Last month, the Food and Drug Administration proposed new guidelines on dietary supplements, seeking stronger public oversight of these products. In addition, Democratic Senators Richard Durbin and Richard Blumenthal submitted the Dietary Supplement Labeling Act of 2011, a bill that proposed reclassification of food additives and dietary supplements to be managed by the Food and Drug Administration. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch blasted the proposed bill. “I don’t know why we should add more regulation when what we have on the books is working.”
In 2009, there were 2,733 corporate foundations with assets of more than $10 billion and an annual donation of $2.5 billion. In that year foundations made grants of more than $38 billion of which $15.41 billion was from family foundations.In 2009, the 50 largest contributors to health donated more than $3 billion through almost 5,000 grants. The extent of corporate-based foundation funding in public health raises two critical questions for public health policy, research, and programming. First, should corporate-based foundations be setting the public health research and program agenda? Second, is the corporate business model appropriate for guiding foundation public health grants and programs?
In this commentary, I seek to answer these questions to focus our attention on fundamental philosophicaland ethical issues about the causes of disease and injury and the approaches we take to addressing the root, social determinants of health.
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.” Thoreau, Walden
Foundation Funding
Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa meets with Bill Gates (to his right) and Carlos Slim(with blue tie), Mexico’s largest philanthropist, to discuss the launch of the Initiative for Health in Mesoamerica.
In 2009, there were 2,733 corporate foundations with assets of over $10 billion and an annual donation of $2.5 billion.[1] Foundations contribute substantial amounts of grant funding for a variety of purposes. In 2009 foundations made grants of over $38 billion of which $15.41 billion was from family foundations.[2] In 2009 the top 50 largest contributors to health donated more than $3 billion through almost 5,000 grants.[3]
Some foundations were established by funds coming primarily from an individual’s corporate ownership, income and stock, with much of the foundation’s continuing income derived from stock investments in corporations. For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, based on Gates’ earnings from Microsoft and from Warrant Buffett’s donations from his finance industry earnings [4] with $37.1 billion assets in trust endowment, has made more than $25 billion in grant commitments since its founding in 1994, including about $14.5 billion to global health.[5] Other billionaires have also pledged their wealth to charity.[6] Here such foundations with largely corporate-derived funding will be referred to as “corporate-based.”
Foundations and the For-profit Corporate Business Model
The modus operandi of foundations has become that of applying a corporate, business model [7] to their efforts to try to solve public health problems (see table below). The business model typically emphasizes technological solutions to achieve quantifiable, quick, short-term “results” and “outcomes.”[8] The basic business model approach to problems is that technology plus science plus the market brings results. This model appears to dominate much of the foundation philanthropy, particularly among the so-called “philanthrocapitalists”[9] the corporate officers and financiers who made much their fortunes during the period of extreme capitalism of the 1980s and 1990s. Many of those individuals are now setting up foundations to distribute their wealth, some taking a venture capitalist, social investment approach.[10,11] These individuals typically retain funding decisions for themselves. They personally choose which public health issues will have highest priority, which areas of research to support and which programs will receive funds, including setting up entirely new programs under their direction. Similar to the corporate management from which they came, corporate-based philanthrocapitalist foundations are not democratically managed institutions. The philanthrocapitalist decision-making process suggests a belief that they are better qualified than public health professionals, professional associations, national governments, or community organizations to determine the public health agenda. They may form partnerships with other foundations, or corporations, or multi-lateral or national organizations but the funding and agenda are generally distanced from the level of local citizens of the community. And the size of the foundation funding gives disproportionate weight to the foundation’s influence, that is, the wealthy individual whose foundation it is.
The philanthrocapitalists’ application of the corporate model is understandable considering that many philanthropists, and the foundation boards and officers have backgrounds in the business world rather than public health or community organizations. Their associates in their education, business and social affairs are often like-minded individuals with a similar socioeconomic status who share belief in the primacy of the market and the for-profit corporate business model.[21] They hold the belief in common that the for-profit business model is the best way to meet societal goals.
Basic to a critique of contemporary philanthrocapitalism is the question of why should we hold up the business model as the standard to emulate in operating foundations and as the guide for the programs and research they fund?[22] Critics note that most businesses are mediocre, and many fail so why should the mediocrity of the business sector model be applied to the social sector?[23] The world is in greater need of more civil society influence than more business influence.[23] Also, inherent in corporate legal purpose is maximization of profit, including by avoiding taxation and minimizing regulation,[24] which often results in externalizing costs onto society through a variety of mechanisms.[25]
A Gates Foundation giveaway.
Approaching global health problems from the perspective of the corporate business model may lead philanthrocapitalist foundations to similarly ignore or to denigrate social and environmental factors as irrelevant to the foundation’s business-analogous, results orientation. Doing so may be a thoughtless imposition of the business model rather than a conscious awareness of other approaches and the model’s effects. A fundamental critique is that “marketized philanthropy” simply places a screen between global capitalism and its effects.[26] By fostering the global market system Philanthropcapitalists’ foundation agenda and activities may be similar to earlier foundations whose goals and programs supported the U.S. foreign policy agenda.[27] They may, without conscious intention, cause adverse effects on societies and the natural environment.
