At the recent ePharma Summit in NYC, Charlotte McKines, Global Vice President, Marketing Communications and Channel Strategies, Merck & Co, spoke on “How Digital is Transforming the Pharmaceutical Marketing Model.” She noted, “Customers are increasingly looking for information using digital to get information so you see… most of our customers, physicians, use the web to gather information, but more importantly they use the non-pharmaceutical sites to get information about our products. They really don’t have a lot of trust and value right now in pharmaceutical sites. So we really struggle… to really become a primary trusted source. We have got to get there because finding the right place and being in the right destination for our customers really does give us the competitive advantage.”
SNAP: the Other Corporate Subsidy in the Farm Bill?
Cross posted from Appetite for Profit.
This week Congress begins hearings on the 2012 farm bill, the massive piece of legislation that gets updated about every five years and undergirds America’s entire food supply, but that few mortals can even understand. As nutrition professor Marion Nestle recently lamented, “no one has any idea what the farm bill is about. It’s too complicated for any mind to grasp.”
Nestle also called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) “the huge elephant in the farm bill” because its enormity trumps everything else. This entitlement program (the budget expands as more people enroll) provides modest monthly benefits for food purchases and represents a critical lifeline to many people in need.
In recent years, public health and food policy experts have sounded the alarm about how farm bill programs supporting all the wrong crops (think corn and soy) contribute to America’s epidemic of obesity and diet-related diseases. This is certainly true, along with a host of other economic drivers.
But are we focusing too much on the commodity title and not enough on the nutrition title when it comes to how the farm bill truly subsidizes Big Food? After all, even if the commodity title was completely eliminated, most economists believe it would have minimal impact on healthy food consumption.
SNAP spending dwarfs all farm bill programs
According to federal data, food assistance made up 68 percent of the farm bill budget in 2008 and SNAP accounts for almost that entire amount. (Other food assistance programs such as school meals are funded through other legislation.) In contrast, the next three largest farm bill programs were commodity support (12 percent), crop insurance (10 percent), and conservation (9 percent).
Looking at the dollars and cents, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that in fiscal year 2011, taxpayers spent $71.8 billion on SNAP benefits, compared to $64.7 billion in 2010. The total number of enrolled participants was 44.7 million last year compared to 40.3 million in 2010. Obviously these increasing numbers reflect our struggling economy, and SNAP benefits are a crucial component of addressing hunger in the U.S. Sadly, estimates are that about 30 percent of Americans who qualify for SNAP aren’t even enrolled.
So how exactly was close to $72 billion of the taxpayers’ money spent last year? Good question. Unfortunately, we have little clue. We have somewhat better information on commodity payments. See for example, the Environmental Working Group’s handy Farm Subsidy Database. (But EWG also warns of an increasing lack of transparency in farm bill commodity and insurance subsidies.)
Other than broad categories of retailers (e.g., large versus small) we don’t know where SNAP dollars go because USDA does not require retailers to report specific purchase data; rather, all the agency wants to know is the total amount to be reimbursed.
Bill would require retailers to report SNAP receipts
In December, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the FRESH Act (Fresh Regional Eating for Schools and Health), which (in addition to other provisions) aims to “increase accountability” in the SNAP program by requiring corporations receiving more than $1 million a year “to provide taxpayers with an itemized receipt for their share” of the SNAP program.
Sounds pretty reasonable, since any retailer large enough to rake in over a million bucks a year from SNAP is almost certain to have the technology necessary to send an electronic report to USDA on how that money was spent.
Such information is a crucial factor in the debate over restricting benefits, which is once again heating up in states around the country, with Florida being the most recent example. (However, that measure appears to be dead for now.)
In 2010, New York City applied to USDA for a waiver to conduct a 2-year pilot test to exclude unhealthy beverages such as soda from the SNAP-eligible food list. (The feds denied the request, citing complexity.) An unfortunate divide exists between public health experts targeting “sugar-sweetened beverages” as enemy number one and anti-hunger advocates, who vociferously oppose any SNAP restrictions.
