Gary first started working on food issues in 1998.  In 2000, he helped to build the first national coalition against the marketing and sale of soda and junk food in schools.  In 2003, he organized a Childhood Obesity Prevention Agenda for states and schools, endorsed by organizations across the political spectrum.  In 2004, he organized a global effort to ban the marketing of junk food to children. For fourteen years, he directed the Congressional Accountability Project, which opposed corruption in the U.S. Congress. For nine years, he was executive director and co-founder (with Ralph Nader) of Commercial Alert, which opposed the commercialization of every nook and cranny of our lives and culture.  In 2012, Gary was campaign manager for California Right to Know (Proposition 37), a statewide ballot initiative for labeling of genetically engineered food in California.  He was also director of the Center for Corporate Policy. Over the years, he has tangled with many corporate lobbyists, including the infamous Jack Abramoff.  He has often been quoted in major newspapers across the country and has appeared scores of times on national TV news programs. His articles have been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Progressive, Mothering, Multinational Monitor, the Journal of Public Health Policy, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Critical Public Health, Environmental Health News and many others. He received his undergraduate degree in religion from Carleton College, and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.  He is also the father of a 12 year-old daughter and 1 year-old son.

Contact Gary: gary@usrtk.org
Follow Gary on Twitter: @GaryRuskin

Read Gary Ruskin’s work: 

Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health Science organisations and Coca-Cola’s ‘war’ with the public health community: insights from an internal industry document, by Pepita Barlow, Paulo Serôdio, Gary Ruskin, Martin McKee, David Stuckler (3.14.2018)

Journal of Public Health Policy Complexity and conflicts of interest statements: a case-study of emails exchanged between Coca-Cola and the principal investigators of the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE), by David Stuckler, Martin McKee and Gary Ruskin (11.27.17)

Critical Public Health How food companies influence evidence and opinion – straight from the horse’s mouth, by Gary Sacks, Boyd Swinburn, Adrian Cameron, and Gary Ruskin (5.18.17)

Environmental Health News Coca Cola’s war with the public health community: An Inside look at Coca Cola’s manipulation masquerading as science (4.3.2018)