Critical Issues
Some defenders of philanthrocapitalism argue that the philanthrocapitalist earned his or her wealth and is therefore entitled to spend it in whatever manner they choose. That argument assumes that the individual accumulated wealth on his or her own rather than acknowledging that wealth arises from a “community.” Most business success draws upon the knowledge and technology developed earlier by others and is built upon the hard work of corporate employees who have not shared equitably in corporate profits.[28] The argument also fails to consider that many corporate products, services or technology are based on government-sponsored basic or applied research funded with tax-payer dollars, discoveries which the corporation did not purchase nor repay the government for.
The corporation from which the philanthrocapitalist’s foundation wealth was derived may not have paid the federal statutory income tax rate, [29,30] or state taxes, [31,32] and the tax rate paid may have included deductions for expenses related to morally or legally questionable management practices.[33] In addition, the philanthropocapitalist’s foundation may have set up her or his compensation in ways that avoid or minimize personal income tax, even if benefits are small.[4] Thus they accumulate wealth to fund a foundation whereby they control distribution of that wealth through the foundation. The foundation also receives tax benefits on investment returns and grants.
Some foundations’ earnings are from investments in the stock of corporations whose operations, products or services are contrary to the programs and priorities that the foundation funds, or to public health in general.[34,35,36,37] However, while some foundations screen investments for social responsibility and others retain a separation between investments and programs, some philanthrocapitalists take the position that one stockholder cannot change corporate practices [38] or they are unwilling to try to do so.[39] There also may be potential conflict of interests through interlocking foundation board membership with boards of corporations related to foundation programs and/or whose products or practices could be adverse to health.[40]
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet discuss philanthropy.
With some exceptions, foundations do not consider or fund programs for redistribution, social justice, power and politics (factors that drive social transformation) through independent groups that would change the socioeconomic-political system.[43]Historically such systemic change has been achieved through social movements, involving politics, government, civil society, and often resisted by business. Examples include the civil-rights movement, the women’s movement, and the environmental movement. Philanthropy is not a neutral, objective, apolitical process. By their nature foundations can only take actions that reinforce the corporatist financial system from which they arise and by which they thrive.[43] The personal philosophy, beliefs, and political positions of philanthropocapitalists’ influence their preferences for which type of programs or research to fund. Some funding of political positions by corporate-based foundations have generated controversy because their wealth affords them power and influence disproportionate to that of average income citizens, including access to policy-makers and influence on democratic processes.[44,31] Such access and influence may have been gained despite the philanthropocapitalist or the funding corporation not carrying their full share of financial responsibility.Historically, critics of early foundations (e.g., Carnegie, Rockfeller) raised questions about the corporate source of the philanthropist’s funds (e.g., monopoly, workplace conditions, political corruption), inequitable sharing of corporate earnings with workers, and the undemocratic manner in which decisions were made about how foundation funds were distributed.[41,33] A common argument about earlier foundations was that a society would have been better served if corporate profits would have been shared rather than accumulated in a foundation to be distributed solely at the discretion of the corporation’s owner (foundation director). Similar questions could be raised about contemporary philanthrocapitalists’ foundations.[42]
The funding for foundations may have resulted from the philanthropocapitalist having paid a lower tax rate than is paid by less wealthy tax-payers. They may have also benefited from a lower long-term capital gains tax, and from their corporations that either paid a lower income tax rate than the federal statutory rate or paid no income tax, that paid minimum wage or opposed unionization of workers in order to lower wages and reduce benefit costs. Consequently some critics question why we would allow people who avoid paying taxes to be called “philanthropists” because they set up a foundation or contribute money to the arts, universities, religions, or health (the most common recipient of donations). Critics ask why would we allow billionaires to play a larger and larger role in determining social policy without any input from the rest of us? The influence of philanthropcapitalists’ money may have double influence on society and specifically, on public health. First, through the corporate source of foundation funds where the corporation may have “bought” political influence through contributions to candidates’ election campaigns, and through lobbying which may have led to laws or regulations with adverse effects on health. Secondarily through foundation donations, and foundation investments in corporations whose products or practices are detrimental to public health.
Public Health Analyses
In some professional fields the influence and power of corporate funding-based foundations have been analyzed and criticized. For example, some journalists have pointed out issues of conflict of interest of news media and corporate funded foundations.[45,46,47] Some educators have been critical of the extent of the influence some foundations have on the direction and operations of public education.[44,48,49] But it appears that few public health professionals [50,51,40] have examined corporate-based foundations, including whether funding is appropriately directed at needs.[52,53] While much of the news media coverage of the foundations is favorable, occasional investigative reports or unflattering stories are published.[34-36, 54] More critical commentary about foundations occurs on blogs (for example, techrights and Seattle Education.)
Bill Gates visits the Department for International Development to discuss malaria,vaccine development and the role of his foundation in international aid.
