Watchdog sues CDC for records about its interactions with Coca-Cola Co.

U.S. Right to Know on Feb. 21 sued the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today over the CDC’s failure to provide documents in response to six freedom-of-information requests about its interactions with the Coca-Cola Co.

The records requests are part of an investigation USRTK is conducting into Coca-Cola’s influence at the CDC and the company’s impact on public policy.

Public health evidence suggests the consumption of sugary sodas is implicated in the obesity epidemic and may be responsible for tens of thousands of deaths per year. Yet, according to the consumer watchdog group, evidence gathered to date indicates CDC staff provided political guidance to Coca-Cola, allowed Coca-Cola to lobby the CDC and accepted contributions from Coca-Cola via the CDC Foundation, which has disclosed such contributions as recently as last year.

“We are suing the CDC to uncover the extent and nature of the CDC’s relationship with Coca-Cola,” said Gary Ruskin, co-director of U.S. Right to Know, in a news release. “Just as it is wrong for the CDC to assist tobacco companies, it is also wrong for CDC to assist obesogenic companies like Coca-Cola.”

Since 2016, USRTK has filed 19 FOIA requests with the CDC.

With the documents received via FOIA from CDC and other sources, the organization helped expose former CDC director Brenda Fitzgerald’s collegial relationship with Coca-Cola, as well as the company’s former VP and chief science and health officer, Rhona Applebaum, in The New York Times and The Intercept.

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The group also revealed that Barbara Bowman was serving as director of CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention when she advised a former Coca-Cola senior vice president on how to stop the World Health Organization from cracking down on added sugar.

Bowman quit the CDC two days after her advice to the former Coca-Cola executive was revealed.

In December, USRTK filed six FOIA requests with the CDC regarding its relationship to Coca-Cola. The CDC acknowledged receipt of the FOIA requests four days later but has not provided any other response. The law states that federal agencies must respond within 20 business days.

According to the Coca-Cola transparency database, Coca-Cola contributed $1.1 million to the CDC Foundation during 2010-12. Coca-Cola has not disclosed contributions to the CDC Foundation after 2012.

Meanwhile, the CDC Foundation discloses such contributions, but not the amounts, in the years 2017, 2016, and 2015.

Both the CDC and Coca-Cola are based in Atlanta.

The USRTK lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The case is U.S. Right to Know v. Department of Health and Human Services.