A coroner has ruled the death of a 30-year-old mother of 8 was caused by her raging addiction to Coca Cola. The coroner reports that Natasha Harris drank up to 10 litres of Coca Cola every day — that’s almost 2 pounds of sugar consumed in one day.
The shocking coroner’s report comes on the heels of Coca Cola’s new anti-obesity advertising campaign, which critics are calling damage control.
Coca Cola had argued that drinking massive quantities of their sugary beverage did not contribute to Harris’ death. But the coroner’s findings disputed that argument.
“I find that, when all of the available evidence is considered, were it not for the consumption of very large quantities of Coke by Natasha Harris, it is unlikely that she would have died when she died and how she died,” wrote coroner David Crerar.
Harris passed away on February 25, 2010, of a cardiac arrest, according to the coroner’s report.
The coroner’s findings did not come as a surprise to Harris’ boyfriend, Christopher Hodgkinson. He discovered Harris slumped in a chair, gasping for breath on the day she died.
Hodgkinson said Harris’ condition had slowly deteriorated in the months preceding her death.
“She had no energy and was feeling sick all the time … She would get up and vomit in the morning,” he said.
“She would get moody and get headaches if she didn’t have any Coke and also feel low in energy.”
Harris’ family said the 30-year-old had multiple health problems and she lost all her teeth due to her addiction.
In a statement released to the media today, a Coca Cola spokesman wrote:
“The Coroner acknowledged that he could not be certain what caused Ms Harris’ heart attack. Therefore we are disappointed that the Coroner has chosen to focus on the combination of Ms Harris’ excessive consumption of Coca-Cola, together with other health and lifestyle factors, as the probable cause of her death. This is contrary to the evidence that showed the experts could not agree on the most likely cause”.
But you don’t have to be a coroner — or even in the medical field — to know that sugar consumed in high quantities is deadly.
Harris’ family said they did not consider Coke as harmful because its labels do not contain warning signs.
Coca Cola recently lost a class-action lawsuit that forced the Atlanta-based company to place “Municipal city water” on the labels of their bottled water. It was an acknowledgement that Coca Cola brands such as Aquafina is nothing but filtered tap water.
