Nearly 60 percent of the scientists used as consultants by the European Food Safety Authority, or E.F.S.A., have direct or indirect ties to industries regulated by the agency, according to a report from the Corporate Europe Observatory, an advocacy group that criticizes corporate influence on public policy, reports the New York Times. Martin Pigeon, a researcher at the Corporate Europe Observatory, said the notion that there were no scientists free of industry entanglement was a fiction, noting that many already worked for the food safety agency. “It’s not true that such people don’t exist,” he said, “They do.”
Keeping Salmonella Out of Chicken
In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times writes that Sweden has virtually eliminated salmonella in store-bought chicken, even though poultry there is industrially produced, just like in the United States. And even in this country, a 2010 Consumers Union study found no salmonella in the organic store-brand chickens it tested. In other words, consumers shouldn’t have to accept salmonella-tainted chicken as just one of those unavoidable things.
Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public Cost of Low Wage Jobs in the Fast Food Sector
A new report by the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Labor Research and Education and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Urban
& Regional Planning describes the social and economic consequences of low wages for fast food workers. The executive summary and excerpts from the conclusion are below.
Executive Summary
Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of enrollments in America’s major public benefits programs are from working families. But many of them work in jobs that pay wages so low that their paychecks do not generate enough income to provide for life’s basic necessities. Low wages paid by employers in the fast-food industry create especially acute problems for the families of workers in this industry. Median pay for core front-line fast-food jobs is $8.69 an hour, with many jobs paying at or near the minimum wage.
Benefits are also scarce for front-line fast-food workers; an estimated 87 percent do not receive health benefits through their employer. The combination of low wages and benefits, often coupled with part-time employment, means that many of the families of fast-food workers must rely on taxpayer-funded safety net programs to make ends meet.
This report estimates the public cost of low-wage jobs in the fast-food industry. Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the other public benefits programs discussed in this report provide a vital support system for millions of Americans working in the United States’ service industries, including fast food. We analyze public program utilization by working families and estimate total average annual public benefit expenditures on the families of front-line fast-food workers for the years 2007–2011.1 For this analysis we focus on jobs held by core, front-line fast-food workers, defined as nonmanagerial workers who work at least 11 hours per week for 27 or more weeks per year.
Main Findings
More than half (52 percent) of the families of front-line fast-food workers are enrolled in one or more public programs, compared to 25 percent of the workforce as a whole. The cost of public assistance to families of workers in the fast-food industry is nearly $7 billion per year. At an average of $3.9 billion per year, spending on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance
Program (CHIP) accounts for more than half of these costs. Due to low earnings, fast-food workers’ families also receive an annual average of $1.04 billion in food stamp benefits and $1.91 billion in Earned Income Tax Credit payments.
People working in fast-food jobs are more likely to live in or near poverty. One in five families
with a member holding a fast-food job has an income below the poverty line, and 43 percent
have an income two times the federal poverty level or less. Even full-time hours are not enough to compensate for low wages. The families of more than half of the fast-food workers employed 40 or more hours per week are enrolled in public assistance programs.
Conclusions
Because pay is low and weekly work hours are limited, the families of more than half of the workers in the fast-food industry are unable to make ends meet without enrolling in public programs. These families are twice as likely as working families in general to require public aid. Our conservative measurements indicate this public assistance carries a minimum annual price tag of nearly $7 billion.
Low wages, benefits and work hours in the fast-food industry come at a public cost. For front-line fastfood workers and others whose jobs pay too little to provide for food, shelter, health care and other basic necessities, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Aid for Needy Families are indispensable programs. These programs provide a last line of defense between America’s growing low-income workforce and the want of basic necessities. The results of this report suggest these programs would be more effective if they were combined with measures to improve wages and health benefits among low-wage workers. Pay in the fast-food industry could be increased through a variety of means. Many fast-food workers earn close to the minimum wage and would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage or through targeted local laws to raise labor standards. Collective bargaining in the fast-food industry would increase wage and benefits standards in correspondence to the markets in specific geographic areas and the economics of particular market segments. Very few fast-food restaurants currently have collective bargaining agreements. However it is achieved, improving wages and health benefits in the industry would improve the living standards of low-income families while reducing the public cost of low-wage work.
Partnerships of Peril: Keeping Food, Alcohol and Beverage Industries Out of Global Health Governance
In a blog on PLOS Medicine, Heather Wipfli, from the University of Southern California, highlights the lack of consensus regarding the role of private industry in efforts to control the burden of non-communicable diseases. At the May meetings of the World Health Assembly, there was widespread discussion about the role of the private sector in NCD control. While WHO’s position on the tobacco industry is definitive, the definition and parameters of partnerships with other industries driving NCD epidemics are not, despite recent efforts to put safeguards in place. The lack of clarity on when and how to engage with the private sector and the increasing push for public-private partnerships to address global health challenges provides industries with vested interests in policy outcomes direct access to, and greater influence on, decision makers.
