Although the Obama administration has rolled back some of its proposals on the marketing of food to children, Ad Age reports that “manufacturers and advertisers say the federal government should scrap the plan entirely. At a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Wednesday, opponents of the marketing guidelines said they would cost the nation thousands of jobs and do little to fight obesity among children. ‘These are unprecedented and extreme proposals,’ testified Dan Jaffe, exec VP for government relations for the Association of National Advertisers. ‘These guidelines need to be formally withdrawn and taken back to the drawing board.’”
Do Regulations Kill Jobs?
According to House Speaker John Boehner, “job-killing regulations… are strangling employers all over the country” and contributing to the nation’s persistently high rates of unemployment. Last month, President Obama reinforced this theme by asking the Environmental Protection Agency to back off more stringent ozone regulations, citing the “importance of reducing regulatory burdens” during trying economic times. In recent weeks, several independent observers have examined this charge in order to assess the evidence on the impact of health, environmental and other regulations on employment.
Writing for Pro Publica, Marian Wang interviewed several economists who have studied the issue and concluded that “the evidence so far is that the overall effect on jobs is minimal. Regulations do destroy some jobs, but they also create others. Mostly, they just shift jobs within the economy.” Wang also cites a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics survey that shows that in the first half of 2011, employers attribute regulations as the cause of 0.2 to 0.3 percent of jobs lost as part of mass layoffs, a negligible fraction.
Supporters of regulations that protect public health offer two responses to the charges of job loss. First, they say, many regulations simply shift jobs from one sector to another, sometimes actually increasing employment opportunities. For example, the requirement to clean up contaminated brownfields, abandoned toxic waste dumps in populated areas, created thousands of new jobs in environmental remediation. Thus, any assessment of the impact of regulations on employment must examine both jobs lost and jobs created. To look at only one side of the equation is like saying in the early twentieth century the auto industry killed jobs by putting carriage drivers out of business.
The second defense of regulations is that they achieve social benefits – improved health, for example, or reductions in premature mortality, that outweigh their costs. In a recent op-ed column describing opponents of public health regulation, veteran consumer activists Ralph Nader noted, “These same Republicans get in their cars with their children and put on their seat belts. Out of sight are the air bags ready to deprive them of their freedom to go through the windshield in a crash.” Nader went on to observe, “The jobs these regulations may be ‘killing’ are those that would have swelled the funeral industry, or some jobs in the healthcare and disability-care industry. On the other hand, by not being injured, workers stay on the job and do not drain the workers’ compensation funds or hamper the operations of their employers.”
Earlier this month, Public Citizen issued a report about five regulations that spurred innovation and a higher quality of economic growth. The report noted that ‘when federal agencies implement rules for efficiency, worker safety, or public health and welfare, companies need to reformulate their products and services to comply. And so begins good ol’ American competition. To comply with federal standards, companies need to invest in research and development, which often yields to new products and systems that both solve public policy problems and, often, boost business. The result? A brighter idea emerges.
The bottom line: an honest assessment of regulations requires a comprehensive look at their benefits and costs. As Roger Noll, co-director of the Program on Regulatory Policy at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, told Wang, “The issue in regulation always should be whether it delivers benefits that justify the cost. The effect of regulation on jobs has nothing to do with the mess we’re in. The current rhetoric about regulation killing jobs is nothing more than not letting a good crisis go to waste.”
Source: Public Citizen
What Role for Public Health in Occupy Wall Street?
National media attention on the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York City and around the country provides new opportunities for public health professionals, researchers and activists concerned about the impact of corporations on health. In this post, I summarize some recent commentary on the health dimensions of Occupy Wall Street and invite Corporations and Health Watch readers to contribute suggestions for linking the demonstrations to public health concerns.
In a statement entitled “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City,” the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street proclaimed:
“As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known…
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization. They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions… They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity… They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit… They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.”
Writing for the Center for Public Integrity’s IWatchNews, Wendell Potter observed:
“The lobbyists for U.S. health insurers surely have to be feeling a little uneasy knowing that thousands of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators who have been marching and protesting in Washington as well as New York and other cities might target them in the days ahead. After all, the headquarters of the insurers’ biggest lobbying and PR group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., is just blocks away from Freedom Plaza, where the demonstrators have set up camp, and problems with health insurers appear to be near the top of the list of protesters’ concerns.
Health Care for America Now, an umbrella advocacy group that played a key role in the health care reform debate, last week analyzed the 546 comments that had been posted by then on “ We are the 99 percent” Tumblr site. It found that 262 of the comments mention such problems as getting denials for doctor-ordered care from their insurance companies and having to forego treatment because of hefty out-of-pocket costs.”
