Read about Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption and Protecting Public Health, a new book by Nicholas Freudenberg

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Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health

By Nicholas Freudenberg published by Oxford University Press in February 2014 with new paperback edition with an afterword by the author released in March 2016.

“In his new book, “Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health” Freudenberg’s case is that the food industry is but one example of the threat to public health posed by what he calls “the corporate consumption complex,” an alliance of corporations, banks, marketers and others that essentially promote and benefit from unhealthy lifestyles. It sounds creepy; it is creepy. .. Freudenberg details how six industries — food and beverage, tobacco, alcohol, firearms, pharmaceutical and automotive — use pretty much the same playbook to defend the sales of health-threatening products. This playbook, largely developed by the tobacco industry, disregards human health and poses greater threats to our existence than any communicable disease you can name.” – Mark Bittman, contributing op-ed writer, New York Times

“A superb, magnificently written, courageous, and compelling exposé of how corporations enrich themselves at the expense of public health—and how we can organize to counter corporate power and achieve a healthier and more sustainable food environment. This should be required reading for anyone who cares about promoting health, protecting democratic institutions, and achieving a more equitable and just society.” –Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New York University; author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health.

In this century, it is estimated that one billion people will die prematurely because of tobacco use, according to “Lethal but Legal,” a smart new book about corporate irresponsibility by Nicholas Freudenberg, a professor of public health at City University of New York. Put that one billion in perspective. That’s more than five times as many people as died in all wars of the 20th century. Freudenberg notes that smoking grew in part because of deliberate manipulation of the manipulation of the public by tobacco companies. For example, tobacco executives realized that they could expand their profits if more women smoked, so they engineered a feminist-sounding campaign to get females hooked: “Women! Light another torch of freedom! Fight another sex taboo!”– Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times

“A reservoir of constructive indignation that can arouse all Americans who adhere to basic human values.” ―Ralph Nader

Nader Recommends New Book Lethal but Legal to Provoke Conversation in 2014

“Freudenberg is optimistic that, despite the enormity of the challenges facing us as we confront the power of the multinational companies, a tipping point will be reached when the many thousands of pro-health organisations around the world come together and create the political power—and therefore the political will—necessary for success. Lethal But Legal buoyed my optimism.” Robert Beaglehole, The Lancet

“A real eye-opener. Freudenberg lays out the labyrinth of connections between corporate misbehavior and the health of the world, then gives a roadmap to fix it. I love this book.” –Cheryl G. Healton, Director, NYU Global Institute of Public Health; former President and CEO, American Legacy Foundation

 “After documenting how multinational corporations manipulate us into hyperconsumption, this book goes on to identify the strategies we can, together, use to liberate ourselves.” –Richard Wilkinson, Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology, University of Nottingham

Watch Marion Nestle, Professor  in Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU and Laura Berry, Executive Director of  the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility discuss Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption and Protecting Public Health on CSPAN Books.

Lethal but Legal examines how corporations have shaped ― and plagued― public health over the last century, first in industrialized countries and now in developing regions. It is both a current history of corporations’ antagonism towards health and an analysis of the emerging movements that are challenging these industries’ dangerous practices. The reforms outlined here aim to strike a healthier balance between large companies’ right to make a profit and governments’ responsibility to protect their populations. While other books have addressed parts of this story, Lethal but Legal is the first to connect the dots between unhealthy products, business-dominated politics, and the growing burdens of disease and health care costs. By identifying the common causes of all these problems, then situating them in the context of other health challenges that societies have overcome in the past, this book provides readers with the insights they need to take practical and effective action to restore consumers’ right to health. Nicholas Freudenberg, DrPH, is Distinguished Professor of Public Health at the City University of New York School of Public Health and founder and director of Corporations and Health Watch, an international network of activists and researchers that monitors the business practices of the alcohol, automobile, firearms, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and tobacco industries. 
Lethal but Legal is available from:

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For more information, contact us.

Read book excerpts and op-eds by Nick Freudenberg

Top lessons from 50 years of fighting the tobacco industry, The Guardian, January 21, 2014

CVS stores will no longer sell cigarettes. It’s the health over profit revolution, The Guardian, February 5, 2014.

McDomination: How corporations conquered America and ruined our health, Salon, February 23, 2014

How Washington dooms millions of Americans to premature death, The Daily Beast, February 25, 2014

How corporate America exports disease to the rest of the world, Salon, March 2, 2014.

