A new report by GRAIN, a global nonprofit group, called Food safety for whom? Corporate wealth vs. people’s health examines how “food safety” is being used as a tool to increase corporate control over food and agriculture and what people are doing about it. “Corporations are increasingly in the driver’s seat because they set the standards and implement them while governments merely frame the rules and clean up the mess,” says GRAIN Director Henk Hobbelink. “These food and agriculture standards are spreading everywhere and are being used by Wal-Mart and other corporations to organize markets according to their interests.” Genetic Resources Action International, or GRAIN for short, is an independent non-profit foundation with its headquarters in Barcelona, Spain.
Philip Morris Reports Weak Local but Robust Global Sales
Philip Morris is increasing its tobacco sales in Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia, even as U.S. sales remain stagnant.
As Investorguide reports, “As long as the company keeps reaching overseas to offset weak domestic sales and the falling dollar, Philip Morris will grow.” The human toll of this growth is documented in a report by Corporate Accountability International, which explains that 80 percent of the 8 million tobacco deaths predicted by 2030 will occur in the developing markets that Philip Morris is currently targeting.
The Supreme Court Protects Vaccine Manufacturers and the Public’s Health
Earlier this year, with its decision in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth,[1] United States Supreme Court found that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act[2] immunizes vaccine manufacturers from liability for claims related to vaccines’ design defects. This decision has the shared effect of protecting vaccine manufacturers and promoting the public’s health.
Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) in 1986 to establish a no-fault compensation program for individuals who experienced vaccine-related injuries or death and to stabilize the vaccine market. In the early to mid-1980s, concerns arose about associations between the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DPT) vaccine and physical and mental disabilities in children.
These concerns led to a wave of lawsuits against manufacturers of the DPT vaccine; ultimately two of the three domestic DPT vaccine manufacturers stopped producing the vaccine to avoid the costs associated with DPT vaccine-related litigation. By 1984, parents who sought to vaccinate their children faced vaccine shortages.[3] Other parents were electing not to vaccinate their children at all, to avoid any potential vaccine-related risks.[4]
To allay the fears of parents and vaccine manufacturers, Congress created the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Through this federal program, an individual with a probable vaccine-related injury (or that individual’s legal guardian) can file a petition with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to request compensation. A court-appointed special master reviews the petition and makes a determination. This is then reviewed by the Court of Federal Claims. The process is aided by the NCVIA’s Vaccine Injury Table, which includes a list of vaccines covered by the NCVIA as well as information about compensable vaccine-related injuries.[5] If an individual’s vaccine-related injury meets the parameters specified by the Vaccine Injury Table, then the individual is compensated without needing to demonstrate causation. Compensation, which is financed via a tax on vaccines and paid by the federal government, may include medical, rehabilitative, and other costs.[6]
Individuals are permitted to reject the determination of the Court of Federal Claims and pursue a lawsuit against the vaccine’s manufacturer.[7] However, these lawsuits face certain limitations, including the requirement that the plaintiff must first present the claim to the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.[8] For the most part, vaccine manufacturers are immunized from lawsuits related to their failure to warn, as long as they have met all relevant regulatory requirements and have given any vaccine-related warning to either the individual who was injured or to that person’s physician.[9] The NCVIA also immunizes vaccine manufacturers from liability due to a vaccine’s “unavoidable, adverse side effects.”[10]
This provision of the NCVIA was at the center of Bruesewitz v. Wyeth. In 1992, shortly after receiving a DPT vaccination, Hannah Bruesewitz began having seizures.[11] She was subsequently diagnosed with a “residual seizure disorder” and “developmental delay.”[12] In 1995, Hannah’s parents filed a claim on Hannah’s behalf with the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The Bruesewitzes rejected the Program’s determination, and they brought a lawsuit against the vaccine’s manufacturer, in 2005. They claimed that the manufacturer should be held liable for their daughter’s disabilities due to the defective design of the DPT vaccine.[13] The Bruesewitzes argued that their claims could be brought under state law, even though the federal NCVIA appeared to prohibit, or preempt, such claims. Specifically, the NCVIA states: “No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine . . . if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.”[14]
The Court held that the NCVIA does indeed preempt the state laws upon which the Bruesewitzes based their claims, meaning that the Bruesewitzes’ claims were invalidated. In its opinion, the Court noted that the NCVIA includes a sound quid pro quo: “The vaccine manufacturers fund from their sales an informal, efficient compensation program for vaccine injuries; in exchange they avoid costly tort litigation and the occasional disproportionate jury verdict.”[15] This liability protection has “coax[ed] [vaccine] manufacturers back into the market.”[16]
Bruesewitz v. Wyeth gave the Supreme Court an opportunity to reexamine the delicate balance that has ensured on-going access to vaccines in the United States for nearly 25 years. Like other corporations, vaccine manufacturers seek profits from the sales of their products. If the costs from vaccine-related litigation surpass the revenues from vaccine sales, then vaccine manufacturers will, understandably, stop producing vaccines. Some manufacturers acted on this calculation when they left the vaccine market in the 1980s. While this might be a sound business decision, it is not one that leads to effective public health policy. Vaccines are critical to protecting the public’s health. They have been hailed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “one of the greatest achievements of biomedical science and public health.”[17] This recognition led the federal government to devise a unique system to provide broad liability protections to vaccine manufacturers.