Questions for Public Health Professionals to ConsiderPerhaps the lack of criticism by public health professionals is due to conflict of interests arising from the ubiquitous and large amount of foundation funding3 for public health programs and researchers. Public health professionals and organizations may be fearful of loss of funding or denial of application for funds for criticizing the foundations. Because foundations are sometimes in partnership the reaction to such critical analysis could easily diffuse across foundations and put a critic at risk at multiple foundations. Some philanthrocapitalists are sensitive to criticism and find it incredulous that anyone would consider them anything other than heroes whose financial and technological innovations they believe represent the future.[21] They isolate themselves and become more closely associated with the other wealthy around the world than they are to average members of society and to their own country, and seem to scorn the middle class.[21]
While this essay is necessarily an incomplete examination of the issues about corporate-based, philanthropocapitalist foundations, it does suggestion some questions that public health professionals might consider about the influence of such funding, including:
1. Is the corporate business model an effective and ethical method for addressing the social determinants of health?
2. Should a few wealthy individuals, without professional public health training and isolated from society, be setting the public health agenda through an undemocratic decision-making process, and one which likely excludes the population for which funding and programs are intended?
3. What processes would public health recommend that foundations use to incorporate community input into the funding decision process?
4. When a corporation that is the source of a foundation’s funds makes a product, provides a service or engages in practices that are detrimental to the public’s health, should a foundation use their investment power to influence?
5. What can public health do to encourage societal engagement in social action advocacy that gives voice to those who suffer rather than engaging in a philanthropy based on consumption and profit?
6. Have public health professionals been co-opted by their reliance on corporate-based foundation funding so that they are reluctant to critically examine the role of foundations in setting public health priorities and research and program agendas? If so, what action should the profession take to remediate and prevent a lack of critical examination of foundations’ role in public health?
Because of the pervasiveness of the business model perspective, public health professionals also have an advocacy role related to corporate influence on public health policy such as working toward the elimination of corporations’ rights of personhood which enables them to contribute unlimited amounts of corporate funds to federal election campaign advertising.[55]
Needed Public Health Research
In addition to examining the policy and program influence of foundations, there are areas of corporate-based foundation philanthropy that public health researchers need to study, including:
1. Study the interlink between the boards of various foundations that fund public health; how those foundations are linked to corporate boards, and what conflicts of interest may result from those links,
2. Analyze the composition, links and backgrounds of networks of officers, board members and staff of foundations that fund public health and assess how representative of society those networks are, and how the background of those individuals may influence funding decision-making processes and biases in funding priorities,
3. Establish surveillance systems to conduct frequent periodic monitoring, tracking and public reporting of foundations’ contributions to public health, based on amounts funded and areas funded; effectiveness in creating infrastructure and long-term capacity building; emphasis given to innovation, radical change, social transformation, and structural change, i.e., social determinants,
4. Compare foundation investments, returns, administrative costs and taxes paid with the amounts and types of its funding for public health,
5. Analyze and periodically publically report on foundations’ decision-making process: public transparency and accountability; peer review of grant applications, and involvement and role of role of officers and board, other foundations, corporations, health professionals, and community representatives in the foundations’ public health funding allocation decisions.
6. Study the network connections of foundation officers to politicians, elected officials and officials of multi-lateral international organizations, and the foundations’ direct and indirect tactics to influence public health policy through those connections,
7. Examine the source of foundation funding, including origination funding and on-going investments, and determine the cost-benefits of funds contributed to public health compared to the externalized costs of the corporate products, services and practices from which foundation funds are derived, and the amount of taxes paid by the corporate sources and philanthropocapitalists.
Through the large number of grants and the amounts of funding awarded, philanthropic foundations have a large influence on the field of public health. The size of foundation assets and the choices of issues to which the foundations contribute enable them to wield significant influence on society, including politics, policy, and the education and public health agendas.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Unilateral decisions about funding priorities without the input of the community, lionizing individual wealth accumulation over community welfare, and dominance of the for-profit corporate business model, without regard for social or environmental consequences, are not consistent with the social justice foundations of public health.Within a market-based society the emphasis of philanthropocapitalists’ foundations on the for-profit, corporate business model perpetuates a market-based economic approach to solving public health problems. Public health professionals need to give greater consideration to the effects and ramifications of applying the business model to global public health problems. The business model-based philanthropy also warrants additional public health research. References
2. Center on Philanthropy Indiana University. (2010). Giving USA 2010: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2009. Bloomington, IN: Giving USA Foundation.
16. McCarthy, M. A conversation with the leaders of the Gates Foundation’s Global Health Program: Gordon Perkin and William Foege. Lancet 2000; 356: 153–55.
17. Birn, A-E. Gates’s grandest challenge: transcending technology as public health ideology. Lancet 2005; 366: 514–19.
24. Wiist, W.H. (2006). Public health and the anticorporate movement: Rationale and recommendations. American Journal of Public Health, 96 (8), 1370-1375.
25. Wiist, W.H. (2011, in press). The corporate play book, health, and democracy: The snack food and beverage industry’s tactics in context. In Stuckler, D., & Siegel, K. Sick Societies: Responding to the Global Challenge of Chronic Disease. UK: Oxford University Press.