But conveniently left on the sidelines of this very public debate, and laughing all the way to the bank, has been the food and beverage industry. Of course, they made their voices heard loud and clear through their usual behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts.
Senator Wyden’s bill should spark a conversation that’s long overdue: exactly how much does Big Soda and Big Food benefit from SNAP funding? Some of my colleagues are concerned that such data could backfire by giving more fodder to certain politicians who will use any excuse to cut benefits for the poor.
Yes, the data is likely to show that SNAP participants’ purchase habits parallel those of other Americans, who are also consuming too many empty calories. But that’s not a valid reason to fear collecting the information. The “personal responsibility” argument – that individuals alone are responsible for how they eat regardless of their environment and shear lack of affordable healthy options – will continue with or without Uncle Sam picking up the tab.
But how will we ever improve and strengthen SNAP if we cannot accurately evaluate it? How else will we truly integrate public health into our food assistance programs? Why should Walmart—probably the single largest beneficiary of SNAP—have access to information that the USDA doesn’t?
Now more than ever we need to ensure the nation’s largest food assistance program is truly helping those in need, instead of just lining the pockets of Corporate America.
Image Credit:
Thomas Hawk via Flickr.
Regulation Works
A Research Letter in last week’s Journal of the American Medical Association reported that blood levels of trans fatty acids, a substance with known adverse metabolic effects, fell 56 percent between 2000 and 2009. The study compared trans fat levels in adult white men in samples from the NHANES studies, a periodic assessment of the heath and well-being of a representative sample of the US population. In 2003, the US Food and Drug Administration required that food companies declare the trans fatty acid content on the nutrition label of foods and dietary supplements. In addition, some community and state health departments have required restaurants to limit TFAs and reductions have been shown in supermarket and restaurant products.
Glock: The Book
A recent review of the book “Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun,” by Paul Barrett in the Washington Post described the book as “a story of innovation, manufacturing, marketing, money, lawsuits, power, influence, politics and a little sex.” Barrett “explains how the company was able to remain profitable despite allegations of corruption, tax avoidance and malfeasance. A seasoned reporter and now assistant managing editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, Barrett originally covered the more disturbing allegations of Glock’s financial and managerial irregularities in a series of articles for the magazine.
Corporate Practices, Human Rights and Health: New Principles, New Questions
As more people accept the notion that governments have an obligation to follow certain universal standards of human rights, a new question that has emerged is what are the responsibilities of corporations to follow human rights principles? In just the last year, several new developments have put this question on the agenda in various settings.
In June 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council approved the document Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, developed over the last six years.
Under the slogan “Protect, Respect and Remedy”, the document describes three obligations:
“The first is the State duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business enterprises, through appropriate policies, regulation, and adjudication. The second is the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, which means that business enterprises should act with due diligence to avoid infringing on the rights of others and to address adverse impacts with which they are involved. The third is the need for greater access by victims to effective remedy, both judicial and non-judicial.”
In October 2011, the European Commission issued a new corporate social responsibility policy for 2011-2014, stating that the Commission “expects all European enterprises to meet the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, as defined in the UN Guiding Principles,” and “invites EU Member States to develop by the end of 2012 national plans for the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles.”
And in Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has announced that its Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights will this year focus on business and human rights. One of the Commissioners has said:
“The target for this thematic study is an ASEAN Guideline that is fully compliant with the UN frameworks, especially the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework for Business and Human Rights and the Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights which were endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council.”
These recent initiatives build on the United Nations Global Compact which started more than a decade ago after then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on business leaders to embrace shared values as a way to promote stability in the new era of globalization. So far, more than 6,800 companies in 140 countries have joined the compact by sending letters from their CEOs and agreeing to report annually on their activities. The box below lists the 10 principles of the Global Compact. “A lot of global challenges require active engagement of business,” says Matthias Stausberg, spokesman for the United National Global Compact, an initiative for companies that voluntarily commit to aligning operations with 10 principles covering human rights, the environment, labor and corruption.