Read about Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption and Protecting Public Health, a new book by Nicholas Freudenberg
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:
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
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
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.
Sugar Rush: Land Rights and the Supply Chains of the Biggest Food and Beverage Companies
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.
Michelle Obama Encourages Collaborative Food Marketing Effort to Empower Parents
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.
Ask a Food Lawyer – Legal Tools to Stop Junk Food Marketing to Children
Cross-posted from Eat Drink Politics
Interview with Cara Wilking, senior staff attorney, Public Health Advocacy Institute
For this installment of Ask a Food Lawyer, we profile Cara Wilking, senior staff attorney with the Public Health Advocacy Institute, at Northeastern University School of Law. Her research focuses on the role of state consumer protection laws laws to limit unfair and deceptive food marketing to children. She also provides legal technical assistance to public health officials working to reduce sweetened beverage consumption and to increase access to drinking water. She is an adjunct professor at Northeastern University School of Law where she teaches the Public Health Legal Clinic.
Your role includes providing “legal technical assistance.” What does that mean?
Legal technical assistance is about providing expertise on legal and policy issues rather than providing legal advice to a client in the traditional sense. For example, I have worked with a local health department to think through different policy approaches that can be brought to bear on a tricky public health issue like reducing sugary drink consumption.
You recently co-authored a study finding that fast food television advertisements directed to children fail to meet the industry-funded Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) voluntary guidelines. How are the results significant?
This was an interdisciplinary research project spearheaded by researchers at Dartmouth University’s medical school. The study analyzed TV advertisements, frame-by-frame, on four children’s networks over the course of a year. I found the stark difference in messages between adult and child advertisements to be significant. CARU guidelines specify that if an ad has a premium message (i.e. a toy), that message must be clearly secondary to the actual product advertised (i.e. the food). What the research showed, however, was that while adult ads focused on food, taste, and price, child ads focused on pretty much everything but the food; movie tie-ins, toys, giveaways, street views of the restaurant and brand logos. Even the physical size of the food images on the screen in child ads was half the size of those in adult ads.
What this shows is that CARU’s current method of analysis to determine whether fast food companies are adhering to their self-regulatory standards is inadequate. From a legal perspective, when companies make public pledges to do one thing and then do not fulfill those promises, they start to drift into making false representations to the public about their business conduct. Nike, Facebook and Myspace have been taken to task under state consumer protection laws for saying one thing and doing another. State regulators should be taking a hard look at McDonald’s and Burger King in light of these findings.
What’s the next step, legally, in addressing fast food ads directed to children?
There are several steps, actually. I think the public health advocacy community needs to address specific fast food companies when it comes to advertising. Our study showed that McDonald’s and Burger King were responsible for 99% of all child fast food advertising on television. Efforts to curb fast food advertising on television should be directed at these two companies, because, as the dominant players, any changes they make would have ripple effects across the industry.
Also, cities and states should follow San Francisco’s lead to put local pressure on companies to improve the nutritional profile of the meals they serve that are accompanied by toys. If further research shows that toy premiums in ads are so persuasive to kids that they trump any other message in the ads, then premiums should not be advertised on television or via digital media so that companies can fulfill their self-regulatory promise to keep the advertising focus on food.
What role do you think lawyers play in supporting the good food movement?
This is an interesting question for me, because lawyers fall into two categories in my line of work. In public health departments, lawyers that advise officials on their scope of authority tend to be viewed as roadblocks to creative public health problem-solving. Lawyers tend to be risk-averse in most cases, which can be perceived as contrary to the goals of pushing the public health agenda forward. On the other hand, in my role as an advocate I get to brainstorm over thorny public health issues with public health practitioners and officials. As a lawyer, I can develop viable policy approaches, point out current laws that can be enforced more aggressively, unaddressed areas that need to be looked at creatively, and anticipate potential hurdles to potential solutions.
What’s most exciting to you about the good food movement?
I think there’s a growing movement against self-regulation, which is exciting. The public health community will continue to work with food companies, but if they continue to break their self-regulatory promises, there is only so much that people can tolerate. At a certain point, public promises that are not supported by actual changes in business activities begin to look a lot like misrepresentations. I think the good food movement needs to continue being dynamic and keep up the pressure on these companies to change how they do business.
What advice do you have for aspiring food and public health lawyers?
Everyone knows that the legal job market is very difficult right now. It’s even worse for people who are looking for work that matches their worldview, values, and passion. I think there’s a sense among new graduates that doing work not in line with one’s worldview isn’t useful, and I think that mindset needs to change. There is a mental shift that needs to take place to put the focus on strong legal skill-building, instead of subject matter expertise at the beginning of a legal career. So, my advice to a new lawyer is to surround yourself with experts in a field, at the top of their game, who are willing to mentor and train you in as many practical legal skills as possible. Then, you can leverage those skills into a field that you are passionate about.
For more information visit www.phaionline.org and follow @PHAIatNUSL. Many thanks to attorney Neil Thapar for assistance with this interview.
Corporations and Health Watch 