiliate, housed on the edge of the campus." (Emory U. Seeks New Stature on a Gift and a Dream. By Gene I. Maeroff. New York Times, Nov. 18, 1979.) Woodruff was a director of the Guaranty Trust from 1946 until after the merger with J.P. Morgan & Co. in 1960. Woodruff was a director of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company from 1951 to 1965. Fellow directors who also resigned that year included Harry C. Hagerty and Jeremiah Milbank of Milbank & Co., a director since 1927. New directors included Albert L. Nickerson, Chairman of Socony Mobil Oil. (Five Directors Are Named to the Board of Metropolitan Life Insurance. New York Times, Apr. 16, 1965.)

"The American Cancer Society, based in Manhattan since its birth in 1913, made a final decision yesterday to move its headquarters to Atlanta.... Plans now call for a new headquarters on land near Emory's medical school and the Federal Centers for Disease Control, Ms. Schellenbach said. G. Robert Gadberry, executive vice president of the Cancer Society, said current plans provided for construction of a headquarters building at the site, bought with a $2.5 million gift from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation. He said the construction cost was estimated at $12 million, to be raised by the society through long-term financing. The foundation also gave $1 million to help defray the costs of the move from New York." (The Cancer Society Is Moving From Manhattan to Atlanta. By Wolfgang Saxon. New York Times, Sep. 2, 1987.)

In the 1980s, the Coca Cola Pension Fund was invested with Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts (KKR), which took over R.J. Reynolds in a conspiracy to throw the fight against the state lawsuits against the tobacco industry, and help the anti-smokers loot and plunder smokers.

The CDC Foundation - created to circumvent Congressional funding and oversight: "The National Foundation for CDC began in February when C. Charles Stokes was hired as its executive director. The foundation has received a $1 million gift from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation and a $500,000 grant from the CDC." T. Marshall Hahn, retired CEO of Georgia-Pacific Corp., was chairman of the foundation's board. (New foundation to support CDC on many fronts. By Maria Saporta. Atlanta Constitution, Jun. 28, 1995.)"Created by Congress, the CDC Foundation is a private, not-for-profit corporation dedicated to helping the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) achieve its vision of "Healthy People in a Healthy World, Through Prevention". (Who We Are, CDC Foundation 1997.) Rogers was on the Board of Directors of the CDC Foundation from at least 2000. (CDC Foundation 2001 Annual Report.) "When the American Legacy Foundation was established in 1998, it identified as one of its key goals 'to reduce youth tobacco use.' Before Legacy could design media campaigns and education programs targeting youths, however, the new organization had to gather information about teen smoking habits. But it was faced with a dilemma: no comprehensive youth tobacco surveillance system existed to collect these important data. Determined not to let this become a setback, the Legacy Foundation began talking with CDC to see if the groups could work together to quickly complete a school based survey. Researchers at CDC were also interested in data on youth smoking and tobacco knowledge but could not gather this information easily because the agency had no appropriated funding for a national survey. Looking for potential solutions, the groups approached the CDC Foundation for help. Because of the Foundation’s unique independent, non-profit status, it was able to serve as the coordinator of the project, working with government scientists to provide technical support and hiring an outside contractor, Macro International, Inc., to conduct the survey. The Legacy Foundation provided the funding. With the CDC Foundation’s swift implementation of the project, The National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) was completed within several months, and data were collected, analyzed and reported by the end of the year - in time for Legacy to launch its planned media campaign in early 2000." (CDC Foundation Helps Get the Word Out About Tobacco. CDC Foundation 2000 Annual Report.) "The National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) was conducted September-October 1999 by the American Legacy Foundation in collaboration with the CDC Foundation and with technical assistance from the CDC.... Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Programs States can use the NYTS and their YTS data to develop, monitor, and evaluate the elements of their comprehensive tobacco control programs as defined in the CDC`s Best Practices For Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs. Best Practices provides states with recommended strategies and funding levels for effective programs to prevent and reduce tobacco use, eliminate the public`s exposure to secondhand smoke, and identify and eliminate disparities related to tobacco use and its effects among different population groups." (CDC: Facts About -- Youth Tobacco Surveillance United States, 1998- 1999 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS). M2 Presswire, Oct. 13, 2000.)