What does this new attention on corporate responsibility for following human rights principles have to do with health and the impact of business practices on population health? So far, the existing codes have focused more on labor and environmental practices of corporations than on health consequences of the products that corporations produce and market. Labor and environmental practices certainly have a major impact on health but the current focus does not provide an obvious entry point for addressing the world’s most important causes of premature mortality and preventable deaths: rising rates of non-communicable disease and injuries. The concerns raised about the production and marketing practices of the food, tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical industries at the UN High Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases in New York City last September pointed to the importance of these factors in causing global epidemics.
Here are some questions that public health and human rights professionals, researchers and advocates, government officials and business leaders will need to consider if a human rights approach can be applied to reducing harmful business practices.
- Do businesses have a right to produce and market products that have been demonstrated to harm public health?
- Do businesses have an obligation to disclose to the public what they know about the harmful effects of products they produce?
- Do governments have an obligation to protect their citizens from business practices that harm health?
- Does providing misleading or untruthful information about the health consequences of a product violate human rights?
- What standards are used to determine whether a business has provided adequate judicial or non-judicial remedies to consumers whose health has been harmed by their products?
For the public health community, the notion that corporations have a responsibility to follow basic human rights principles has the potential to suggest new approaches to better balancing the rights of governments and corporations. But for human rights to move from an aspirational statement to a practical strategy, human rights and public health practitioners will need to forge new tools to bring this perspective into the policy, legal and political arenas.
Image Credits:
1. Whiskeygonebad via Flickr.
Should Sugar be Regulated like Alcohol?
In a commentary in Nature, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis make the case that excessive consumption of sugar causes many of the same health problems as alcohol, suggesting that regulation should seek to put similar limits on sugar’s toxic consequences. Charles Baker, the chief scientific officer for the Sugar Association disagrees. “When the full body of science is evaluated during a major review, experts continue to conclude that sugar intake is not a causative factor in any disease, including obesity,” he writes.
Can California Change US Cars Forever? New Zero-Emissions Rules Take Aim
Last month, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed stringent new standards intended to boost the production and sale of electric and hybrid vehicles here and nationwide, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The new rules mandate that 15 percent of new cars sold in the state by 2025 run with zero or near-zero emissions. The result would be some 1.4 million electric, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen cars on California roads within 13 years. Today, there are 10,000 such vehicles in the state. Perhaps surprisingly, automakers appear to be on board.
Super Bowl Ads: Good for Business, Bad for Health
On Sunday, more than 110 million Americans watched the Super Bowl, some for the football but more than half, according to one survey, as much to watch the ads as the game. This year 36 corporations paid about $3.5 million for each 30 second ad that they hoped would drum up business on American advertisers’ biggest day. Total ad revenue is expected to reach $245 million, the highest ever. To entertain themselves during the game, Americans will spend an estimated $11 billion on snacks, game-related merchandise and apparel.
This orgy of commercialism provides a lens through which to examine the health of this country and the power of corporations to shape health behavior and health policy in ways that are good for business but bad for the well-being of the American people.
Previews of the ads shown in Sunday’s games reveal some common themes. One analyst noted that based on these ads, it is clear Americans are desperately seeking their inner child, love animals (especially dogs and chimps) and will buy anything if it is linked to sex. The Mad Men who created these ads have settled on appeals to the lowest common denominator, using their neuromarketing brain scans to decide that the precognitive parts of the brain are more susceptible to persuasion than the frontal lobes that might process real information about the product.
Who advertises on Super Bowl? A business newsletter found that six of eight top advertisers in the last 10 years are Anheuser-Busch, now part of the Belgian-Brazilian alcohol conglomerate InBev (spending $246.million on Super Bowl ads), PepsiCo ($209.7 million), General Motors ($135.2 million), Yum! Brands, a fast food corporation, ($67.8 million), Coca Cola ($61 million) and Ford ($36.3 million). Overall, advertisers have spent $2.5 billion on Super Bowl ads in the last 10 years ; the top four categories are autos, film, food — including snacks and fast food — and beverages, both alcohol and soda.
