In July, Diet Dr Pepper will be made available to all of the nearly 2,200 Jack in the Box in the U.S. with national availability expected by year end. Dr Pepper is already available in all Jack in the Box restaurants nationally and will continue to be available under terms of the agreement.

IBWA said the ads have more than 600 times at a cost of more than $3 million.

” ‘Eco Canteen’ should  not be allowed to egregiously distort the facts so as to seriously mislead consumers,”  said Tom Laura, vp-communications.

IBWA said that “Despite five decades of FDA scientific review and approval of plastic containers for direct food contact, “Eco Canteen” makes numerous false claims about the safety of plastic food containers without providing the essential and necessary documentation to support such a direct and strident advertising claim.

“Eco Canteen” also criticizes both plastic water bottles and aluminium water bottles as being hard on the environment without revealing all the facts to consumers,” IBWA said.  “Bottled water is comprehensively regulated by the Food & Drug Administration. Every bottled water container is 100 percent recyclable, and the bottled water industry is very supportive of broad-based, single-stream community recycling efforts.”

IBWA accused Eco Canteen of  maligning community recycling programs by saying recycling of plastic containers is “releasing dangerous toxins” into our atmosphere.  PET plastic bottled water containers are now the single most recycled item in nationwide curbside programs, IBWA said, and are being recycled at a record rate: 23.4%. That figure is a 16.4% increase from 2006′s recycling rate of 20.1%. The PET water bottles vilified by “Eco Canteen” now account for 50% of all the PET bottles and containers collected by curbside recycling.

The transaction will dramatically improve the company’s balance sheet. The proceeds from the sale shall be applied to pay off $1.8 million of long-term debt and provides $1.4 million of additional working capital.

Mundo Sales will bring Drank throughout Arizona and New Mexico, as well as to northwest Texas, including the El Paso and Amarillo markets.  Mundo distributes PepsiCo and Miller Brewing Co. products.

But in a Washington Legal Foundation backgrounder, Patrick Basham of the Cato Institute and John Luik of Democracy Institute argue the “fat tax” is doomed to fail – and probably will increase consumption of the very products which they are intended to reduce consumption.

The first problem is simply that there isn’t any scientific evidence.  An analysis by the Centers for Disease Prevention of obesity prevalence in U.S. children and adolescents over the land decade found “no statistically significant trend … for either boys or girls” in prevalence since 1999.

As for the most frequently cited support for the claim that soft drinks contribute to obesity, the study itself fails to support the claim.  There’s no difference in Body Mass Index data of the children who consumed the most and least amounts of sugar-sweetened drinks, the legal backgrounder says.  Indeed, even the authors concede “there is no clear evidence that consumption of sugar per se affects food intake in a unique manner or causes obesity.”

Indeed, an article earlier this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association none of the random controlled trials of nutrively sweetened beverage consumption, “has shown a statistically significant effect of reducing NSB consumption on mean body weight, body mass index or adiposity.”

Not only is there no scientific evidence that a “fat tax” on soft drinks will reduce obesity, there’s evidence they just don’t do anything but raise money.  For instance, Maine adopted a snack tax in 1991.  Since 1990, obesity rates have risen by 75% in Maine, which has the highest rate of adult obesity in New England.”

Fat taxes don’t work because demand for food tends to be “largely insensitive to price,” the authors conclude.  “A 10% increase in price reduces consumption less than 1%, they said.

To reduce consumption by 10%, the tax rate would need to be 100%, they wrote, citing one study.  Another study, by the Congressional Budget Office, concluded that a 3 cent tax on a 12-ounce serving of soft drinks most likely wouldn’t result in any reduction in consumption.

The results of a fat tax can be perverse, they said.   A study by Adam Drewnoksi found that poorer consumers react to higher food prices “not by changing their diets but by eating even fewer ‘healthy’ foods. . . .  Taxing so-called ‘junk foods’ like soft drinks … may even encourage them to eat more ‘unhealthy’ foods.”

Who’s behind the “fat tax”?  Yale Prof. Kelly Brownell, who wrote the 1994 New York Times op-ed piece, New York City health commissioner Thomas Frieden, who with Brownell wrote an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine, and Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who advocated such a tax in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee earlier this year.

“In order for Americans to better manage their health, they need to consider their daily intake of beverage calories.” During this same time, research showed little change in water consumption and essentially no reduction in food intake to compensate for the additional beverage calories.

“During 1999 and 2000, regular soft drinks represented a surprising 7% of calories in the U.S. diet. That number has since increased to an estimated 9% to 10%,” said Frank B. Hu, MD, Harvard Medical School. “Putting our research together, we are able to understand the seriousness of this consumption trend,” he added.  Hu’s research reveals a strong relationship between sweetened caloric beverage consumption and diabetes risk.