Emory University's ties to Coca Cola go way back: its president in 1888, Warren Akin Candler, was the brother of Asa Candler, the president of Coca-Cola. It was founded by the Methodist Church in 1836. (Emory University. New Georgia Encyclopedia.)

The Coca Cola Company is controlled by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, with over 8% of the stock. Warren Buffett's network of friends includes Philip Morris director and former head of Citibank John S. Reed; Katharine Graham, the late chairman of the Washington Post and her son; James Burke, the former chairman of Johnson & Johnson; and Laurence Tisch of CBS.A bank holding company, SunTrust Banks, controls another 4.25%.

Warren Buffett's ties to health fascism: Buffett has been deeply involved since at least the early 1980s in the Wellness Councils of America, purveyors of health fascism in the workplace. The 1994 DEF14A for Capital Cities/ABC notes that Buffett's 13.04% ownership was voted by either Daniel B. Burke, a former director of the politically correct Rohm & Haas Co., of which Mary Lasker's crony Gilbert Omenn and others associated with the Paul Hoffman/Ford Foundation cabal are directors; or by Thomas S. Murphy, director of CC/ABC since 1957, and also a director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's funding source, the Johnson & Johnson Co., since 1980; and of IBM, which was involved very early in anti-smoking activism.

Janet Howard, Vice President of International Affairs of Coca-Cola, is a longtime friend of Frances Humphrey Howard, aunt of former Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III.

Yum! Brands Inc.

Yum! Brands operates A&W, KFC, Long John Silver's, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. It was formerly Triarc Companies Inc. It franchises over 3,400 restaurants under the Arby's name. Directors include David W. Dorman, former chairman of AT&T Corp.; Bonnie G. Hill, former President and Chief Executive Officer of the Times Mirror Foundation and Senior Vice President of the Los Angeles Times; Robert D. Walter, the founder of Cardinal Health, Inc.; and J. David Grissom.

J. David Grisssom was one of the original directors of Extendicare, now health insurance giant Humana Inc. (Display Ad. The Baytown Sun, Feb. 4, 1972.) He was a member of the Kentucky State Council on Higher Education (Education Council Universities Less Than Asked. Middlesboro Daily News, Oct. 20, 1977), and was Vice Chairman of PNC Financial Corp., Pittsburgh, and Chairman of the Citizens Fidelity Corporation of Louisville. He has been a director of Yum Brands (formerly Tricon Global Restaurants, fast food conglomerate which operated Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, and Long John Silver's) since 2002. (J. David Grissom. NNDB.) He is Chairman of Mayfair Capital, Inc., a private investment firm he founded in 1989.

Triarc directors included Raymond S. Troubh, a director of General American Investors, a director of ADT Limited, ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Becton, Dickinson & Co., Foundation Health Corp., and numerous others; Gerald Tsai, Jr, a trustee of Meditrust, Boston University and New York University Medical Center; and former New York Governor (1975-1983) Hugh L. Carey.

The Industry Bends Over and Grabs Its Ankles

The American Council for Fitness and Nutrition

See how the industry allows itself to be herded together like sheep, with Philip Morris/Altria's' Kraft Foods acting as Judas goat to lead them to the slaughter. Instead of challenging the scientific fraud that the health fascists use to falsely blame lifestyle for diseases that are really caused by infection, just as they do with smoking, the American Council for Fitness and Nutrition's sniveling letter to President Bush slobbers obseqiously, "We recognize the importance of healthy lifestyles and support comprehensive, sensible solutions, such as the four key elements of your plan. The science supports this approach, too. Over the last few years, numerous studies have been released confirming that being physically active, eating a nutritious diet and making healthy choices greatly improve strength and health." (Letter to President Bush from American Council for Fitness and
Nutrition, applauding launch of Healthier US Initiative, July 2, 2002.).

Kraft Foods dominates Grocery Manufacturers of America, one of the members of the Council. Also prominent are Unilever, the Kellogg Co., and Sara Lee Baking Group.