According to public health researchers, poor diet and physical inactivity were the cause of 365,000 deaths in the United States in 2000, alcohol consumption 85,000 deaths, motor vehicle crashes 43,000 and sexual behavior 20,000. A look at the Super Bowl ads shows they overwhelmingly encourage the behaviors and lifestyles that contribute to these deaths: eating too much food high in fat, sugar and salt; youth drinking and drinking as a way of asserting sexuality and adulthood; driving that emphasizes speed and macho rather than safety; and sex that emphasizes body parts rather than intimacy.
When the ads do mention health, it is often in ways designed to ensure irrelevancy. A Super Bowl ad promoting Doritos (8 gms fat, 200 mgs sodium and 140 calories for each 11 Flamas chips) ends with the tagline “Eat Responsibly”– somewhat like thinking that telling a person with major depression to “Have a nice day” is good therapy.
In a Coca Cola ad, a polar bear urges its companion to drink a bottle of Coke (65 gms of high fructose corn syrup and 57 mg of caffeine) to allay its fears about the Super Bowl. The closing message: “Coca Cola: Open Happiness.” Like some evil Mary Poppins, the polar bears encourage viewers to swallow with 15 spoonfuls of sugar the message that consuming products that contribute to obesity, diabetes and other diet-related health conditions is the road to happiness.
In 1976 and again in 2001, an increasingly pro-corporate US Supreme Court reversed its prior opinions and granted limited First Amendment protection to commercial speech, deciding that advertisements further the societal interest in the free flow of information to allow consumers to make more informed decisions. Viewers of Sunday’s Super Bowl ads would have a hard time finding much information about the products that were advertised. And while the health care industry may benefit from more cases of heart disease, auto accidents and alcohol-related liver disease, it’s tough to imagine the societal interest realized by promoting the chronic diseases and injuries that are overwhelming our health care system and burdening families.
To add insult to injury, corporations can deduct the full cost of the advertisements aired on the Super Bowl – and in all other media — as tax-deductible business expenses. Thus tax payers forego the tax revenue that would come were these expenses not deductible, then pay the heath care costs associated with the consumption these ads encourage.
In today’s economy, it seems churlish, even unpatriotic, to criticize the corporate celebration of consumption represented by Super Bowl ads. But in a country that spends more on health care than any other nation and with poorer results, isn’t it fair to ask whether patriotic businesses would choose to relentlessly promote products associated with premature death and needless suffering? And whether patriotic elected officials would allow food, tobacco, alcohol and auto corporations to become the dominant health educator for the nation, then expect tax payers to foot the bills for the consequences of their messages?
Image Credits:
1. Coca-Cola
World Economic Forum Report Calls for “More with Less” by Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency
A report released at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, highlights “the leading role the private sector can play in scaling sustainable consumption. Business can catalyse scale through transforming interactions with citizens; rethinking business models, value chains and operations; and playing an active role in shaping the policies and investments that define the rules of the game. However, this transformation will not be achieved by the usual group of leading companies or countries: delivery of more resource-efficient growth needs to happen in every business and every country through the aggregation of impacts and a commitment to action.”
GM Looks to Recharge Chevy Volt’s Image With New Campaign
AdAge reports that General Motors has launched a newspaper and TV marketing campaign to reinforce the Volt’s image as a safe, innovative car. In November, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began an investigation after two incidents in which the Volt’s battery pack either caught fire or emitted sparks following intense crash testing. The NHTSA closed the investigation last week. Congressional Republicans criticized the government’s response, accusing NHTSA of a conflict of interest because the government still owns 26.5 percent of the company’s shares. The GOP released its report at a hearing titled: “Volt Vehicle Fire: What Did NHTSA Know and When Did They Know It?”
Corporations and Health Watch 