Insatiable: Sizing Up the Corporate-Consumption Complex, The American Interest, March 3, 2014

Why Taming Corporation Promotion of Dangerous Consumer Products is Vital to Improving Public Health Scholars Strategy Network, March 2014

Profit Above Safety, Slate, April 1, 2014

GM’s $35 Million Fine Is A Downpayment On Fixing America’s Regulation, Talking Point Memo, May 20, 2014

 

Super-Sized Lies: Why You Can’t Trust Promises by McDonald’s

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch
Image from Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Image from Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Cross-posted from EatDrinkPolitics and Corporate Accountability International

 

The headlines certainly sounded impressive: “McDonald’s to Scrap Soda From ‘Happy Meal’ Ads” and “McDonald’s Ditches Soda In Happy Meal Menus.”  In a grandiose announcement from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation (an offshoot of the Clinton Foundation), McDonald’s proved once again that it’s not only the world’s fast-food leader, but also the king of spin. This time, Bill Clinton himself was on hand for the nifty photo op with McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson at the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting. Despite the seal of approval from the (mostly vegan) former president, I’ve learned to approach these sorts promises from McDonald’s with skepticism.

 

And sure enough, when I started asking questions about the pledge on Twitter, fellow food activist Casey Hinds helped me locate this document, which seems to be a draft version of a “memorandum of understanding” between McDonald’s and the Clinton Foundation. I say draft because it contains internal notes, and is no longer available on the Alliance for Healthier Generation website where Hinds found it on September 26. (Oddly, the link to the document is still available, but download it fast.) This line jumped out at me right away:

 

McDonald’s may list soft drinks as offering on Happy Meal section of menu boards.

 

That sure didn’t sound like what was in the press release, or what headlines seemed to indicate, or what advocates were crowing over. The press release said McDonald’s would “promote and market only water, milk, and juice as the beverage in Happy Meals on menu boards and in-store and external advertising.” In fairness, the New York Times and other outlets – like NPR and the Associated Press – did report that “customers would still be able to buy soda,” but the damage was done.

 

So what gives? The explanation is pretty simple. McDonald’s cannot make truly meaningful changes to its menu, because to do so could risk losing money. Certainly not at a time when the company is already worried about losing the coveted Millennials market, and when its kid-friendly theme may be losing steam.

 

Another lost detail was exactly how any promise like this coming from McDonald’s HQ plays out in the 34,000 restaurant outlets around the world or even “just” the 14,000 outlets in the U.S. According to the company, more than 80 percent of outlets worldwide are owned by independent franchise owners, who are increasingly at odds with the mother ship over financial constraints.

 

Earlier this year, a sampling of owners characterized their relationship with McDonald’s corporate on a scale between 0 and 5 as 1.93, with frequent complaints about high costs and low profit margins. Franchise owners cited McDonald’s “aggressive stance on discounting and promoting its Dollar Menu” as a main source of dissatisfaction. And McDonald’s refusal to pay its workers a living wage has exposed more ugly unrest between outlet owners and HQ.

 

This all made me especially suspicious of McDonald’s promise with Clinton to “provide customers a choice of a side salad, fruit or vegetable as a substitute for French fries in value meals.” But the fine print says only that McDonald’s will encourage franchises “to make this choice available to customers at no additional charge” and that the company “anticipates” that the majority will do so. Most important is this huge caveat:

 

Our franchisees are independent business men and women who ultimately determine pricing for all menu items at their restaurants based on many factors, including local market conditions.

 

Translation: McDonald’s cannot control pricing at the local level.

 

This is a very big deal since low prices are obviously a major reason fast food is so popular. Given the economic challenges franchises are already under, why would owners replace fries with salads for free, when vegetables are more labor-intensive, require freshness, and are just plain messy? They won’t, because they can’t.

 

But really, none of this should have been a surprise. More than any other food corporation, McDonald’s has a long history of deceiving the public with empty promises, often resulting in legal action. Here are a few select highlights:

 

  • In 1986, the Texas attorney general’s office had to threaten to sue McDonald’s to get the company to provide clear nutrition information.
  • In 1987, McDonald’s was again investigated by the Texas AG’s office for a series of ads that promoted its food as nutritious; the ads were deemed “deceptive and illegal” and “falsely and deceptively represented that McDonald’s
    food was nutritious.”
  • In 2002, McDonald’s was sued over the use of beef tallow in its cooking oil, which the company had claimed was 100 percent vegetable oil. The case was settled for $10 million and an apology.
  • Also in 2002, McDonald’s made a public promise to remove trans-fat from its cooking oil within six months, but failed to follow through and didn’t bother to tell anyone. A fraud lawsuit was settled for $8.5 million.
  • In 2006, McDonald’s “discovered” that its fries contain one-third more deadly trans-fat than previously thought, and didn’t offer an explanation.
  • In 2011, after losing a heated policy fight in San Francisco to place reasonable nutrition standards on children’s meals sold with toys, instead of complying with the law, McDonald’s found a clever workaround.