The nine directors of Kraft Foods include three retreads from Philip Morris (Geoffrey C. Bible, Louis C. Camilleri, and William H. Webb), who know all about selling out; two Kraft Foods executives (Roger K. Deromedi and Betsy D. Holden); and W. James Farrell of Illinois Tool Works, Sears and Allstate.

See how they turn to their worst enemies for "support." G. Kenneth Goodrick PhD, Family and Community Medicine, was invited to serve as a member of the Advisory Board of the American Council for Fitness and Nutrition" (Baylor Briefs, Nov. 8, 2002). Goodrick is a true-believing behavior manipulation technician. He is a co-author of the American Dietetic Association's position paper, "ADA Position: Weight Management," which cites the Sacred Lie of Health Fascism, the 1993 paper by J Michael McGinnis and William Foege (the so-called "Actual causes of death in the United States") in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 1993 Nov 10;270(18):2207-2212, as the source of its bogus health claims.

Doctinaire health fascist testimony to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, May 21, 2002, by Lisa Katic, Senior Food & Health Policy Advisor to the GMA: "Simply put, the science is too much in a flux to declare a final answer today. For instance, we have been told to monitor cholesterol to prevent coronary heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States. More recent studies have identified homocysteine, not cholesterol, as a culprit in producing arteriosclerosis. Scientists are also now divided on the role of saturated fats in causing coronary heart disease. That linkage, once thought ironclad, is now being reassessed. Retrospective epidemiological studies are now calling into question the practical benefits of avoiding saturated fats for an entire lifetime. What is clear is that the keys to a healthy lifestyle involve following the American Dietetic Association's (ADA) guidance on a well-proportioned, balanced diet and physical activity. Doing just one is not enough: we need to do both."

This is a bunch of bunk. The science is indeed in a flux, but not over grasping-at-straws issues like homocysteine. It is over the role of infection in heart disease, which the health fascist American Heart Association is attempting to evade by fixating on elevated C-reactive protein without addressing what causes it.

And, Sen. William Frist (R-TN), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Public Health, with jurisdiction and oversight over the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and other government agencies and programs, who with Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) is the sponsor of the so-called Improved Nutrition and Physical Activity Act, damned well ought to know that this is an issue: Back in 1993, he was the co-author of an article, "Cytomegalovirus disease after heart transplantation: is acyclovir prophylaxis indicated?" (CC Elkins, WH Frist, JS Dummer, JR Stewart, WH Merrill, KA Carden, HW Bender Jr. Ann Thorac Surg 1993 Dec;56(6):1267-1272). This kind of study is typical of early forays into the subject. Then, they pretended that CMV was only relevant in immunosuppressed transplant patients, but the literature about CMV no longer allows this evasion.

Nevertheless, at the nomination of Richard Carmona for Surgeon General on July 9, 2002, he lied that "Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in this country,..." and, "An estimated 300,000 deaths each year are linked to an individual's being overweight or obese."

Frist is a member of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's "Commission to Build a Healthier America," which it formally launched on Feb. 28, 2008 to lobby for its agenda in healthcare reform. The Commission includes other public and behind-the-scenes activists, including Sheila P. Burke, Dennis Rivera of SEIU, and others representing the Brookings Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ABC News and National Public Radio, and the U Mich-Henry Ford-RAND axis. (Commission Leadership. Commission to Build a Healthier America, accessed 1/30/10.)

See Also:

Acrylamide: Snack food manufacturers flop on their bellies and hand over the money

Settlement will reduce carcinogens in potato chips. AP, Aug. 1, 2008. "Four food manufacturers have agreed to reduce levels of a cancer-causing chemical in their potato chips and french fries in a settlement with the state of California. The California attorney general's office announced the deals Friday with Heinz, Frito-Lay, Kettle Foods and Lance Inc. The attorney general's office sued the manufacturers and several fast food companies in 2005 because their products contained high levels of acrylamide. The office says the companies agreed to lower the levels and pay a combined $3 million in fines."

But there's no evidence that acrylamide causes cancer in humans in the first place.