27. Parmar, I. (2002). American foundations and the development of international knowledge networks. Global Networks, 2 (1) 13–30.
28. Anderson, S. ,Collins, C., Pizzigati, S., & Shih, K. (2010). CEO Pay and the Great Recession: 17th Annual Executive Compensation Pay. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Policy Analysis.
29. 1993-1994 Microsoft SEC 10-K Annual Report. Page 6. Accessed July 15, 2011.
30. 2008 Microsoft SEC 10-K Annual Report. Page 31. Accessed July 15, 2011.
40. Stuckler D., Basu S., & McKee, M. (2011) Global Health Philanthropy and Institutional Relationships: How Should Conflicts of Interest Be Addressed? PLoS Med 8(4): e1001020. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001020
41. Maich, S. (July 21, 2008). The Gospel According to Bill. Maclean’s121 (28):36-40.
42. Edwards, M. (2009). Gates, Google, and the Ending of Global Poverty: Philanthrocapitalism and International Development. Brown Journal of World Affairs, 15 (2):35-42.
49. Sinclair, M.N. & Vander Ark, T. (Spring 2010) Two Viewpoints. High School Journal. Pp. 94-97.
50. McCoy, D., Kembhavi, G., Patel, J., & Luintel, A. (2009). The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Grant-making programme for global health. The Lancet, 373(9675):1645-1653.
51. Sridhar, D. & Batniji , R. Misfinancing global health: a case for transparency in disbursements and decision making. Lancet 2008; 372: 1185–91
52. Black, B.E. Bhan,M.K., Chopra, M., Rudan, I., & Victora, C.G. Accelerating the health impact of the Gates Foundation Lancet, 373: 1584-1585. May 9, 2009.
53. Essner, D.E., & Bench, K.K. (2011). Does Global Health Funding Respond to Recipients’
Needs? Comparing Public and Private Donors’ Allocations in 2005–2007. World Development, 39(8): 1271-1280.
54. Wilhelm, I. (March 6, 2008). Gates Foundation Accused by U.N. Official of Creating Scientific ‘Cartel’. Chronicle of Philanthropy; 20(10): 12.
55. Wiist, W.H. (2011). “Citizens United, public health and democracy: The Supreme Court ruling, its implications, and proposed action” American Journal of Public Health, 101:1172-1197. DOI 10.2105/AJPH.2010.300043, March 18, 2011.
Florida’s Supreme Court declined to hear R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s appeal of a $28.3 million verdict in a case that the cigarette maker argued may affect thousands of so-called Engle tobacco claims in the state, reports Bloomberg News. The court turned aside the company’s bid for an appeal of the 2009 verdict in favor of Mathilde Martin, who claimed her husband, Benny Ray Martin, died from a smoking-related disease. The decision leaves in place a lower state appeals court ruling that affirmed the verdict.
The Montana Firearms Institute was launched last week, according to the Flathead Beacon, a weekly newspaper in the Flathead Valley of Montana.The Institute seeks tofoster communication between firearms businesses, help those small businesses compete for lucrative government contracts, and lobby at the legislative level for policies favorable to the industry. “It’s great that MFI wants to put Montana on the map as a friendly place for the gun industry to locate,” said Wayne La Pierre, the National Rifle Association’s Executive Vice President and CEO, who attended the launch.
In recent weeks, the food industry has responded forcefully to efforts by advocates and regulators to advance new policies to create healthier food environments. For example, the soda industry has begun a concerted legal effort to stop or slow public health campaigns on the adverse effects of sugar-sweetened beverages. According to Reuters, the soda industry and its attorneys have filed at least six document requests with public agencies from California to New York. “It is, in our opinion, an effort to overwhelm or smother government employees, who already have too much to do,” Ian McLaughlin, an attorney at the National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity in Oakland, California, told Reuters.
And in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s proposal for voluntary guidelines for food marketing to children, the nation’s largest food and drink marketers are developing their own campaign to avoid public oversight.
In these and other policy debates, the food industry relies on a network of trade association, law firms and lobbying groups to advance its case. In order to help CHW readers better understand the web of organizations, I present in the table below brief descriptions of a few of the largest trade associations, for the most part in their own words.
The American Beverage Association, says its website, is a trade organization that represents the beverage industry in the United States. Its members include producers and bottlers of soft drinks, bottled water, and other non-alcoholic beverages. ABA was founded in 1919, and originally named the American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages. In 1966, it renamed itself the National Soft Drink Association. Then in November 2004, it changed to its current name, “to better reflect the expanded range of nonalcoholic beverages the industry produces.”
Americans Against Food Taxes, reports its website, is a coalition of concerned citizens – responsible individuals, financially strapped families, small and large businesses in communities across the country – opposed to the government tax hikes on food and beverages, including soda, juice drinks, and flavored milks. Its lead sponsor is the American Beverage Association. The mission of the coalition is two-fold: 1) To promote a healthy economy and healthy lifestyles by educating Americans about smart solutions that rely upon science, economic realities and common sense; and 2) To prevent the enactment of regressive and discriminatory taxes that will not teach our children how to live a healthy lifestyle, and will have no meaningful impact on public health, but will have a negative impact on American families struggling in this economy. Its members include 7-Eleven, Inc., Burger King Corp., Domino’s Pizza, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, McDonalds, the National Association of Convenience Stores, Snack Food Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Wendy’s/Arby’s Group, Inc.
