The United States finds itself in the middle of an unprecedented combination of crises: a global pandemic, economic crisis, and unprecedented civic responses to structural racism. While public sector responses to these crises have faced much justified criticism, the commercial determinants of these crises have not been sufficiently examined. In a commentary in The Milbank Quarterly, Maani et al. examine the nature of the contributions of such actors to the conditions that underpin these crises in the United States through their market and nonmarket activities. On the basis of their analysis, the authors make recommendations on the role of governance and civil society in relation to such commercial actors in a post-COVID-19 world.
Redressing the Corporate Cultivation of Consumption: Releasing the Weapons of the Structurally Weak
Clearing forest for palm oil cultivation in Indonesia. Credit: Rainforest Rescue
Sharon Friel explores in the International Journal of Health Policy and Management how to transform the corporate food system that makes highly processed, packaged and palatable unhealthy food and beverages into a healthier and more sustainable food system.
Continue reading Redressing the Corporate Cultivation of Consumption: Releasing the Weapons of the Structurally WeakHealth Care, Overconsumption and Uneconomic Growth: A Conceptual Framework
Writing in Social Science and Medicine, Martin Hensher and colleagues describe how over-consumption of health and health are can generate social costs higher than their economic benefits.
Continue reading Health Care, Overconsumption and Uneconomic Growth: A Conceptual Framework188 Experts call on UN Human Rights Commission and WHO to develop guidelines on proper roles for market forces in healthy diets and sustainable food systems
In a letter in BMJ signed by 188 food and health experts from 38 countries called on the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, and the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, to initiate an inclusive process to develop guidelines on human rights, healthy diets and sustainable food systems. The letter notes, “As we approach the midpoint in the UN Decade on Nutrition, the status quo is untenable and bold actions are needed.
Continue reading 188 Experts call on UN Human Rights Commission and WHO to develop guidelines on proper roles for market forces in healthy diets and sustainable food systemsCountering the commercial determinants of health: strategic challenges for public health
A special issue of the Australian journal Public Health Research and Practice edited by Becky Freeman and Colin Sindall considers the ‘commercial determinants of health’ defined as the practices of corporations which produce and market unhealthy commodities such as tobacco, alcohol, soft drinks and processed food. The limited regulatory control of these industries has contributed to their role in driving the growing global epidemic of noncommunicable disease. The papers in this issue help to further illuminate how the behaviour of these companies serves to undermine advances in chronic disease prevention.
Civil society action against transnational corporations: implications for health promotion
Transnational corporations (TNCs) shape population health both positively and negatively through their national and international social, political and economic power and influence; and are a vital commercial determinant of health. In an articlein Health Promotion International, Julia Anaf and colleagues discuss the unequal power relations existing between TNCs that promote their own financial interests, and activists and advocates who support population and environmental health by challenging corporate power.
David Sanders: Activist, Teacher, Scholar and Public Health Practitioner
David Sanders 1945-2019
Professor David Sanders , an activist, scholar, colleague, mentor, role model and friend to health activists around the world passed away in Wales on 30th August after a heart attack. David was a founding member of the People’s Health Movement in 2000 and the co-chair of PHM for the past six years. A pediatrician by qualification, David was very much interested in the issues of public health. He went on to head the School of Public Health at University of Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa from its inception in 1993 till 2009.
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JOIN TO RECLAIM PEOPLES RIGHTS OVER INVESTORS AND CORPORATE PROFITS AND IMPUNITY
Neoliberal globalization has opened the doors for the savage exploitation of the world by the big economic powers. Megaprojects, agribusiness and militarization, among other processes, express a patriarchal, neoliberal and racist system that amounts to an assault on life as such. As a result, peoples’ rights have been systematically violated, the Earth and its resources destroyed, pillaged and contaminated, while corporations continue committing economic and ecological crimes with total impunity. They also throw us into an environmental and climate crisis of unknown proportions, for which they do not take responsibility.
Continue reading JOIN TO RECLAIM PEOPLES RIGHTS OVER INVESTORS AND CORPORATE PROFITS AND IMPUNITY
The Corporation, the Individual and Public Health
Since corporations are at the center of many of the world’s most serious public health crises, improvements in health require more focus on the harmful practices of global corporations. In an interview with Corporate Crime Reporter, a newsletter for those concerned about corporate crime, Corporations and Health Watch’s Nicholas Freudenberg explained the rationale for this approach to public health. In decent societies, Freudenberg said, healthy choices ought to be easy choices.
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USMCA (NAFTA 2.0): tightening the constraints on the right to regulate for public health
In late 2018 the United States, Canada, and Mexico signed a new trade agreement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Although not yet ratified, the agreement is widely seen as indicative of how the US will engage in future international trade negotiations.