 

Also in 2011, McDonald’s claimed to be offering a healthier Happy Meal but nutrition experts Marion Nestle and Andy Bellatti raised serious questions. Then earlier this year, McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson lied over and over at the company’s shareholder meeting, claiming for example, that the company doesn’t market to children, and provides “high-quality food.”

 

That’s why it was so shocking to see advocacy groups who should have known better applauding this latest public relations stunt and getting quoted in major newspapers such as USA Today and the Los Angeles Times.

 

And what happened at the Clinton Foundation? Didn’t anybody there bother to read the fine print? Or did they just go along with the charade? Global food corporations like McDonald’s have a long history of using reputable institutions to give public relation stunts like these greater legitimacy.

 

These hollow agreements can have far-reaching implications for public health, and organizations like the Clinton Foundation should be more wary. As healthy food advocate Nancy Huehnergarth recently noted (even as she acknowledged initially being fooled herself), “McDonald’s has already gotten the headlines and press coverage it desired for this pledge, whether it follows through or not.”

 

And that was the whole idea.

 

Athlete Endorsements in Food Marketing

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

A new article in Pediatrics reports that 100 athletes endorsed 512 brands in 2010.  Food and beverages constituted 23.8% of these endorsements. Seventy-nine percent of the 62 food products in these athlete-endorsed advertisements were energy-dense and nutrient poor; and 96.4 % of the 46 advertised beverages had 100% of their calories from added sugar.  Peyton Manning and LeBron James had the most endorsements for energy-dense, nutrient poor products. 

A Blind Spot on Rearview Cameras

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

On average, backover car accidents kill some 230 people a year, mostly children and mostly in accidents in which a parent or another relative is driving, writes the New York Times in an Editorial.  Another 18,000 people are injured annually in backover accidents. Yet the Obama administration has balked at carrying out a law that requires rearview technology in new cars…. One reason the industry doesn’t want mandatory rearview cameras is that it makes more money selling them as options. The added cost to a car is small — $160 to $200, according to a government estimate from 2010 — and that is surely too high now, given the technology’s declining cost.

Gun Safety and Public Health Policy Recommendations for a More Secure America

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch
Photo credit: National Physician’s Alliance and Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
Photo credit: National Physician’s Alliance and Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence

In August 2013, the National Physician’s Alliance and Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence released a report on gun safety and public health. The report suggested ways to hold the gun industry accountable:

 

Regulating Gun Dealerships

Firearms initially enter the consumer market through gun dealers, who are the critical link between manufacturers or importers of firearms, and the general public. Research has found that the practices of gun dealers can significantly affect whether guns sold by those dealers end up in the hands of criminals.64 Law enforcement oversight of these businesses is therefore crucial.

 

Federal law requires a person or company to obtain a federal firearms dealer license to engage in the business of dealing in firearms. More than 60,000 individuals and companies are currently federally licensed firearms dealers and pawnbro­kers. Dealers’ access to large numbers of firearms presents a serious risk to public safety if they fail to monitor their inventory. Between 2004 and 2011, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), discovered nearly 175,000 firearms missing from dealer inventories during compliance inspections.66 Although most gun dealers comply with the law, ATF has found that scofflaw gun dealers represent a major source of illegally trafficked firearms.

 

Despite these risks, federal oversight of dealers is minimal. ATF, which is charged with enforcing federal gun laws, is prohibited from conducting more than one unannounced inspection of each dealer per year; the burden of proof for prosecution and revocation are extremely high and the prescribed penalties for violations are low; and ATF has historically been underfunded and understaffed. A 2013 report by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General found that 58% of dealers had not been inspected within the past five years due, in part, to a lack of resources.

 

Because federal oversight of gun dealers is weak, state and local governments can play an important role in regulating gun dealers. About half of the states impose some regulations on firearms dealers, although only a handful of states comprehen­sively monitor these businesses. The states with the strongest laws require gun dealerships and ammunition sellers to obtain a state license, utilize security systems, conduct background checks on employees, maintain records of sales, submit to regular inspections, and fulfill other requirements.

 

10.2 -2

A 2009 study found that cities in states that comprehen­sively regulate retail firearms dealers and cities where these businesses undergo regular compliance inspections have significantly lower levels of gun trafficking than other cities. As stated by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, state and local governments should enact their own dealer licensing requirements because they can respond to specific community concerns, and because state and local oversight of licensees helps reduce the number of corrupt dealers.

