November, 02 2011, 01:06pm EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
John Stewart, 857-413-6261
Christine Chester, 617-695-2540
Latino Leaders and Communities Pledge to Turn the Tide on Pure Life
Activists challenge manipulative marketing of bottled water brand
BRONX, NEW YORK
On November 2nd, as the first Nestle Pure Life retail store prepares to celebrate its two-year anniversary, more than a dozen college campuses, and communities around the country are joining a national initiative led by Corporate Accountability International exposing Nestle's manipulative marketing of bottled water and calling on Nestle to stop its aggressive marketing in Latino communities. The Swiss transnational's Pure Life brand, marketed on its health benefits, is sourced from public water systems and sold back to consumers at hundreds of times the price.
The action is spurred by a recent study in the Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine that found that Latino and black parents were three times more likely to choose bottled water over the tap for their children, citing safety and health concerns as the primary reason.
This is no surprise given the fact that, for the past 30 years, bottled water corporations like Nestle, Pepsi and Coke have helped build a $15 billion U.S. bottled water market by casting doubts on public drinking water systems. But tens of thousands of individuals and communities galvanized by public education and action campaigns like Think Outside the Bottle are turning the tide on Nestle by not buying into the industry's marketing.
Now the Swiss bottling giant has developed manipulative marketing campaigns exploiting Latino communities' concerns about health to convince people that bottled water is the responsible choice to keep them and their families healthy.
"Nestle's targeting of Latinos is just the latest attempt by bottled water corporations to try to convince communities and individuals that the only choice for families looking to choose healthy beverages is bottled water," said Kristin Urquiza, Think Outside the Bottle Campaign Director. "But the fact is that bottled water has negative social and environmental impacts: it's bad for our public water systems, it's bad for our pocketbooks, and it's bad for the environment."
"All we're asking for is some honesty and transparency in Nestle's marketing, If those small things are too much to ask, we have to wonder why company marketers are targeting Hispanics so aggressively and so specifically," said Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva. "Anyone selling bottled water as a cure for the world's environmental and health problems is selling snake oil, and working families should know all there is to know before they buy the hype. This campaign is a smart way to get the word out, and I wholeheartedly support getting Nestle to come clean today."
Many members of Latino immigrant communities come from countries where many people lack access to clean, safe drinking water from public sources. So now, the very communities who understand first-hand the need for strong public water systems are the ones being targeted for aggressive market expansion of expensive, branded bottled water. Meanwhile, the public water flowing from their taps is held to a higher standard of accountability for its quality and safety.
"Nestle's marketing creates a false choice between sodas and bottled water and attempts to convince people that the only reliable way to keep your family healthy is bottled water, " said Oscar Chacon, Executive Director of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC). "Today we are standing up to the world's largest food and beverage corporation, banding together to turn the tide on Nestle's aggressive marketing in our communities."
In November 2009, Nestle Pure Life opened its first free standing bottled water store, "Mercado de Agua" in the Bronx, one of the lowest income counties in the country with a 53% Latino or Hispanic population and 89% people of color. As we approach the two year anniversary of this opening, community leaders are saying "Stop aggressive marketing to our community."
Local Bronx environmental justice advocates are highlighting the store as the poster child for the brand's aggressive marketing and are organizing a "Tap Water Challenge" in front of the "Mercado de Agua," a blind taste test between NYC tap and Pure Life to see if people can tell the difference between tap and Nestle's expensive and harmful alternative.
"It's distressing that people in our Bronx community are being targeted to buy bottled water for their homes," said Miquela Craytor, Executive Director of Sustainable South Bronx. "New York City's water is of the highest quality -- it just doesn't add up. You always hope to see a match between reality and marketing, but obviously this isn't always the case."
Corporate Accountability stops transnational corporations from devastating democracy, trampling human rights, and destroying our planet.
(617) 695-2525LATEST NEWS
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"This current blockade is starving Palestinian civilians in violation of international law, and the militarization of food will not help."
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As the death toll from Israel's forced starvation of Palestinians continues to rise amid the ongoing U.S.-backed genocidal assault and siege of the Gaza Strip, Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Monday led 18 congressional colleagues in a letter demanding that the Trump administration push for an immediate cease-fire, an end to the Israeli blockade, and a resumption of humanitarian aid into the embattled coastal enclave.
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Gaza officials have reported that hundreds of Palestinians—including at least 66 children—have died in Gaza from malnutrition and lack of medicine since Israel ratcheted up its siege in early March. Earlier this month, the United Nations Children's Fund warned that childhood malnutrition was "rising at an alarming rate," with 5,119 children under the age of 5 treated for the life-threatening condition in May alone. Of those treated children, 636 were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition, the most lethal form of the condition.
Meanwhile, nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 others have been injured as Israeli occupation forces carry out near-daily massacres of desperate people seeking food and other humanitarian aid at or near distribution sites run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Israel Defense Forces officers and troops have said that they were ordered to shoot and shell aid-seeking Gazans, even when they posed no threat.
