A new study in Journal of Health, Politics, Policy and Law shows how five leading drug companies violated industry-developed standards for ethical advertising in the United States. The authors demonstrate a consistent failure by companies that market erectile dysfunction drugs to comply with the industry’s guiding principles for ethical DTCA despite pledges of compliance by company leaders. They recommend policy responses to prevent deceptive practices, protect children from adult content, and promote genuine health care education.
Alcohol Concern Calls for Major Shakeup of Alcohol Advertising
In a new report called Stick to the Facts, Alcohol Concern, a United Kingdom charity working on alcohol issues, calls for a ban on alcohol advertising at music and sporting events in an effort to protect young people from such promotional messages. The report concludes that “advertising self-regulation is insufficient. Regulation needs to be independent of interested industries and given real teeth” in order to offer a “ framework of effective regulatory controls that balances commercial with public interest.”
Altria Enters Nicotine Delivery Market
The Daily News reports that, Altria Group, the nation’s No. 1 tobacco company and owner of Marlboro maker Philip Morris USA, on Tuesday became the latest major player to enter the fledgling but potentially lucrative electronic cigarette business. The Richmond, Va.-base company unveiled its new MarkTen e-cigarette brand at its annual investors day conference in New York City. Altria said it will begin distributing MarkTen in August through its Nu Mark subsidiary, which also sells Verve chewable nicotine discs.
WHO Director Condemns Business Influences on Health Promotion
In a speech last week at the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion, held in Helsinki, Finland, WHO Director Margaret Chan observed that “efforts to prevent non-communicable diseases go against the business interests of powerful economic operators…It is not just Big Tobacco anymore. Public health must also contend with Big Food, Big Soda, and Big Alcohol. All of these industries fear regulation, and protect themselves by using the same tactics.”
Food Industry Creates New Group to “Balance” Public Debate
More than 50 food and biotechnology trade groups including Monsanto have a new coalition called Alliance to Feed the Future. Coordinated by the International Food Information Council, the alliance was created to “balance the public dialogue” on modern agriculture and large-scale food production and technology. According to the group’s website, “there is insufficient focus in today’s public discussion regarding the benefits that our modern, efficient food system provides to consumers and society. This unbalanced public debate is negatively influencing public policy and consumers’ choices.”
Nutrition Labels on Alcohol? It’s the Company’s Choice
Alcohol beverages soon could have nutritional labels like those on food packaging, but only if the producers want to put them there. The Associated Press reports that the Treasury Department, which regulates alcohol, said last week that beer, wine and spirits companies can use labels that include serving size, servings per container, calories, carbohydrates, protein and fat per serving. Such package labels have never before been approved. The labels are voluntary, so it will be up to beverage companies to decide whether to use them on their products. The decision is a temporary, first step while the Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau continues to consider final rules on alcohol labels. Rules proposed in 2007 would have made labels mandatory, but the agency never made the rules final.
Gun Makers Saw No Role in Curbing Improper Sales
In a review of court documents from earlier lawsuits against the gun industry, The New York Times found that the industry’s leaders argued, often with detachment and defiance, that their companies bear little responsibility, beyond what the law requires, for monitoring the distributors and dealers who sell their guns to the public. The executives claimed not to know if their guns had ever been used in a crime. They eschewed voluntary measures to lessen the risk of them falling into the wrong hands. And they denied that common danger signs — like a single person buying many guns at once or numerous “crime guns” that are traced to the same dealer — necessarily meant anything at all.
WHO Calls for Total Ban on Tobacco Advertising
As May 31 World No Tobacco Day approaches, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a comprehensive ban on all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, saying that the tobacco companies’ ” aggressive marketing” has led to addiction killing at least 6 million people worldwide each year, reports the Xinhua News Agency. In a statement issued Thursday, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Dr. Shin Young-soo cited the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as saying governments around the world “must comprehensively ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.”
U.S. Firearms Trafficking to Guatemala and Mexico
A new report from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars examines the role that the trafficking of US weapons into Guatemala may play a role in the continuing violence and criminality in that Central American nation. The report reviews an analysis that the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) conducted of weapons from two Guatemalan military bunkers in 2009. One bunker contained firearms and the other explosives and military ordnance.
Court Rules Against Industry Efforts to Hide Health Effects of Styrene
Earth Justice, an environmental group, reports that the D.C. District Court dismissed the styrene industry’s challenge to the identification of styrene as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen,” ensuring that government can alert the American public to the potential dangers of styrene, a chemical used extensively in the manufacture of plastics, as well as boats, cars, bathtubs, and products made with rubber, such as tires and conveyer belts.
Corporations and Health Watch 