Acrylamide Intake through Diet and Human Cancer Risk. LA Mucci, KM Wilson. J Agric Food Chem 2008 Jul 15. [Epub ahead of print]. "More than one-third of the calories consumed by U.S. and European populations contain acrylamide, a substance classified as a "probable human carcinogen" based on laboratory data. Thus, it is a public health concern to evaluate whether intake of acrylamide at levels found in the food supply is an important cancer risk factor. Mean dietary intake of acrylamide in adults averages 0.5 microg/kg of body weight per day, whereas intake is higher among children. Several epidemiological studies examining the relationship between dietary intake of acrylamide and cancers of the colon, rectum, kidney, bladder, and breast have been undertaken. These studies found no association between intake of specific foods containing acrylamide and risk of these cancers. Moreover, there was no relationship between estimated acrylamide intake in the diet and cancer risk. Results of this research are compared with other epidemiological studies, and the findings are examined in the context of data from animal models. The importance of epidemiological studies to establish the public health risk associated with acrylamide in food is discussed, as are the limitations and future directions of such studies." This review is by authors from the Harvard School of Public Health, which invented food fascism in the first place. It was published on the web July 15, 2008, and hadn't yet appeared in print when the settlement was made. What kind of losers would surrender without a fight? Frito-Lay is owned by Pepsico, see above. Kettle Foods appears to be a privately held "healthy foods" outfit - hoisted by their own petard.

Heinz: William R. Johnson, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Heinz (2000-present); President and Chief Executive Officer of Heinz (1998-2000); also serves as a director of Emerson Electric Company; director Candace W. Kendle, who has served in a variety of positions at the University of North Carolina School of Pharmacy and School of Medicine, should know better than to honor junk science; director Lynn C. Swann, Chairman of President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports (2002-2005); football and sports broadcaster, ABC Sports (1976-2006) = complete idiot. They all have that Fortune 500 background which is a virtual guarantee of health fascist fanaticism.

Lance Foods: James W. Johnston, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 1989-1996, is an experienced Judas Goat; Isaiah Tidwell, is from the Wachovia Bank, which is RJR's bank; Jeffrey A. Atkins held various executive positions at Quaker Oats from 1977 to 1996; David V. Singer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lance, Inc. since 2005, was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated.

Sacred Cows of Health Fascism Wounded in 2008

"When it comes to LDLs and glycosylated hemoglobin, the philosophy of lower is better was dealt evidence-based blows this year with a series of surprising findings.... Take the potent lipid-lowering action of the combination of ezetimibe and simvastatin, marketed as Vytorin. It was reported in January that it brought levels down by 50% or more. But that, it turned out, did not slow or regress the progression of atherosclerosis. The disappointing bottom-line effect of the dramatic drops in lipids, as revealed in the ENHANCE trial, was supposed to come from findings that had been expected in March 2007 at the American College of Cardiology and then in November 2007 at the American Heart Association, but the data failed to materialize at either venue. By last January the rumor mill was abuzz, and the word was that that ENHANCE would provide proof that ezetimibe/simvastatin did not slow atherosclerosis as measured by plaque volume in the carotid arteries. And on Jan. 14 the naysayers were proven correct when Merck/Schering-Plough released the ENHANCE findings in a press release....

"The other shoe dropped in July when the SEAS investigators reported -- again at a press conference -- that the ezetimibe/simvastatin combination reversed aortic stenosis, but use of the drug appeared to be associated with an increase in cancer mortality. The cancer link, they said, appeared to be explained by the play of chance. But lipids aren't everything, and at the start of the year it still seemed logical to argue that if well controlled, low blood glucose levels were good. That being so, aggressive control with a glycosylated hemoglobin target of less than 6% would be even better. So it seemed. That presumption, it turned out, was not only wrong, but also dangerously so. On Feb. 6, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute shocked both diabetologists and cardiologists with the news that it was pulling the plug on intensive-glucose-lowering arm of the ACCORD (Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes) trial because that strategy was associated with excess mortality.... (Top Medical Stories of 2008 Challenged 'Lower Is Better' Mantra. By Peggy Peck, Executive Editor, MedPage Today. Dec. 23, 2008.)

cast 02-02-10