How Coca-Cola makes Americans sick—and makes sure we don’t know it. If we knew that Coca-Cola was among the deadliest products in our diet, would we continue drinking it in such great quantities? The Coca-Cola Company has gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure we don’t find out, as this damning exposé makes patently clear. Marshaling the findings of extensive research and deep investigative reporting, Murray Carpenter describes in Sweet and Deadly the damage Coke does to America’s health—and the remarkable campaign of disinformation conducted by the company to keep consumers in the dark. Sugar-sweetened beverages are the single item in the American diet that most contributes to the epidemic of chronic disease—in particular, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease—and Coca-Cola is America’s favorite sugar-sweetened beverage, by far. Carpenter details how the Coca-Cola corporation’s sophisticated shadow network has masterfully spread disinformation for decades to hide the health risks of its product from consumers—risks disproportionately borne by Black, brown, and low-income communities. Working from a playbook of obfuscation and pseudoscience that has worked well for other harmful products, from tobacco and trans fats to opioids, Coca-Cola has managed to maintain an aura of goodness and happiness. This eye-opening book finally and fully reveals the truth behind that aura. " Sweet and Deadly , a remarkable exposé by the American journalist Murray Carpenter, claims that the Coca-Cola Company has for decades aped the tactics of the tobacco lobby, paying researchers and 'health' organisations who sow doubt about the science that suggests their product is harmful." Steven Poole, The Daily Telegraph . "The company's manipulation of science is laid bare in journalist Murray Carpenter's new book Sweet and Deadly: How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick ," Kelly Brownell, New Scientist . "As an average person, it would be almost impossible to know we're being lied to without people like Murray Carpenter," Patrick Long, The Cool Down . "It's a fascinating book that makes two main arguments: that Coca-Cola is a significant contributor to chronic disease and that the company uses its well-oiled disinformation machine to obscure the soda's health risks. Author Murray Carpenter traces how the sugar industry's early PR efforts to influence nutrition policy and public opinion laid the groundwork for a PR playbook adopted by the tobacco industry and Coca-Cola: sow doubt, fund front groups that defend its interests, hire 'experts' to back up its claims, and spend lavishly to defeat legislation like soda taxes." Tilde Herrera, Civil Eats “The story of Coke is a case study in brilliant marketing, greed, and unchecked corporate power. Murray Carpenter tells the story well, exploring how an industrial mixture of sugar water and coloring agents and flavor additives has conquered the world—at the expense of our health.” —Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation “The talented reporter that exposed the secret history of the caffeine industry now offers here a thought-provoking book about the dangers of soft drinks. It’s an eye-opening tale that should leave us all asking important questions about what we choose to put in our bodies.” —Bart Elmore, author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism “Carpenter shows how Coca-Cola and the soda industry infiltrated universities, funded flawed studies, and found scientists-for-hire to mislead the public. A clear guide to the science of obesity and the role of sugar-sweetened drinks as the leading driver of the epidemic, the book shows how to stop Big Soda so our children have a healthier start.” —Tom Frieden, President and CEO, Resolve to Save Lives; former Director, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; author of The Formula “In this important and highly readable book, Murray Carpenter documents the role of one of America’s most profitable corporations in distorting public understanding of nutrition and health. Contrary to what we have been told in so many ad campaigns, things don’t go better with Coke.” —Naomi Oreskes, coauthor of The Big Myth Murray Carpenter is the author of Sweet and Deadly; How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick (MIT Press, March 2025), and Caffeinated, How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts and Hooks Us (Penguin USA, 2014). As a journalist focusing on science, health, climate, and environmental stories, he has reported for The New York Times , the Washington Post , Wired , National Geographic , NPR, and Maine Public Radio. His work has taken him across the United States, and to Guantanamo, the Colombian llanos, and a factory town in China.