 

The Gun Industry’s Immunity from Lawsuits

 

Tort liability plays an important role in injury prevention. In circumstances where legislators have been unwilling to enact regulations to improve safety, dangerous products and careless industry practices are normally held in check by the possibility of civil litigation that enables injured individuals to recover monetarily. As noted above, policies designed to hold gun sellers accountable can curtail the diversion of guns to criminals. Litigation can do the same thing. The firearms industry, however, has recently obtained unprecedented immunity from this long-standing system of accountability.

 

A series of lawsuits in the 1990s held certain members of the firearms industry liable for particularly reckless practices. As a result, the industry began to push legislation in statehouses that limited this avenue of relief. Then, in 2005, after intense lob­bying from the gun industry, Congress enacted and President Bush signed a law that gives gun manufacturers and sellers unprecedented nationwide immunity from lawsuits. This law, known as the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,” requires the dismissal of almost any lawsuit brought against a member of the gun industry for irresponsible or negligent behavior in the business of making or selling guns. This law enables gun makers and sellers to market their products in ways that are intended to appeal to criminals and other ineligible purchasers without facing any legal consequences. It also allows the industry to make available increasingly dangerous weapons and to fail to monitor inventory, even in the face of evidence that thousands of guns are being stolen from dealerships and end up in the hands of criminals.

 

In 2012, the gun industry made an estimated $11.7 billion in sales and $993 million in profits. There is no good reason for the firearms industry to receive special treatment in the hands of the law or to be immune from the same kind of civil lawsuits that are used to hold business practices accountable for the injuries they cause.

 

 The report’s  conclusions and recommendations were:

 

Medical professionals have always played a central role in solving public health crises. As witnesses to the traumatic nature of gunshot injuries, doctors and other health care providers can movingly testify to the physical severity of gun violence—and just as importantly, they can see this epidemic of violence through the lens of public health. Just as the medical community has historically championed substantive injury prevention policies in other areas, it is time again for health care providers to demand concrete actions to reduce gun violence. Examples include:

 

  • Extending gun purchase and possession prohibitions to people known to be at a high risk of committing firearms-related or violent crimes, such as violent misdemeanants, alcohol abusers, and serious juvenile offenders;
  • Banning assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines;
  • Establishing of a universal system of background checks for anyone buying a firearm or ammunition;
  • Regulating guns and gun safety devices as consumer products by requiring the inclusion of product safety features, such as loading indicators and magazine disconnect mechanisms, and testing these products for safety prior to sale;
  • Encouraging the development of new technologies that will increase gun safety, such as personalized guns;
  • Removing all gag rules that apply to clinical encounters, because patients and providers must be free to discuss any issue, including gun safety;
  • Building an evidence-based approach to gun violence prevention, which includes restoration of robust funding and training for epidemiological research in this area (e.g. through the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and gathering data that tracks gun-related deaths and injuries, safety interventions, and the impact of measures to reduce the incidence of gun violence over time;
  • Requiring law enforcement oversight of gun dealerships and ammunition sellers, who should be held accountable for negligence in the marketing or sale of these products; and 
  • Ensuring that violence prevention including gun safety is a core part of the training and continuing professional education of doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, teachers, and other professionals.

 

The full report, including references, is available here.

 

Sugar Rush: Land Rights and the Supply Chains of the Biggest Food and Beverage Companies

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A new report by Oxfam shows how one crop – sugar– has been driving large-scale land acquisitions and land conflicts at the expense of small-scale food producers and their families. Major food and beverage companies rarely own land, but they depend on it for the crops they buy, including sugar. These companies, says Oxfam, must urgently recognize this problem, and take steps to ensure that land rights violations and conflicts are not part of their supply chains.

FDA and Johnson & Johnson Fail to Act on Acetaminophen Risks

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During the last decade, more than 1,500 Americans died after accidentally taking too much of a drug renowned for its safety: acetaminophen, one of the nation’s most popular pain relievers. Acetaminophen – the active ingredient in Tylenol, produced by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a unit of Johnson & Johnson – is considered safe when taken at recommended doses. Yet a new investigation by Pro Publica shows that federal regulators have delayed or failed to adopt measures designed to reduce deaths and injuries from acetaminophen overdose, which the agency calls a “persistent, important public health problem.” The FDA has repeatedly deferred decisions on consumer protections even when they were endorsed by the agency’s own advisory committees, records show.