The Association of National Advertisers, says its website, is the advertising industry’s oldest trade association, founded in 1910 in Detroit, Michigan by 45 companies to “safeguard and advance the interests of advertisers and consumers.” Currently, the ANA leads the marketing community by providing its members insights, collaboration, and advocacy. ANA’s membership includes 400 companies with 10,000 brands that collectively spend over $250 billion in marketing communications and advertising.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association, says its website is “the voice of more than 300 leading food, beverage and consumer product companies that sustain and enhance the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people in the United States and around the globe. Based in Washington, D.C., GMA’s member organizations include internationally recognized brands as well as steadily growing, localized brands.” Founded in 1908, GMA is an active, vocal advocate for its members. The association and its member companies are committed to meeting the needs of consumers through product innovation, responsible business practices and effective public policy solutions developed through a genuine partnership with policymakers and other stakeholders.
The National Association of Convenience Stores is an international trade association representing more than 2,100 retail and 1,500 supplier company members. According to itswebsite NACS member companies do business in nearly 50 countries worldwide, with the majority of members based in the United States. The U.S. convenience store industry, with more than 146,000 stores across the country, posted $511 billion in total sales in 2009. NACS serves the convenience and petroleum retailing industry by providing industry knowledge, connections and advocacy to ensure the competitive viability of its members’ businesses.
The Snack Food Association (SFA), says its website is the international trade association of the snack food industry representing snack manufacturers and suppliers. Founded in 1937, SFA represents over 400 companies worldwide. SFA business membership includes, but is not limited to, manufacturers of potato chips, tortilla chips, cereal snacks, pretzels, popcorn, cheese snacks, snack crackers, meat snacks, pork rinds, snack nuts, party mix, corn snacks, pellet snacks, fruit snacks, snack bars, granola, snack cakes, cookies and various other snacks.
The United States Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations. More than 96% of U.S. Chamber members are small businesses with 100 employees or fewer, says its website.
Campaign Contributions and Lobbying Expenditures of Selected Food Trade Associations
These organizations play an active role in campaign contributions and lobbying. In the table below, I report their total campaign contributions in the specified period and the percentage of these contributions that went to Democrats and to Republicans. The table also shows the total amount these organizations reported spending on lobbying in the period indicated and the main bills for which they have lobbied in recent years. The sources for these data are two databases created by theSunlight Foundation. The first, Influence Explorer, shows how specific organizations, companies, individuals and elected officials influence our political system. The second, Poligraft, enables visitors to paste in a newspaper article or other report and shows a detailed view of the connections between the individuals and organizations described in the article and their influence on our political system.
Lobbying
These organizations hire law and lobbying firms to advance their agenda. A review of the Sunlight Foundation databases shows several of the trade associations use the same lobbying firms. For example, the American Beverage Association, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Association of National Advertisers together paid Patton Boggs LLP, the nation’s top ranked lobbying firm by revenues, almost $1.5 million in the intervals listed in the chart above. The US Chamber of Commerce and the Grocery Manufacturers of America together paid the law firm Akin Gump almost $3.5 million for lobbying in the last two decades, a time when that firm ranked second the in the nation for total lobbying revenues. The Chamber and the American Beverage Association paid the Bokorny Group more than $2.6 million. The table below describes these three lobbying firms, only a few of the many companies advancing the interests of Big Food in Washington.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP Akun Gump, according to Wikipedia, is a law firm founded in Dallas, Texas, in 1945 by Robert Strauss and Richard Gump. The firm now numbers more than 800 attorneys and advisers in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Akin Gump’s work has been recognized by leading legal media and rating publications and organizations. In 2010, the firm was ranked as one of the nation’s top 20 corporate law firms by Corporate Board Member.
The Bockorny Group The Bockorny Group, according to its website is a bipartisan government affairs consulting firm specializing in a wide range of public policy areas with long standing relationships within the White House and on Capitol Hill. “We represent a diverse client base of major trade associations and Fortune 100 companies throughout the country. For over 20 years, the firm has weathered significant shifts in political party control as well as in ideology. In each instance, we look to adapt strategically while representing business needs with an adherence to the highest ethical and professional standards. Our vast amount of experience enables us to tailor a customized political and policy oriented strategy. This strategy can be the key to defeating a regulatory challenge or, in other cases, winning a legislative provision central to a company’s bottom line… The firm is one of the best when corporations or trade associations are in need of navigating legislative and regulatory terrain.”
Patton Boggs LLP For more than 40 years, says the firm’s website, Patton Boggs has maintained a reputation for cutting-edge advocacy “by working closely with Congress and regulatory agencies in Washington, litigating in courts across the country, and negotiating business transactions around the world. Our partners include women and men with extensive backgrounds in government service with strong ties to both major political parties, as well as top-flight litigators and individuals with a keen understanding of business and finance. Patton Boggs began as an international law firm concentrating in global business and trade in 1962. … We were among the first law firms to recognize that all three branches of government could serve as forums in which to achieve client goals, enabling us to emerge as the nation’s leading public policy law firm, and we have developed our extensive business law capabilities into the firm’s largest practice area.”