Recently, scholars have referred to the NCVIA as a “social compact” and “a compromise that safeguards the public’s health.”[18] They have posited that the Supreme Court was correct to “protect” this compromise.18 Others have noted that “civil litigation [outside the Vaccine Injury Compensation System] could be useful in the rare cases in which a plaintiff was contending that a plausible alternative vaccine design would have prevented the adverse event at issue.”[19] A related point was raised in Justice Sotomayor’s dissent to the Bruesewitz decision. She argued that the text of the NCVIA did not preempt all design-defect claims, because the statute only grants liability protection to vaccine manufacturers for “unavoidable,” as opposed to avoidable, side effects.[20] In the majority opinion, however, the Court suggested that allowing such litigation to proceed would be undesirable, as it could potentially leave vaccine manufacturers to face a “universe of alternative designs . . . limited only by an expert’s imagination.”[21] In other words, the Court endorsed Congress’s decision to protect specific corporations to accomplish the greater goal of protecting the public’s health.
In recent years, the Court has decided several major cases, such as Bruesewitz, involving preemption and public health. These opinions are often fact-specific, making it difficult to draw generalizations about the Court’s preemption jurisprudence. From a public health perspective, federal preemption of state and local laws can, at times, promote public health goals. Most public health professionals would favor a strong federal law rather than “a patchwork of weaker or inconsistent state or local laws” to support a public health intervention.[22] Preemption, though, often interferes with public health goals, by preventing states or localities from enacting experimental or innovative laws to address the particular health challenges they face. AsBruesewitz demonstrated, preemption can also prevent state-level lawsuits from proceeding, which may prevent injured parties from receiving compensation for harms they experienced. Although Bruesewitz involved federal preemption, in all likelihood it will ultimately be regarded as a decision that protected the nation’s vaccine supply and, thus, the public’s health.
References:
[1] Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 131 S.Ct. 1068 (2011).
[2] 42 U.S.C. § 300aa et seq. (1986).
[3] Centers for Disease Control. Diptheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine shortage. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 1984;33:695-696.
[4] Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 131 S.Ct. 1068, 1073 (2011).
[5] 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-14(a) (2010).
[6] 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-15(a) (2010).
[7] 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-21(a) (2010).
[8] 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-11(a)(2) (2010).
[9] 42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-22(b), (c) (2010).
[10] Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 131 S.Ct. 1068, 1074 (2011).
[11] Bruesewitz v. Secretary of Health and Human Servs., 2002 WL 31965744 (Ct. Cl., Dec. 20, 2002).
[12] Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 131 S.Ct. 1068, 1075 (2011).
[13] Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 561 F. 3d 233, 237 (3rd Cir. 2009).
[14] 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-22(b) (2010).
[15] Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 131 S.Ct. 1068, 1080 (2011).
[16] Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 131 S.Ct. 1068, 1080 (2011).
[17] Centers for Disease Control. Achievements in public health, 1900–1999: impact of vaccines universally recommended for children. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 1999;48:243-248.
[18] Kraemer JD, Gostin LO. Vaccine liability and the Supreme Court: forging a social compact. JAMA. 2011;305:1900-1901.
[19] Kesselheim A. Safety, supply, and suits—litigation and the vaccine industry. N Engl J Med. 2011;364:1485-1487.
[20] Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 131 S.Ct. 1068, 1087 (2011).
[21] Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 131 S.Ct. 1068, 1079 (2011).