Writing for the Mother Nature Network, Russell McLendon points out the environmental concerns of OWS:
“Fresh off their own nonviolent stand outside the White House — where they spent two weeks protesting the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline — the re-energized U.S. environmental movement has now found an even bigger, broader stage. And like most factions of Occupy Wall Street, it seems perfectly happy to share that stage with other interests.
For too long, Wall Street has been occupying the offices of our government, and the cloakrooms of our legislatures,’ wrote Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, in an email to supporters before the march. ‘They’ve been a constant presence, rewarded not with pepper spray in the face but with yet more loopholes and tax breaks and subsidies and contracts. You could even say Wall Street’s been occupying our atmosphere, since any attempt to do anything about climate change always run afoul of the biggest corporations on the planet. So it’s a damned good thing the tables have turned.’”
These commentaries show some of the ways that Occupy Wall Street has raised the issue of the impact of corporate practices on wellbeing. We invite CHW readers to suggest additional connections between the demonstrations and public health concerns, to analyze OWS activities from a public health perspective or to share relevant observations on the demonstrations from others. Send responses to info@corporationsandhealth.org.
Image Credit:
Leica 1A via Flickr.
We’re Not Buying It: New video on deceptive food marketing to children
In a new two minute video, Prevention Institute highlights the deceptive ways that food and beverage companies target kids with unhealthy foods. Food industry and media companies are lobbying to get Congress to stop the Interagency Working Group on Foods Marketed to Children (IWG) from finalizing voluntary, science-based nutrition guidelines that provide a model for companies that market to kids. You can share the video and petition on Facebook by copying and pasting this link into your status update: http://www.preventioninstitute.org/notbuyingit, or share the video on your own site through this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab9zbqHJ_p4.
FTC To Loko: Add resealable caps to discourage binge drinking
In its latest strike against fruity and boozy Four Loko, reports Ad Age, the Federal Trade Commission is forcing the malt beverage maker to add a new warning label on its super-sized version while adding resealable caps to discourage binge drinking. FTC will also require Loko to give the drink’s equivalency to regular beers on the package label.
FDA Seeks to Improve Retail Food Safety
Following several high profile food poisoning outbreaks, the US Food and Drug Administration has unveiled a new plan for improving food safety practices at commercial establishments, reports Food Safety News. The Retail Food Safety Action Plan calls for stronger state and local food safety requirements for grocery stores, restaurants, schools, and other food vending facilities, as well improvements in the oversight of food facilities by public health agencies. The plan also calls on state and local health departments to strengthen food safety requirements and ensure better training programs for personnel.
Bud Light Hires Pitbull to Target Cuban-American Beer Drinkers
Hoping to add some bite to its multicultural advertising, Bud Light has hired hip hop star Pitbull in a new TV campaign aimed at tapping into the Cuban-American’s rising stardom and crossover appeal, reports AdvertisingAge. Alcohol companies are competing fiercely for Hispanic dollars. Pitbull “epitomizes everything that our brand is about. He’s fun. He’s outgoing. He’s social,” Mike Sundet, senior director for Bud Light, told Ad Age.
Judge Weighs Constitutionality of Graphic Labels on Cigarette Packages
The five major tobacco companies sent their lawyers to federal court in Washington last week to argue in support of their effort to obtain an injunction that would bar the US Food and Drug Administration from enforcing regulations requiring graphic new warning labels. The tobacco companies claim that the new requirements violate the First Amendment by forcing the companies to take up the government’s anti-smoking campaign.
Indonesia Challenges Global Tobacco Reform
With 240 million people and weak public health regulations, Indonesia is of the world’s last countries refusing to sign the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the World Health Organization’s treaty to limit the tobacco industry’s influence by encouraging nations to restrict tobacco advertising and raise excise taxes. In a major investigation on the role of the tobacco industry in Indonesia, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists documents the role of the tobacco industry in Indonesian politics.
Corporations Undermine UN Effort to Reduce Chronic Diseases
Cross-posted from Common Dreams.
While much of the world’s attention focused on the UN debate about Palestinian statehood last week, the General Assembly took up another issue that garnered less media scrutiny, even though its outcome could prevent millions of premature deaths in coming decades. On September 19th and 20th, 30 heads of State and 100 other senior ministers and experts met at the UN General Assembly’s first high level summit on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to discuss how to reduce the burdens of such conditions as diabetes, heart disease, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases.