This brief overview of the food industry’s political operations shows the power and resources the industry has at its disposal. To advance their own agenda, nutrition and health advocates will need to develop strategies that turn these corporate assets into liabilities and their own limitations into assets. More on that in future CHW posts.
An Interview with Anna Lappé, Author of Diet for a Hot Planet.
Anna Lappé is a food writer and activist whose most recent book Diet for a Hot Planetexamines the role of our food system in human-induced climate change. A few weeks ago, Corporations and Health Watch writer Monica Gagnon interviewed Lappé about her book and her work. An edited version follows.
CHW: What drew you to researching and writing this book about the food and climate connection?
AL: I’ve been thinking about food and food systems for many years, and I was drawn to write this book because I have become aware of the impact of our global food system on our lives.
For instance, agriculture uses 70% of all fresh water on the planet and it is the single largest land user – about 40% of all land is either in ranching or farming. Agriculture is also the driving force behind the more than 400 dead zones in oceans around the world – places that become so polluted every year, mainly from agricultural runoff, that the aquatic life at the ocean floor is killed off by lack of oxygen.I was also starting to hear concern that our food yields would be affected by climate change. But what I wasn’t hearing was how agriculture is not just a victim but also a perpetrator of climate change: Our food system indirectly and directly is responsible for about one third of all greenhouse gas emissions. These facts were largely missing from the public conversation. So the book is my exploration of why it is that we haven’t heard more about the food system’s role in contributing to this crisis and how can our food system actually be transformed to become part of the solution to the climate crisis.
CHW: How is the climate crisis affecting public health?
AL: We typically don’t think about climate change as a public health problem, and yet we should. We know for instance that there are an increasing number of deaths around the world every year that can be tied, indirectly and directly, to the climate crisis, whether because of more extreme weather, more flooding, more drought, or the impact of climate change on food supply.
Farmers certainly are seeing that as our climate and weather patterns change, pests spread into regions where they were not as abundant, or were never found, before. As climates warm, more pests are able to survive through the winter and we’re seeing more pest pressures on farms.
CHW: What is the general response of food corporations to climate concerns?
AL: One of the things I found most interesting was exploring the corporate response to this crisis. I found a lot of parallels with the response from Big Oil and other industries that historically have been at the center of the crisis. I ultimately found myself frustrated that the responses weren’t more substantive. What we are seeing is that a lot of food companies are pushing to be their own police, not to have government regulation of the industry. For instance, in this country the livestock industry has been very successful in allowing producers who are raising livestock in concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs not to be regulated the way a factory would be around air emissions.
If we look at what companies are doing to reduce their carbon footprint, many aren’t taking the significant steps that they should. Instead, companies exaggerate how much they have transformed the bottom line, exaggerate how much of a difference they’re making, and underplay the real impact that they have.
In the book, I give the example of Tyson, one of the largest poultry producers in the country. In a recent sustainability report, Tyson devotes a whole section to boasting about how the company is providing resources for biodiversity conservation. They point to a 35-acre conservation area in Tennessee where Tyson protected ten bluebird nests. 35 acres? Ten bluebird nests? Counter that with the fact that Tyson, as a company, has had an enormous negative impact on biodiversity, whether it’s from the genetic uniformity of the birds raised in its factories, or the fact that the company has been found responsible for pollution from its poultry operations, paying millions of dollars in damages in various states. That’s just one example of what I saw throughout the food industry: exaggerating their environmental strides to deflect public outrage that would otherwise lead to stricter government regulation.
CHW: Do you think it’s accurate to say that, rather than denying there’s a problem, the industry is positioning itself as part of the solution?
AL: When we talk about the food industry we have to recognize it’s multi-faceted. Not every sector of the food industry has the same self-interest when it comes to addressing its environmental impact. For when we say “food industry,” we really mean the entire food chain: agribusiness companies that produce commodities, the building blocks of processed foods that end up in our supermarkets; livestock producers, say Tyson that’s involved with the poultry factory farming; companies like Coca Cola or PepsiCo; and food retailers, including one of the fastest growing food in this country: Walmart.
These players don’t always have the same self-interest and use different strategies of denying or acknowledging their impact on climate. For instance, initially, the American Meat Institute, a trade association, did not publicly address climate change concerns at all; there was a policy of silence. After I released my book, I noticed AMI released a statement on meat and climate change, denying that there was a significant connection and trying to minimize the impact of industrial meat production on the climate and the environment. In other words, AMI shifted from a strategy of silence to a strategy of denial. Others have taken a strategy of, “Hey if we’re part of the problem that means we can get compensated for being part of the solution, even if our solutions are on paper only.”
CHW: How does corporate advertising exacerbate the problem?