[22] Rutkow L, Vernick JS, Hodge JG, Teret SP. Preemption and the obesity epidemic: state and local menu labeling laws and the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act. J Law Med Ethics. 2008;36:772-789.
Image Credits:
1. Timojazz via Flickr
2. OpenDemocracy via Flickr
Report Calls On Obama to Expand Right to Know
A new report by OMB Watch, a nonprofit watchdog organization, calls on the federal government to “ensure that every person in the country has access to the information needed to make decisions that enable all of us to live, work, play, and learn within a healthy environment.” Produced by a coalition of 112 organizations, “An Agenda to Strengthen our Right to Know” presents the Obama Administration with recommendations that aim to expand access to environmental information, equip citizens with data about their environmental health, and empower Americans to protect themselves, their families, and their communities from toxic pollution.
Pharma Pay for Delay Boosts Drug Profits at Consumer’s Expense
In a Los Angeles Times column, Michael Hiltzik descibes how Cephalon and other pharma companies pay generic drug makers to keep products off the market to enable them to stretch out monopoly protection and the profits it brings. One analyst estimates on average a one-year delay in the entry of a generic version of a drug can cost consumers more than $660 million.
Industry’s Charade of Advertising Self-Regulation
Cross-posted from Appetite for Profit.
Every so often in my work at Marin Institute, we get a complaint from someone about an alcohol advertisement they’ve seen in their community they think shouldn’t be there. Most of the time, they’re right. In the role of industry watchdog, I’ve taken on the responsibility to report such complaints to the industry directly to get the ads removed as soon as possible.
However, at Marin, we have made a deliberate decision to not use the industry’s official complaint process, because as we demonstrated with our report in 2008, it’s a failure and a charade.
Instead, when it’s a spirits ad that I think is in violation of the voluntary code, I will send an email directly to Lynne Omlie, who handles such matters for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), the national trade group for the spirits industry.
Recently, we received an email (with the above photo) from a concerned mother about a huge Jose Cuervo ad on the side of a building in Seattle, right across the street from her son’s middle school. (The industry’s voluntary, self-regulation guidelines say that such ads must be at least 500 feet from a school, so this was a clear violation.)
I quickly forwarded the message to Lynne Omlie of DISCUS and copied Janet Evans, the attorney at the Federal Trade Commission who oversees alcohol advertising.
The good news is that the ad came down the very next day. According to this letter of apology, the ad placement was the result of an “oversight” by the billboard company, which, although it had conducted a survey of the area, somehow missed this middle school. OK, mistakes happen, problem solved.
But it didn’t stop there.
Instead of just taking care of the matter and apologizing for the blatant error, Lynne Omlie went out of her way to tell us that this complaint would be recorded as part of the official process, despite my requests that she not do so.
Why does this matter? Because now DISCUS gets to celebrate this incident as a wonderful “victory” of how well the complaint process is working. We complained, they took swift action, and so this must mean the system works, right? Wrong.
How long was the ad up? Who knows? How many other ads are out there also in violation of the 500 foot rule, all over the nation? Who knows? No one studies this in any regular or scientific manner, and yet, DISCUS gets to claim the system works. Here is what Lynne Omlie told our constituent who brought her complaint to us, not them:
Your complaint will be part of the Code’s next Semi-Annual Report and posted on the DISCUS website within the next few days. Your proactive action to address this advertisement will be highlighted in the placement tutorials at our October 18th-19th “Best Practices” Media Summit, attended by industry members from all sectors—DISCUS member distillers, non-member distillers, brewers and vintners, as well as their respective media placement companies and advertising agencies.
Translation? DISCUS will be using this unfortunate incident to celebrate how great their voluntary system is working. Indeed, it will become a case-study of success! They may even give themselves an award for “best practices,” they are so proud of themselves!
Here’s what I told Lynne Omlie in response via email:
Thank you Lynne, for your prompt attention to this matter. It is great to have such a swift resolution. However, I do need to reiterate my prior request to not turn this unfortunate situation to DISCUS’ advantage by publishing the complaint as a “victory” in your report.
All this does is further Marin Institute’s position that those reports are a complete charade. How can the self-regulatory system be viewed as a success when the only cases you report on are complaints like these? It is the exception, rather than the rule, to have people [like this woman] take the time and energy to contact us. Most people don’t know that’s even an option. She obviously had no idea how to complain to DISCUS or she would have done so directly.
