Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for December 4, 2005 PC (PEPSI COLA) POLICE

Well...NOT just Pepsi Cola...all surgary soft drinks!

In the battle against childhood obesity, a group of lawyers is riding to the rescue...even though statistics show an already declining use of the products in the nation's schools. Hey, better late than never!

From today's Washington Post...

Lawyers ready to sue over soda in schools

By Caroline E. Mayer, The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- The fight against sugary soft drinks is beginning to foam over.

A coalition of lawyers who have actively and successfully sued tobacco companies says it is close to filing a class-action lawsuit against soft-drink makers for selling sugared sodas in schools. The lawyers, who have been trying to develop a case against the soft-drink makers for more than two years, say a lawsuit could be filed within the next few weeks, probably in Massachusetts, which has one of the nation's most plaintiff-friendly consumer-protection laws.

As news reports of the pending lawsuit proliferate, the beverage industry is shoring up its defenses. The American Beverage Association released a study Thursday that showed a 24 percent drop in purchases of full-calorie carbonated soft drinks at schools from 2002 to 2004. In 2004, the study showed, high-schoolers drank the equivalent of one 12-ounce can of such soda a week, while younger students drank less.

The reduction in soft-drink consumption in schools "started long before there were trial lawyers looking for an industry to sue," said beverage association President Susan Neely. "Litigation isn't the answer to a complex social problem like childhood obesity," she added.

The association's study showing the decline "reflects the overall trend of the industry," said John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest. "Carbonated soft drinks are down across the board; water and sports-drink consumption is up."

Leading the litigation effort is Richard Daynard, an associate dean at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, who is also president of the Tobacco Control Resource Center and chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project, both of which have provided legal support to attorneys suing tobacco companies. Mr. Daynard was involved in many of the state cases against the tobacco firms that led to the landmark $246 billion settlement in 1998.

Joining Mr. Daynard is Stephen Sheller, a Philadelphia lawyer who came up with the legal theory that tobacco firms deceived consumers into thinking their low-tar and low-nicotine cigarettes were safer to smoke than regular cigarettes. That theory helped lead to a $10 billion consumer-fraud verdict against Philip Morris USA in an Illinois state court two years ago, which is under appeal.

Also involved in the prospective lawsuit is the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group that has aggressively pressed for more explicit food labels and less fat and sodium in all kinds of food. "The idea is to get soda machines out of schools because they are clearly making a substantial contribution to the obesity epidemic," Mr. Daynard said in an interview. "This is an unfair practice under state consumer-protection laws," he said.

The suit's legal basis will be tied to the concept of "attractive nuisance: If somebody has something on his land like a swimming pool that he knows is attractive to kids and dangerous, then he has some obligation to keep the kids away from it," Mr. Daynard said. "You want to keep kids away from dangerous objects, and a soda machine is demonstrated to be a dangerous object for kids."

While the legal theory is ready, the challenge is finding the right set of parents to sign on as plaintiffs for the class-action case, Mr. Daynard said. "It's taking us longer than we expected," he said.

The lawsuit is just part of an ongoing campaign to get soda machines out of schools. At the urging of parents, many public school systems have already imposed restrictions. In September, California enacted a law banning soft drinks in all state public schools.

That ban went further than the beverage association's voluntary industry guidelines, announced in August, which seek to limit soft-drink sales to no more than 50 percent of a high school vending machine's options.

A related Associated Press story...

School soft drink sales slump

It's not often that an industry brags when sales are down.

But the American Beverage Association sounds almost proud when it declares in a report released Thursday that the amount of non-diet soft drinks sold in the nation's schools dropped more than 24 percent between 2002 and 2004.

The trade group's report is an effort to deflate threats of a lawsuit against soft drink companies, which face mounting pressure as childhood obesity concerns have led schools to remove sodas.

During the same two-year period, the amount of sports drinks sold grew nearly 70 percent, bottled water 23 percent, diet soda 22 percent and fruit juice 15 percent, according to the report, which is based on data from beverage bottling companies.

Regular soda is still the leader within schools, accounting for 45 percent of beverages sold there this year. But that's down from 57 percent three years earlier, the industry said, citing additional numbers based on 2002-2005 data.

Over the same three-year period, sports drinks jumped from nearly 7 percent to more than 14 percent, while water increased from 9 percent to nearly 13 percent.

Susan Neely, president of the beverage group, said the report -- which did not count drinks sold at sports stadiums or those sold to raise money -- shows social pressure alone can address concerns about the quality of beverages sold in schools.

"Litigation and legislation aren't the answers to a complex social problem. Consumer preferences are changing and the choices students are making from school vending machines are reflecting that," she said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Critics still have concerns

But the numbers didn't impress Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University and critic of the soda industry.

While pleased that soft drink sales have dropped, she was disappointed that sports drinks seem to be taking their place. Though most sports drinks have fewer calories than regular soda, many still have a considerable amount of sugar.

"It's a substitution of one bad product for another," she said.

Erik Peterson, spokesman for the Washington-based School Nutrition Association, attributed the changes to widespread school policies limiting access to soda and junk food.

As of this year, he said two-thirds of the nation's schools have some sort of limitation on foods or beverages. Nearly half have increased the selection of healthier drinks in vending machines and 18 percent have removed carbonated ones entirely.

Nutrition standards

Also, next week a committee of the Institute of Medicine, chartered by Congress to advise the government on medical matters, will discuss setting nutrition standards for food and drink served in schools. Neely's group has its own standard for vending machines -- a half-and-half mix of regular soda and noncarbonated drinks.

Richard Daynard, director of the obesity and law project at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts, said new laws and threats of lawsuits are the only reason so many schools have adopted more restrictive policies.

Daynard is one of the lawyers spearheading a proposed big tobacco-style lawsuit -- which he hopes to file by the end of the year -- accusing soft drink companies of using caffeine to hook school children on high-calorie beverages.

"If her (Neely's) figures are correct, I think it may be a tribute to the role of legislation and concerns about litigation, rather than a refutation of it," Daynard said.