These conditions cause about 35 million deaths a year, of which 80 percent occur in low and middle-income countries and one quarter among people younger than 60 years. By 2030, NCDs will cause more than three quarters of all deaths in the world. While the UN has previously recognized HIV, tuberculosis and malaria as threats to economic development and global security, this was the first time the UN acknowledged that non-communicable disease also jeopardized economic well-being.
The NCD summit was an important step in shaping a coordinated global response to these conditions but unlike infectious diseases, where few organizations profit directly from their spread, powerful industries depend on encouraging consumption of products like tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy food and automobiles that have fueled epidemics of non-communicable diseases. Thus, the summit previewed the great public health battle of this period. On one side are the public health professionals, advocacy organizations and local officials who have to cope with the rising tide of NCDs fueled by the growing consumption of tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food. On the other are industries built on the model of profiting by promoting unhealthy lifestyles and products.
Participants in the UN meeting recognized this conflict. In his remarks, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon observed that “there is a well-documented and shameful history of certain players in industry who ignored the science – sometimes even their own research – and put public health at risk to protect their own profits.” He went on to note that “there are many, many more industry giants which acted responsibly,” sounding a conference theme that disease promotion was the work of a few bad apples.
In the lead up to the conference, industry lobbyists worked hard to persuade wealthy nations to look out for business interests. According to the Washington Post, a confidential summary of the negotiations on the summit’s political declaration showed that US negotiators threatened to scuttle the document if it even raised the issue of using trade agreements as a vehicle for protecting public health. The Canadian Medical Association charged that Canada had been instrumental in removing a passage that would have limited the impact that food and alcohol corporations have on health policies and in failing to address trade-related barriers to global health.
A main issue dividing meeting participants was whether the 2001 Doha Declaration, which allowed low-income countries to compel drug companies to allow generic drugs for use in their own countries, could be applied to drugs for NCDs. The Doha amendment refers to HIV, TB, malaria “and other epidemics,” language that led one activist to observe that this agreement “was not meant to be so narrowly interpreted… it was intended to address all public health crises.” Jay Taylor, a vice-president of The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, explained the opposing position to the Post, “Compulsory licenses are intended to be used to address health emergencies and to provide urgent access in situations where there is little or no availability of existing effective medicines. This situation is clearly not the case in the context of the growing burden of noncommunicable diseases.” Tellingly, the summit’s final statement does not use the word epidemic, even though the number of diabetes cases, for example, increased from 300 million worldwide in 2009 to 366 million in 2010.
A second debate was whether international standards of corporate conduct should be voluntary or mandatory. Business favored voluntary codes, arguing companies were better equipped to implement standards and that mandates threaten jobs and economic growth. Public health activists pointed to the scientific evidence that voluntary standards rarely lead to meaningful changes in corporate behavior.Two other key issues led to conflict. The first was who should participate in the meeting. Industry insisted that “all sectors” of society should be represented while public health advocates argued industry participation was inappropriate. One hundred forty three non-governmental organizations from around the world created the Conflicts of Interest Coalition and urged that the NCD summit and other forums for policy development should be “free from industry involvement” because of the “obvious conflicts of interest associated with food, alcohol, beverage and other industries that are primarily answerable to shareholders.”
At the end of the meeting, many participants expressed disappointment. While the summit acknowledged “the fundamental conflict of interest between the tobacco industry and public health,” no such statement was made about the food, alcohol, automobile or pharmaceutical industries. Unlike tobacco, these industries also produce products that contribute to health, but in recent decades they have increasingly followed the playbook of the tobacco industry: making campaign contributions and lobbying to oppose public health regulation, aggressively promoting unhealthy products in low and middle income nations when wealthy countries regulate their practices, and distorting scientific evidence that implicates their products in global epidemics.
In the final analysis, industry succeeded at the summit in avoiding direct challenges to its role in promoting disease and national governments refused to set specific targets for NCD reduction, a prerequisite for coordinated global action. These outcomes make it hard to be optimistic that the meeting opened a path for more forceful action to take on the world’s leading killers.
On the other hand, the UN meeting did show the potential for a global movement to challenge corporate influences on health. A few world leaders spoke out forcefully. Torphong Chaiyasan, the Deputy Minister of Health for Thailand, told the meeting that “many large companies contributed to the non-communicable disease problem and continue to try to weaken public health policy.” The organizations that signed on to the Conflict of Interests Statement represent tens of thousands of health activists from around the world. “I am very, very optimistic about the creation of a social movement. The evidence is clear that it can be done,” George Alleyne, a physician who once headed the Pan American Health Organization, told the Washington Post earlier this week. Today corporations have more resources and power to shape health than this emerging movement, but the future health of the world depends on changing that equation.
Image Credits:
1. ComSec via Flickr.
2. ComSec via Flickr.
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