Coca-Cola! That's right: The organization that's ostensibly founded on the principle of safeguarding shining smiles across America has joined hands with the makers of the very product that bathes our children's dental enamel with more sugar than perhaps any other source. Why? For research and education, of course!
According to the non-profit AADP, they'll use this unrestricted grant (!) from the Coca-Cola Foundation to promote improved dental health for children via an extensive initiative to broaden the spectrum of the AADP's ability to spread their message to the general public. Or something like that. How this benefits Coca-Cola, I can't figure - but I suspect it has something to do with corporate tax write-off or some kind of blackmailed buy-off to avoid being a public target of the AADP. I know: Perhaps in exchange for this "unlimited grant," the AADP agreed to make Pepsi the big tooth-decay bogeymen instead! (No, people are not stupid enough to fall for THAT - are
they?) Anyway, it seems an unlikely partnership to me - kind of like Greenpeace and Exxon joining forces in the name of energy conservation… But it's just another example of business as usual in big-money America - where everything's for sale, if you can only spin it right. And as long as they keep making their deals in the name of our children's health, we'll just keep buying into it hook, line, and sinker, won't we? Here's a better idea: Let's teach children how to look after their own teeth - and how to watch out for big companies bearing sweet-tasting gifts… Here's to knowing what's harmless - and what's not,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
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