November, 04 2019, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Gary Ruskin, U.S. Right to Know, gary@usrtk.org, (415) 944-7350
Angela Bradbery, Public Citizen, abradbery@citizen.org
, (202) 588-7741
WASHINGTON
Public health, government watchdog and public interest groups today petitioned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to cease making false disclaimers that it "does not accept commercial support" and has "no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products."
The CDC makes such disclaimers hundreds of times in its publications and on its website, despite that the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has accepted for it nearly $80 million from drug companies and other commercial manufacturers during fiscal years 2014-2018.
The petition states: "These claims may be comforting to consumers and health professionals, but both are indisputably false." Groups endorsing the petition include Knowledge Ecology International, Liberty Coalition, Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen and U.S. Right to Know.
"It's time for the CDC to be truthful with health professionals and all Americans, and to stop denying that it takes corporate money," said Gary Ruskin, co-director of U.S. Right to Know. "The CDC is violating the public trust by misleading us in this way."
"That the CDC accepts millions from corporations directly impacted by the agency's public health programs is indefensible," said Dr. Michael Carome, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group. "So the CDC instead has adopted the strategy of repeatedly denying that it accepts such payments."
"The CDC needs the trust of the public, on the efficacy and safety of vaccines and drugs, and measures to prevent disease and injury," said James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International. "A small amount of money from corporations diminishes the trust the public will have that the agency works for us, and provides independent, trusted information."
In January, Ruskin co-authored a study in the Milbank Quarterly on emails between The Coca-Cola Company and the CDC, showing the company's efforts to influence the CDC for its own benefit. One high-ranking CDC official even guided Coca-Cola on how to lobby the World Health Organization to back off its efforts to curtail added sugars. Coca-Cola has been a donor to the CDC Foundation.
In 2017, U.S. Right to Know obtained documents showing an alliance between Coca-Cola and then-CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald. These documents were the subject of articles in The New York Times and The Intercept.
The groups' petition to the CDC is available here.
U.S. Right to Know is a nonprofit investigative research group focused on promoting transparency for public health. We are working globally to expose corporate wrongdoing and government failures that threaten the integrity of our health, our environment and our food system.
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Despite the Pentagon's repeated failures to pass audits and various alarming policies, 81 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives voted with 200 Republicans on Wednesday to advance a $883.7 billion annual defense package.
The Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025, unveiled by congressional negotiators this past Saturday, still needs approval from the Senate, which is expected to vote next week. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that he plans to vote no and spoke out against the military-industrial complex.
The push to pass the NDAA comes as this congressional session winds down and after the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) announced last month that it had failed yet another audit—which several lawmakers highlighted after the Wednesday vote.
Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chairs and co-founders of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, said in a joint statement, "Time and time again, Congress seems to be able to find the funds necessary to line the pockets of defense contractors while neglecting the problems everyday Americans face here at home."
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