It’s shocking and frightening to me when authoritative voices choose poor bedfellows. The ADA and vegetarianism, for example. Or Kelloggs and education. I’ve suspected for a while now that the “family doctor” paradigm of medicine has fallen under attack and is no longer to be trusted. I’m afraid the American Association of Family Physicians (AAFP) has confirmed my suspicions loudly and publicly.

The American Academy of Family Physicians today (October 6, 2009) announced the Consumer Alliance, a new corporate partnership program, with its first alliance partner, The Coca-Cola Company.

The Consumer Alliance is a program that allows corporate partners like The Coca-Cola Company to work with the AAFP to educate consumers about the role their products can play in a healthy, active lifestyle. As part of this partnership, The Coca-Cola Company is providing a grant to the AAFP to develop consumer education content on beverages and sweeteners for FamilyDoctor.org, an award-winning consumer health and wellness resource.

”The AAFP recognizes the significant influence that consumer companies have on consumer health,” said Lori Heim, M.D., president-elect of the AAFP. “We look forward to working with The Coca-Cola Company, and other companies in the future, on the development of educational materials to teach consumers how to make the right choices and incorporate the products they love into a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle.”

Uh huh. Wow. This move leaves me nearly speechless, especially after this week’s Wall Street Journal Op Ed in which a Coca-Cola spokesperson says, in effect, “Coke didn’t make you fat. You eat too much grain and sit around too much. Besides, you can’t blame us because we make zero-calorie products.”

The move to attempt to impose a soda tax is one that will be fought long and hard by Coke and Pepsi (and others) in the media. They plan to use a “don’t tax our food” and “no new taxes” platform. I’ve already seen ads which appeal to our national sense of rebellion: “Don’t let government decide what groceries you can buy! You’re smart enough to make your own decisions!” and “If government’s regulation of groceries worked, the Soviet Union would still be alive!”

I live in a city that already taxes soda.

the five most obese states–Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee and Oklahoma–all have soda taxes, while three of the least obese, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and Colorado, have no soda taxes…

It hasn’t reduced the obesity rating of our state a single percentage point compared to years before the tax (the rate continues to rise.) It hasn’t reduced the amount of soda bought.

“The evidence to date is that soft-drink taxes are ineffective as an ‘obesity tax.’”

Please note that this last quote is NOT from soda industry researchers, but from Jason Fletcher, a public health expert at Yale University. More people are grumbling more loudly about the “price of food,” but it isn’t having a noticeable increase in the ratio of soda to fresh vegetables being purchased.

I have no answers on the soda tax. But I do know that the old adage “Politics makes strange bedfellows” seems to be proving true once again. And that makes me shake my head in disbelief.

UPDATE October 28, 2009

In a blistering and altogether appropriate response, 20 family physicians in Contra Costa County, California, ripped up their membership cards in the American Academy of Family Physicians in protest over the AAFP’s partnership with Coca-Cola. Go here to read their letter of outrage.