AL: Like other sectors,the food sector has used “green advertising”. I give an example in the book of going to an advertising industry conference sponsored by Advertising Age that had signs posted around the conference center with different taglines, and one I thought was very telling was “Low-carbon is the new fat-free.” Companies are getting it that more and more people are concerned about climate change and trying to spin their message in a way that resonates.
At this conference, Mary Dillon, an executive at McDonalds, described how the company is presenting this image of social responsibility. She gave the example of a recent Happy Meal initiative in Europe whose theme was protecting endangered species. Customers could collect each of five endangered species. The concept was that kids would buy not one but five Happy Meals in order to collect all these endangered species, and then would go online to take eco-actions on the McDonalds website. Of course. of the ways you could reduced your environmental footprint, I’m sure none said, “Please do not buy heavily processed food at McDonalds that is helping to contribute to environmental crises around the world.” That they would claim that somehow by purchasing this Happy Meal they you’re helping protect endangered species was beyond ironic.
And just two years earlier McDonalds had a very different Happy Meal campaign in the United States when they partnered with General Motors to sell Hummer-themed happy meals. They ended up selling 42 million of these Hummer-themed meals, each one with a different style and color. I suppose two years later McDonalds decided that it would be better for the public image not to align itself with the Hummer, a vehicle that had become the symbol of consumer excess and environmental destruction, and instead align itself with this image of protecting the environment.
CHW: What do you think is the corporate social responsibility to climate change, and do you think it’s ever going to happen?
AL: There’s a school of thought that says that companies’ entire “social responsibility” is to make profit – to return the highest return to shareholders. I adhere to a different school of thought, one that believes all corporations have an inherent responsibility to community and the environment. What, after all, does every company need to make profit? Use, and often abuse, our common resources. These shared commons no one company owns; no one company should be able to either use free of charge or abuse without remediating or paying for the damage. In order to run factory farms, for instance, Tyson pollutes the water, land, and air where its factories are located, whether it’s through leaching from waste cesspits or through noxious emissions from its operations.
”Social responsibility” is not adding an extra burden onto the shoulders of companies and asking them to do us all a favor by being more socially or environmentally responsible. It’s simply asking companies to operate in line with our collective values, including the belief that polluters should pay for polluting, that companies should give back to communities for those resources they use.
To me, the social-environmental responsibility question is just common sense; it’s expecting companies to simply do the bare minimum of what they should be doing.
CHW: How can consumers tell the difference between true corporate social responsibility and marketing ploys?
AL: Unfortunately, because we don’t have terribly strict regulations about claims that companies can and can’t make, it’s sometimes hard to know when you’re hearing the real deal. In the book I give examples of some green claims food companies are making and how to make sense of them. One of the resources I find very helpful is the Consumers Union program that evaluates green claims. It’s called greenerchoices.org and it helps you parse out, among all these claims, which are the ones you can trust.
If you are looking to reduce the carbon footprint of the food you eat, finding food that’s grown locally can be a choice that’s good for the climate. Also look for the USDA organic seal. Organic agriculture practices tend to reduce on-farm emissions, in some cases by as much as half. Organic production practices also for the most part don’t use synthetic chemicals.
So those are some of the things you can do, but since we live in a regulatory context where it’s easy for companies to greenwash their story and hard for consumers to detect misleading claims, a healthy dose of skepticism is always good.
CHW: What else can health advocates do to help change destructive corporate behavior?
AL: One of the things that health advocates can do is find ways to make their voices heard by coming together. A positive example of that kind of action has been the recent work by Corporate Accountability International and health advocates in every single state calling on McDonalds to discontinue the use of its Ronald McDonald character to lure children to their stores to consume foods that we know are highly problematic for public health.
CHW: What is the role of the EPA in providing information about food’s effect on climate change?
AL: In the book, I talk about how the meat industry quotes the EPA on food agriculture-related emissions to defend its claims that the food system isn’t a really big player in the crisis. It’s not that the data on this subject from the EPA is wrong, it’s that the data doesn’t describe the full spectrum of the food chain and the food system, so it doesn’t account for all the emissions associated with the food that we eat in this country. Food trade associations have taken those government statistics and misrepresented them as telling the full story of food to downplay the food-related emissions in the United States. In the book, for instance, I quote the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association using that EPA data to say that its producers are not really impacting the environment here and that environmentalists are exaggerating the impact.
CHW: What gives you hope that these unhealthy climate trends can be reversed?
AL: What gives me most hope is that there’s so much evidence now that sustainable or organic farming techniques, ways of growing food without relying on toxic chemicals or synthetic fertilizer or intensive animal operations, can produce high yields in some of the countries that are most hard hit by hunger. These production practices can also be relatively inexpensive to implement – they just require knowledge and training, not seeds, chemicals, or fertilizer. And these farming practices are showing that, on the farms that are implementing these practices, there’s higher carbon content in the soil. In other words we’re able to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere and into our farm soils if we implement these sustainable techniques. We’re finding that these farming practices greatly reduce on-farm energy use and overall on-farm emissions. And so we have this incredible potential for farming to help us mitigate the crisis, help us really reduce emissions in food production.
