Word: sokolof
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During the next four years, NHSA sponsored free cholesterol testing for 200,000 people in 16 cities and towns across the U.S. To spread the word further, Sokolof in 1988 successfully lobbied Congress to designate April as "Know Your Cholesterol Month" and heralded the fact with full-page ads in major newspapers. That month more Americans had their cholesterol tested than in any previous month. Sokolof was elated, but concerned that the public was still unaware that many of its favorite food brands were laden not only with cholesterol but also with saturated fat, which the body converts into cholesterol...
...companies bothered to respond, and Sokolof's follow-up telephone calls went largely unheeded. "When I said, 'I'm Phil Sokolof from Heart Savers,' " he recalls, "that was the same as saying, 'I'm Joe Blow from Podunk...
...food companies learned, Phil Sokolof was not a man to be ignored. In October 1988, they were confronted by full-page newspaper ads written and designed by Sokolof and headlined THE POISONING OF AMERICA! The text identified the poisoners: food processors who used tropical oils high in saturated fats. "We implore you. Do not buy products containing palm oil or coconut oil," the ads warned. "Your life may be at stake." Pictured below, to the horror of several major companies, was an assortment of some of + America's favorite brand-name foods...
...intensity of the reaction surprised even Sokolof. Corporate executives, or lawyers representing them, called Omaha and threatened lawsuits. But as sales of some of the brands pictured in the ad plummeted, seven large companies announced in quick succession that they were removing tropical oils from their products...
More POISONING OF AMERICA ads followed, and when Nabisco failed to budge, Sokolof singled it out, concluding, "The American public deserves better from its largest food processor." The following day a Nabisco executive called Sokolof to assure him that the giant company would hasten the reformulation of its products...