Hardly an example of “Best Practices,” this complaint just raises the question, how many other ads are in violation that we will never even know about? Unless and until we have an independent, scientifically-sound monitoring system in place, we will never know the answer to that question. Thanks again for your speedy action. Now let’s just leave it at that.
But industry just can’t because they need to perpetuate the charade of self-regulation. Whether the issue is alcohol advertising or junk food marketing to kids, voluntary self-regulation is a failed system that only serves to further industry’s PR goals. Judging by this experience, it’s working like a charm.
A version of this post appeared originally on Marin Institute’s website.
Image Credit:
Should Corporations Nudge Consumers into Health?
According to the Guardian, the UK government’s public health partnerships with junk food and alcohol companies have come under attack from two of its own advisers on obesity.
In a recent article in the British Medical Journal, Professors Tim Lang and Geof Rayner, who sit on the government’s advisory committee on obesity, write these partnerships risk being a “smokescreen” for “publicly endorsed marketing.” They warn that the strategy could become “collusion between the state and corporations to hoodwink consumers. At least nannies are overt.”
Vermont and Big Pharma Face off in U.S. Supreme Court
In The Atlantic Monthly, Andrew Cohen analyzes the issues at stake as Big Pharma goes to the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge states’ rights to ban pharmaceutical companies from using “prescriber-identifiable data” to market or promote those drugs to doctors. According to Adweek, the Supreme Court hearings on April 26, 2011, were “a good day for healthcare industry researcher IMS Health, big pharma, and advertising. The day was tougher for the State of Vermont which defended a statute preventing prescription drug data from being used to market to doctors without their permission.” The court decision, expected in the next month or so, will further clarify the constitutional protection the Supremes offer to corporate commercial speech.
The Risks to Public Health from Partnerships with Corporations
Corporations often promote the importance of their role in partnerships with government, multi-lateral organizations, not-for-profit health organizations, community groups, professional organizations, and academia in preventing disease, promoting health, protecting the environment, and research.1 Some corporations set up special units within the corporation to further those goals and hire prominent public health and medical experts to direct those corporate programs.2,3
MOU between Alliance for a Healthier Generation and several beverage manufacturers
Effects of Partnerships
The reliance of independent nonprofit organizations on corporate funds creates dependency and conflict of interests, co-opts the nonprofit into becoming an ally,4 and results in undue corporate influence in decision-making processes and control of health standards. Corporations also bring influence on multi-lateral organizations. The sugar industry brought U.S. political pressure on the World Health Organization to lower proposed standards for dietary intake of sugar.5
The deleterious influence of corporate funding on research has been documented in a variety of specialties. Reviews of journal research articles have shown that corporate funded research leads to compromises in integrity6 and produces results favorable to the corporate funder.7
Corporate support for, and partnerships with, professional organizations, such as the association of the American Academy of Family Practice and Coca-Cola, have been controversial.8,9 Because of potential conflict of interest arising from corporate funding of professional education, some medical groups have established guidelines regarding corporate funding of their education programs.10 While corporations are readily visible in the exhibit area of the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association,11 and corporations provide financial support to the organization in various ways, the Association has a policy regarding acceptance of advertisers, exhibitors, gifts and donations.12, 13 In 2006 APHA established a committee to evaluate proposed gifts and donations, including from corporations.
The director of the Contra Costa Department of Health Services, Dr. William Walker, announces that he is resigning his 25-year membership in American Academy of Family Practice after it signs a deal with Coca Cola.
A Major Reason Partnerships Are Attractive
One of the reasons that partnerships with corporations or receipt of corporate funding is attractive to community groups, government agencies, and academia is because of the decrease in government funding available for programs, regulation and research. The funding shortage is due in part to the failure of corporations to carry their share of societal obligations through paying their share of federal income taxes. A report from the U.S. Government’s General Accountability Office (GAO) showed that from 1998 to 2005, 34 percent of foreign corporations in the U.S. and 24 percent of U.S. corporations paid no taxes for at least half of those years.14 In 2002 and 2003, 82 out of 275 most consistently profitable Fortune 500 corporations collectively paid no federal tax at least one of those years; 275 paid less than half the 35% statutory rate.15 Recent news reports showed that in 2010 General Electric earned $5.1 billion in profits in the U.S. and Exxon Mobil had $37.3 billion in pretax income in the U.S. but neither paid any U.S. federal income taxes.16,17 The loss of that tax money does affect the government budget. For example, because in 2002 corporations did not pay the statutory tax rate, the US government treasury had $172 billion less with which to operate.18
Thus, because community organizations need funding to conduct programs for the communities they serve, academics need funding to conduct research, and health professions organizations need money to operate, they turn to corporations.