George Bray, MD, of Pennington Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana will highlight the scientific link between soft drinks and obesity.  Among the research highlighted:

–  Recent data from the Nurses’ Health Study found that regular soft drink consumption was associated with an almost 49% increase in the risk of coronary heart disease in women, even after adjusting for body mass index (BMI).

–  Data from the Framingham and Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) suggests a strong association between soft drink consumption and the prevalence of metabolic syndrome. For example, a recent study found that middle-aged adults who consumed at least one soft drink per day had a 44% higher adjusted risk of developing metabolic syndrome compared with those who consumed soft drinks infrequently.

–  Eight-year data from the Nurses’ Health Study II found an increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages was associated with a significant increased risk of diabetes, regardless of whether the data controlled for BMI.

“The way we eat and its relationship with chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease has received a lot of attention both from the scientific community and the lay press. However, from the emerging evidence on the issue, we also need to pay attention to our drinking habits,” said Dr. Jean-Pierre Despres, Universite Laval, Quebec, Canada, Scientific Director of the International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk.  “Educating people on the link between overconsumption of sugary beverages and the metabolic syndrome is an important step toward the prevention and management of chronic disease.”

But in a Washington Legal Foundation backgrounder, Patrick Basham of the Cato Institute and John Luik of Democracy Institute argue the “fat tax” is doomed to fail – and probably will increase consumption of the very products which they are intended to reduce consumption.

The first problem is simply that there isn’t any scientific evidence.  An analysis by the Centers for Disease Prevention of obesity prevalence in U.S. children and adolescents over the land decade found “no statistically significant trend … for either boys or girls” in prevalence since 1999.

As for the most frequently cited support for the claim that soft drinks contribute to obesity, the study itself failes to support the claim.  There’s no difference in Body Mass Index data of the children who consumed the most and least amounts of sugar-sweetened drinks, the legal backgrounder says.  Indeed, even the authors concede “there is no clear evidence that consumption of sugar per se affects food intake in a unique manner or causes obesity.”

Indeed, an article earlier this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association none of the random controlled trials of nutrively sweetened beverage consumption, “has shown a statistically significant effect of reducing NSB consumption on mean body weight, body mass index or adiposity.”

Not only is there no scientific evidence that a “fat tax” on soft drinks will reduce obesity, there’s evidence they just don’t do anything but raise money.  For instance, Maine adopted a snack tax in 1991.  Since 1990, obesity rates have risen by 75% in Maine, which has the highest rate of adult obesity in New England.”

Fat taxes don’t work because demand for food tends to be “largely insensitive to price,” the authors conclude.  “A 10% increase in price reduces consumption less than 1%, they said.

To reduce consumption by 10%, the tax rate would need to be 100%, they wrote, citing one study.  Another study, by the Congressional Budget Office, concluded that a 3 cent tax on a 12-ounce serving of soft drinks most likely wouldn’t result in any reduction in consumption.

The results of a fat tax can be perverse, they said.   A study by Adam Drewnoksi found that poorer consumers react to higher food prices “not by changing their diets but by eating even fewer ‘healthy’ foods. . . .  Taxing so-called ‘junk foods’ like soft drinks … may even encourage them to eat more ‘unhealthy’ foods.”

Who’s behind the “fat tax”?  Yale Prof. Kelly Brownell, who wrote the 1994 new York Times op-ed piece, New York City health commissioner Thomas Frieden, who with Brownell wrote an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine, and Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who advocated such a tax in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee earlier this year.

Effective July 1, Harry Anderson, currently vice president and controller, will lead this new organization and report to Alex Cummings, chief administrative officer, and Gary Fayard, chief financial officer.

The Company’s management will recommend at the July Board of Directors meeting that the Board elect Kathy Waller as controller, effective Aug. 1.  Currently vice president and chief of internal audit, Ms. Waller is a Certified Public Accountant who joined The Coca-Cola Company in 1987 as a senior accountant in the Accounting Research Department.

The Company’s management also will recommend its directors appoint Connie McDaniel chief of internal audit, effective Aug. 1. She’s currently vice president and head of Global Finance Transformation.

Jeremy Faa, currently global director of Finance Transformation, will expand his responsibilities to include the overall strategic direction and implementation of the global finance transformation.

Ann Taylor, currently vice president and chief financial officer, Transformational Productivity, will head up Global Business Services, effective July 1, reporting to Anderson.

“Introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70% of Americans,” it said.

“If private insurers are pushed out of the market, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers,” the AMA warned.

Doctors aren’t united on the issue.  Physicians for a National Health Program, for example,  supports a single-payer system of insurance.