The other thing that gives me hope is we’re finding that these farming practices create more resilient farms that can handle droughts and floods better. I visited one organic farm in Wisconsin the summer the region was hit by floods that had devastated the many farmers there. But at New Forest Farms, the farmer Mark Shepard had lost only four percent of his crops; the rest were thriving because his soil was so healthy it acted as a sponge able to absorb the water. The biodiversity on his farm was a boon too: trees and shrubs lessened the impact of the pounding rain on the crops below. .
As I stood on his land, having just heard about the devastation of so many of the region’s farmers, I thought: “If more farms could look like this we would be in a much better place to feed the world in a climate unstable future.”
CHW: How can environment and health advocates work together on this issue? Are you seeing any of this happen in your travels and your research?
Anna Lappé
AL: We’re starting to see people make these connections. Environmental and health advocates are beginning to see themselves as being in the same boat, not working across purposes. They’re also really seeing how their other big allies are farmers. The source of public health is good food, clean water, and clean air. Farms run well, farms run sustainably, can help to preserve pristine groundwater. Whereas farms run as industrial operations where synthetic fertilizer is overused and leaches into the groundwater, industrial animal operations that end up housing massive manure cesspits that have very little protection to ensure that it doesn’t affect the groundwater. So farmers need to be brought into the conversation. As stewards of the land, sustainable farmers are at the forefront of helping us adapt to climate change, mitigate emissions, and bringing us the healthy food that is the cornerstone of public health.
According to a new report by the Center for Responsive Politics, the number of former lobbyists working as key congressional staffers has more than doubled since the Republican Party took control of the House. The report, Hired Guns to Hired Hands, found that 128 former lobbyists work in key staff positions in this Congress, compared to 60 in the last one. Of the new lobbyists-turned-public servants, 79 work for Republicans, 48 for Democrats and one for an independent. Since the last Congress, the number of reverse revolver lobbyists who previously worked in the agribusiness sector increased by 243%, in the transportation sector by 223% and in the health sector by 200%.
According to the Washington Post, big food and media have hired former Obama Communications Director Anita Dunn to lead their battle against the government’s plan to create voluntary nutritional guidelines for food marketing to children. Participating companies include General Mills, Kellogg, PepsiCo, Nickelodeon and Time Warner as well as the US Chamber of Commerce. In a blog post, David Vladeck, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the FTC, said he was surprised by the intensity of the industry reaction to the guidelines and worried about “misinformation.” His post dissects 12 “myths” regarding the proposed guidelines.
Are the new proposed guidelines for voluntary regulation of food advertising to children proposed by the Federal Trade Commission sensible health protection or a new intrusion by the nanny state? According to Republican Representative Jack King, voluntary guidelines soon become mandates. "What's voluntary today becomes a regulation tomorrow." He warns that a "nanny state" seeks to "regulate Honey Nut Cheerios." Margo Wootan of Center for Science in the Public Interest disagrees. "How do voluntary standards constitute government over-reach?" she asks.
In a recent article in PLOS Medicine, David Stuckler and colleagues examined conflicts of interest between five major global health foundations and for-profit corporations. They found numerous relationships between health philanthropies and corporations and suggest that existing guidelines may not prevent conflicts of interest.
The philanthrocapitalists’ application of the corporate model is understandable considering that many philanthropists, and the foundation boards and officers have backgrounds in the business world rather than public health or community organizations. Their associates in their education, business and social affairs are often like-minded individuals with a similar socioeconomic status who share belief in the primacy of the market and the for-profit corporate business model.[21] They hold the belief in common that the for-profit business model is the best way to meet societal goals.
The United States Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations. More than 96% of U.S. Chamber members are small businesses with 100 employees or fewer, says its website.
AL: I’ve been thinking about food and food systems for many years, and I was drawn to write this book because I have become aware of the impact of our global food system on our lives.
At this conference, Mary Dillon, an executive at McDonalds, described how the company is presenting this image of social responsibility. She gave the example of a recent Happy Meal initiative in Europe whose theme was protecting endangered species. Customers could collect each of five endangered species. The concept was that kids would buy not one but five Happy Meals in order to collect all these endangered species, and then would go online to take eco-actions on the McDonalds website. Of course. of the ways you could reduced your environmental footprint, I’m sure none said, “Please do not buy heavily processed food at McDonalds that is helping to contribute to environmental crises around the world.” That they would claim that somehow by purchasing this Happy Meal they you’re helping protect endangered species was beyond ironic.
And just two years earlier McDonalds had a very different Happy Meal campaign in the United States when they partnered with General Motors to sell Hummer-themed happy meals. They ended up selling 42 million of these Hummer-themed meals, each one with a different style and color. I suppose two years later McDonalds decided that it would be better for the public image not to align itself with the Hummer, a vehicle that had become the symbol of consumer excess and environmental destruction, and instead align itself with this image of protecting the environment.
If you are looking to reduce the carbon footprint of the food you eat, finding food that’s grown locally can be a choice that’s good for the climate. Also look for the USDA organic seal. Organic agriculture practices tend to reduce on-farm emissions, in some cases by as much as half. Organic production practices also for the most part don’t use synthetic chemicals.
Corporations and Health Watch 