What Corporate Money Buys
Because of the power and influence corporations, industries, and industry alliances have through corporate financial contributions to election campaigns and through lobbying, legislators pass laws that protect corporations and cut budgets that eliminate or reduce health programs, including decreases in agency’s ability to monitor and regulate corporate practices. Corporate political influence also results in government appointment of corporate or industry representatives to government advisory panels, committees and boards that set health standards and policies, influence health program and research funding priorities, and evaluate medicines and devices. Through political influence corporations can prevent citizens from having the right to universal healthcare, environmental protections, education, a safe and healthful workplace, a living wage, and housing. Thus, because of corporate influence on government policies and budgets, society must rely on corporate funding and partnerships, local community and religious institutions, and philanthropic donations (much of which is of corporate origin) for basic needs and protections that are the responsibility of government.19
The Dangers of Partnerships
Any partnership with industry in which there is corporate remuneration or exchange, whether indirect or quid pro quo, creates a conflict of interest and compromises the independence of the beneficiary. The old adage against “biting the hand that feeds you” is relevant here. If an individual, community or organization receives money from a corporation, they can be co-opted, becoming an ally of positions the corporate funder takes and more willing to compromise their standards. They may also be less likely to oppose the more egregious health harming products, operations or policies of the corporation. Also, if community organizations become dependent on corporate funds for providing services, this leaves the entire community vulnerable to deprivation in health services and activities.
The purpose, goal and values of public health and that of the corporation are fundamentally different. Public health’s goal is to protect and promote the health of the public. Legally the corporation’s sole purpose can only be to make a profit to return to investors (despite corporate public relations rhetoric about social responsibility, which can only be in service to the bottom line). Partners cannot have fundamentally conflicting goals. Public health professionals cannot allow corporate enticements of partnerships and funding to blur or disguise the distinction between the differing purposes, goals and values. The corporation has neither the mandate, nor based on their absence from the constitution, the right or authority to make decisions on what is in the public interest.
Some organizations or individuals in public health and medicine who accept corporate financing, grants or gifts and who support partnerships with corporations may believe that the positions stated here are too dichotomous and antagonistic to current realities. However, history shows that movements to abolish slavery, gain the right of women to vote, and labor its right to organize were out of necessity uncompromising and militantly assertive. They did not fight for nor compromise for incremental or partial rights. Similarly, public health cannot bargain away health standards, monitoring, and accountability through incremental comprises with the corporation. We need real and fundamental reforms more than distracting incremental change. Reliance on corporate financing subjugates the independent voice of public health to commercial goals. We must take a stand to either work to strengthen the ability of the democratic processes and governments to better protect and promote health, or to work to increase corporate profits.
What Public Health and Community Organizations Can Do
Below are a few things that the field of public health and the not-for-profit world of community organizations should get the corporate world to agree to do before partnering with them or accepting funding from them.20 Implementation of these would help prevent conflict of interest and co-optation, and help ensure that government and private-public partnerships are not dominated by corporate influence.
1. Provide independent public health professionals and community representatives: a) access to corporate records, facilities, workers, research reports, health promotion budgets, and communications to conduct independent audits of the corporation’s health promotion, environmental, worker health and safety programs and human rights activities, and b) the right to immediately provide an independent written report to the public.
2. Fund independently developed health promotion publicity campaigns in amounts equivalent to the corporation’s advertising budget.
3. Keep all corporate health promotion and health education programs and activities free of corporate logos, the corporation’s name, products, symbols, figures, etc.
4. Not make any contributions to election campaigns to political parties, political action committees, independent campaign advocacy organizations or lobbyists, or on ballot referenda or amendments.
5. No corporate officials accept employment or appointment to government regulatory agencies, boards or committees that have authority for any part of their industry.
6. Pay the full statutory federal corporate tax rate.
7. Submit all products and their contents to independent testing for safety, healthfulness, and efficacy prior to marketing to the public.