Bribery Scandal Dents Big Pharma Sales in China, GSK Hardest Hit

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A crackdown on corruption in China’s pharmaceutical sector, reports Reuters, has hurt sales at international and local firms, with many doctors at Chinese hospitals refusing to see drug representatives for fear of being caught up in the widening scandal. Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the group at the center of the furor, has suffered the most. Industry insiders expect its China drug sales growth to slow sharply or even reverse in the third quarter after a 14 percent year-on-year rise in the last three months.

China’s Plan to Curb Air Pollution Sets Limits on Coal Use and Vehicles

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The New York Times reports that the Chinese government announced an ambitious plan to curb air pollution across the nation, including setting some limits on burning coal and taking high-polluting vehicles off the roads to ensure a drop in the concentration of particulate matter in cities. The government is responding to criticism over the abysmal condition of the country’s air, soil and water.

Michelle Obama Encourages Collaborative Food Marketing Effort to Empower Parents

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First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks during a “Let’s Move!” food marketing convening in the State Dining Room of the White House, Sept. 18, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Amanda Lucidon)

Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama spoke to executives from the food, advertising, and media industries; advocates; parent leaders; government agency representatives; and researchers about the power of marketing to influence kids’ food choices and the need for using this power to influence healthier food options for our nation’s children. The goal of the White House meeting, sponsored by Let’s Move, the national campaign to reduce child obesity,  was “to begin a constructive, collaborative dialogue and strategize about ways to shift the marketing of unhealthy products to healthier products and decrease the marketing of unhealthy products to kids.”

 

Obama said, “I’m here today with one simple request — and that is to do even more and move even faster to market responsibly to our kids.”   She told food executives “you guys know better than anyone how to get kids excited. You’ve done it before, and we need you to do it again. And fortunately you have everything it takes to get this done because through the magic of marketing and advertising, all of you, more than anyone else, have the power to shape our kids’ tastes and desires.”  You can see the full speech here.

 

Michelle Obama’s talk appropriately focused attention on the role of food marketing to children.  Her pleas to begin a “lively and constructive dialogue” on food marketing to children should be informed by several recent scientific reports on the subject.  Health advocates and researchers can contribute to this dialogue by ensuring their findings are part of the discussion. 

 

In Obesity Reviews, Sara Galbraith-Emami and Tim Lobstein published their systematic review of the data on the impact of codes on food marketing to children.  They compiled data  on the levels of exposure of children to the advertising of less healthy foods since the introduction of such statutory and voluntary codes.  They reported that results showed “a sharp division in the evidence, with scientific, peer-reviewed papers showing that high levels of such advertising of less healthy foods continue to be found in several different countries worldwide. In contrast, the evidence provided in industry-sponsored reports indicates a remarkably high adherence to voluntary codes.”  They concluded that “adherence to voluntary codes may not sufficiently reduce the advertising of foods which undermine healthy diets, or reduce children’s exposure to this advertising.”

 

Last June, an international group of researchers issued the Bellagio Declaration on Countering Big Food’s Undermining of Healthy Food Policies.  The Conference concluded that “the actions of Big Food have been the most significant force in blocking public health efforts to promote healthy food policies and reduce obesity in many parts of the world.”  Sixteen scientific reports on child obesity in various region and on assessments of food marketing  presented at the conference provided the evidence to support this conclusion.

 

Finally, a recent article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine analyzed the self-regulatory Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI), the code of the US food and beverage industry.  They concluded the initiative  is “limited in scope and effectiveness: expenditures increased for many noncovered marketing techniques (i.e., product placement, movie/video, cross-promotion licenses, athletic sponsorship, celebrity fees, events, philanthropy, and other); only two restaurants are members of CFBAI, and nonpremium restaurant marketing expenditures were up by $86.0 million (22.5% inflation-adjusted increase); industry pledges do not protect children aged >11 years, and some marketing appears to have shifted to older children; and, nutritional content remains poor. Continued monitoring of and improvements to food marketing to youth are needed.”

 

These and other reports suggest that the weight of the evidence is that the food industry does not play a constructive role in developing healthier food marketing policies.  As public officials in both the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere call for “constructive dialogues” with the food industry, those seeking to promote evidence-based policies will need to challenge those who promote strategies that appear to be ineffective. 

 

This recent evidence suggests three important lessons for the type of collaborative program Michelle Obama was advocating.  First, before negotiating any partnerships or collaboration, health advocates need to define clear terms of engagement with the food industry and explicitly define potential conflicts of interest   Second, any food industry commitments need to be evaluated by an independent group with adequate resources for assessment. Finally, partnerships are not a substitute for regulation or community mobilization to pressure industry.  Allowing food companies or their trade association to substitute the former for the latter undermines government authority to protect public health.