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Since launching the retaliatory annihilation of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed at least 56,531 Palestinians and wounded more than 133,600 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which also says over 14,000 people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Upward of 2 million Gazans have been forcibly displaced, often more than once.
On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated a call for a cease-fire deal that would secure the release of the remaining 22 living Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas.
In addition to Tlaib, the letter to Rubio was signed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Democratic Reps. Greg Casar (Texas), Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), Al Green (Texas), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Henry "Hank"Johnson (Ga.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Chellie Pingree (Maine), Mark Pocan (Wisc.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Paul Tonko (N.Y.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).
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The project is being assembled by former Democratic speechwriter Andrei Cherny, now co-founder of the policy journal Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and includes Jake Sullivan, a former national security adviser under the Biden administration; Jim Kessler, founder of the centrist think tank Third Way; and Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and longtime adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Progressives on the advisory board for the project include economist Justin Wolfers and former Roosevelt Institute president Felicia Wong, but antitrust expert Hal Singer said any policy agenda aimed at securing a Democratic victory in the 2028 election "needs way more progressives."
As The New York Times noted in its reporting on Project 2029, the panel is being convened amid extensive infighting regarding how the Democratic Party can win back control of the White House and Congress.
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Progressives have called on party leaders to back Mamdani, pointing to his popularity with young voters, and accept that his clear message about making life more affordable for working families resonated with Democratic constituents.
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Project 2029's inclusion of strategists like Kessler, who declared economic populism "a dead end for Democrats" in 2013, demonstrates "the whole problem [with Democratic leadership] in a nutshell," said Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Mass—as does Sullivan's seat on the advisory board.
As national security adviser to President Joe Biden, Sullivan played a key role in the administration's defense and funding of Israel's assault on Gaza, which international experts and human rights groups have said is a genocide.
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Sen. Rick Scott has introduced an amendment to the Republican budget bill that would slash another $313 million from Medicaid and kick off millions more recipients.
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According to a preliminary estimate by the Democrats on the Joint Congressional Economic Committee, that number could balloon up to anywhere from 20 to 29 million if Scott's (R-Fla.) amendment passes.
The amendment will be voted on as part of the Senate's vote-a-rama, which is expected to run deep into Monday night and possibly into Tuesday morning.
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The existing GOP reconciliation package contains onerous new restrictions, including new work requirements and administrative hurdles, that will make it harder for poor recipients to claim Medicaid benefits.
Scott's amendment targets funding for the program by ending the federal government's 90% cost sharing for recipients who join Medicaid after 2030. Those who enroll after that date would have their medical care reimbursed by the federal government at a lower rate of 50%.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced the increased rate in 2010 to incentivize states to expand Medicaid, allowing more people to be covered.
Scott has said his program would "grandfather" in those who had already been receiving the 90% reimbursement rate.
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The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that this provision "would shift an additional $93 billion in federal Medicaid funding to states from 2031 through 2034 on top of the cuts already in the Senate bill."
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The Joint Congressional Economic Committee estimated Tuesday that around 2.5 million more people will lose their insurance as a result of those cuts.
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A chart shows how many people are estimated to lose healthcare coverage with each possible version of the GOP bill.(Chart: Congressional Joint Economic Committee Democrats)
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Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.) also said he'd "have a hard time" voting yes on the bill if Scott's amendment passed. His state of West Virginia has the second-highest rate of people using federal medical assistance of any state in the country, behind only Mississippi.
Critics have called out Scott for lying to justify this line of cuts. In a recent Fox News appearance, Scott claimed that his new restrictions were necessary to stop Democrats who want to "give illegal aliens Medicaid benefits," even though they are not eligible for the program.
Scott's proposal has also brought renewed scrutiny to his past as a healthcare executive.
"Ironically enough, some of the claims against Scott's old hospital company revolved around exploiting Medicaid, and billing for services that patients didn't need," wrote Andrew Perez in Rolling Stone Monday.
In 2000, Scott's hospital company, HCA, was forced to pay $840 million in fines, penalties, and damages to resolve claims of unlawful billing practices in what was called the "largest government fraud settlement ever." Among the charges were that during Scott's tenure, the company overbilled Medicare and Medicaid by pretending patients were sicker than they actually were.
The company entered an additional settlement in 2003, paying out another $631 million to compensate for the money stolen from these and other government programs.
Scott himself was never criminally charged, but resigned in 1997 as the Department of Justice began to probe his company's activities. Despite the scandal, Scott not only became a U.S. senator, but is the wealthiest man in Congress, with a net worth of more than half a billion dollars.
The irony of this was not lost on Perez, who wrote: "A few decades later, Scott is now trying to extract a huge amount of money from state Medicaid funds to help finance Trump's latest round of tax cuts for the rich."
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