In order to avoid conflict of interest and conduct truly independent, objective research, researchers need to work out written agreements with corporate funders about such matters as integrity of the research methods and analyses, compensation, timing and freedom of publication and presentations, and access to data before accepting corporate funding.21
References
1. Yach D, Feldman ZA, Bradley DG, Khan M. Can the food industry help tackle the growing global burden of undernutrition.Amer J of Public Health. 2010; doi/10.2105/AJPH.2009.174359
2. Norum, KR. Invited commentary to Yach editorial: PepsiCo recruitment strategy challenged. Public Health Nutrition. 2008; 11(2):112-113. DOI: 10.1017/S1368980007001632.
3. Byrnes, N. Pepsi Brings In the Health Police. January 14, 2010. Bloomberg Business Week. Accessed April 22, 2010.
4. Jacobson, MF. Lifting the veil of secrecy from industry funding of nonprofit health organizations. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health.2005; 11:349–355.
5. Bosely S. Political context of the World Health Organization: Sugar industry threatens to scupper the WHO. International Journal of Health Services 2003; 33(4): 831-833.
6. Tereskerz P, Hamric AB, Uterbock TM, Moreno JD. Prevalence of industry support and its relationship to research integrity. Accountability in Research. 2009; 16:78–105.
7. Lexchin J, Bero LA, Djulbegovic B, Clark O. Pharmaceutical industry sponsorship and research outcome and quality: systematic review. BMJ. 2003; 326:1160-1170.
8. Howard B. Professional medical organizations and commercial conflicts of interest: Ethical issues. Annals of Family Medicine. 2010; 8(4):354-358Top of Form.
9. Heim, L. Identifying and addressing potential conflict of interest: A professional medical organization’s code of ethics.Annals of Family Medicine. 2010; 8:359-361.
10. Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education. ACCME Standards for commercial support. Standards to ensure the independence of CME activities. 2007. Accessed April 25, 2011.
11. American Public Health Association. Final Program: Social Justice: A public health imperative. Exhibitor Booth Description. 138th Annual Meeting and Exposition November 6-10, 2010, Denver, CO. Pp 213-234.
12. Executive Board of the American Public Health Association. APHA policy for advertisers and exhibitors. January 2001. Accessed April 25, 2011.
13. Executive Board of the American Public Health Association. Guidelines for Gifts and Donations. American Public Health Association. 2001. Accessed April 25, 2011.
14. General Accountability Office. Comparison of the Reported Tax Liabilities of Foreign- and U.S.-Controlled Corporations, 1998-2005. July 2008; GAO-08-957. April 29, 2010.
15. Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. State corporate tax disclosure: Why it is needed. Policy Brief # 16. 2005. Accessed April 29, 2010.
16. Kocieniewski D. G.E.’s strategies let it avoid taxes altogether. New York Times. March 24, 2011. Accessed March 27, 2011.
17. Hoffman D. The top 7 corporate tax evaders. April 15 2010. Accessed February 25, 2011.
18. Komisar, L. Corporate tax evasion via offshore subsidiaries: A primer. Pacific News Service. April 9, 2004. Accessed April 27, 2010.
19. Gostin, LO. Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; 2000.
20. Wiist, WH. The corporate play book, health, and democracy: The snack food and beverage industry’s tactics in context. In Stuckler, D., & Siegel, K. Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease. UK: Oxford University Press; In Press.
21. Rowe S, Alexander N, Clydesdale F, Applebaum R, Atkinson S, Black B, Dwyer J, Hentges E, Higley N, Lefevre M, Lupton J, Miller S, Tancredi D, Weaver C, Woteki C, Wedral E. for the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) North America Working Group on Guiding Principles. Funding food science and nutrition research: financial conflicts and scientific integrity. Nutrition Reviews. 2009; 67(5):264–272.
Image credits:
1. Alliance for a Healthier Generation
2. Contra Costa Health Services
3. Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education
Mexico Considers Suing US Gun Makers to Halt Flow of Arms to Drug Trade
Last month CBS News reported that the Mexican government had hired an American law firm to explore filing civil charges against U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors over the flood of guns crossing the border into Mexico.
The National Sports Shooting Foundation, the trade association of gun makers, responded “we are disappointed that [Mexican President Felipe Calderon] would seek to hold law-abiding American companies responsible for crime in Mexico”. The NSSF noted that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, signed into law in 2005 by then President George W. Bush, protects gun makers from most liability for their products, making the success of any Mexican legal action uncertain.
Corporations and Health Watch 