Mexico Considers Suing US Gun Makers to Halt Flow of Arms to Drug Trade

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Last month CBS News reported that the Mexican government had hired an American law firm to explore filing civil charges against U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors over the flood of guns crossing the border into Mexico.

The National Sports Shooting Foundation, the trade association of gun makers, responded “we are disappointed that [Mexican President Felipe Calderon] would seek to hold law-abiding American companies responsible for crime in Mexico”. The NSSF noted that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, signed into law in 2005 by then President George W. Bush, protects gun makers from most liability for their products, making the success of any Mexican legal action uncertain.

Federal Trade Commission Proposes New Guidelines on Food Advertising to Children

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Last week the Federal Trade Commission proposed sweeping new guidelines to restrict television food advertising to children.

According to the New York Times, “the guidelines are meant to be voluntary, but companies are likely to face heavy pressure to adopt them.” The Center for Science in the Public Interest praised the proposed guidelines as “strong and sensible” and urged food and entertainment companies to adopt the standards.  Dan Jaffe, a lobbyist for the Association of National Advertisers, called the guidelines “sweeping and, in our view, overly restrictive.” “Despite calling these proposals ‘voluntary,’ the government clearly is trying to place major pressure on the food, beverage and restaurant industries,” he said.

Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move After Year One: Little More than PR?

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

The following op-ed was recently published in numerous newspapers across the country through McClatchy-Tribune News Service.

The one-year anniversary of the first lady’s Let’s Move campaign to “end childhood obesity within a generation” was marked by celebratory speeches and fanfare – much of it generated by the White House itself.

It’s certainly true that Michelle Obama has been tremendously successful in summoning both the resources of her office as well as her own positive energy and enthusiasm to get the nation to focus its attention on this important problem. She also deserves credit for specific gains made in the past year, including championing school food and shining a light on the serious problem of “food deserts,” neighborhoods that lack even a basic grocery store, let alone a farmer’s market.

However, her highly touted “Let’s Move” campaign can make no claims of progress in combating the 800-pound gorilla in America’s dining rooms: Junk food marketing to children.

While Mrs. Obama may have elevated the national conversation about childhood obesity, that discourse has actually been going on for almost a decade now. In 2006, a damning report from the Institute of Medicine on food marketing to kids called upon Congress to act within two years if industry made no significant improvements on its own.

In the wake of that threat, food companies made many promises to clean up their act; commitments were announced, self-regulatory bodies were formed. It all sounded very impressive. And yet recent reports coming out of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University as well as the government’s own Federal Trade Commission continue to document ubiquitous junk food and fast-food marketing to children.

Just take a stroll down the cereal aisle and you can find such childhood-obesity-inducing products as Cupcake Cereal and Cookie Crisp Sprinkles Cereal. Even Cheerios now comes in a chocolate variety. And these days, the ads aren’t just on TV. Our digital world contains endless marketing opportunities designed to reach kids wherever parents are not.

The first lady does mention this problem in her speeches, but her campaign is unable to tackle the issue directly, not only because Mrs. Obama has no policymaking powers but because to do so means threatening her husband’s business-friendly image. A sure sign of how small a threat “Let’s Move” is to the food industry is just how eager companies have been to jump onto its bandwagon.

Most successful was Wal-Mart, which recently gained Mrs. Obama’s endorsement of the company’s 5-year plan to improve the quality of its foods. Merits of the announcement aside, particularly troubling was that the first lady’s staff had been meeting in secret with Wal-Mart executives for months, negotiating the final – albeit vague terms of the plan.

The real question may not be if “Let’s Move” is going far enough, but what role is it playing in our national agenda on solving childhood obesity? Negotiated deals with the likes of Wal-Mart cannot become a substitute for actual policymaking. As messy and as imperfect as the democratic process is, it needs to be based on serious policy – not public relations gestures – to work well.

Meanwhile, it seems clear that the Obama administration is unwilling to seriously address junk-food marketing. One idea is to have the government suggest guidelines for industry. In December 2009, a taskforce of several federal agencies did just that – releasing draft nutrition guidelines on the marketing food to children. Apparently, this meager first step – it would be entirely voluntary – set off such alarm bells within the food industry that we haven’t heard a peep from the task force since.

Instead of meaningful government actions we have only “Let’s Move” and more voluntary industry promises. Solving the complex problems of childhood obesity won’t be solved with cute slogans or deal-making with the likes of Wal-Mart. To win this battle, we need our political leaders to take on seriously the politics of marketing junk-food to our children.

Image Credits:

  1. Let’s Move logo
  2. The Shifted Librarian via flickr

Cancer Research UK Launches New Anti-Tobacco Industry “Death Repackaged” Campaign

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Using internal documents that the United Kingdom government forced the tobacco industry to make public, Cancer Research UK has launched a “Death Repackaged” campaign to urge people not to be taken in by the marketing ploys of tobacco companies that try to make low tar and mild cigarettes appear less harmful or healthier than others.

New Technologies for Targeted Advertising

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Ad Age reports that more people are watching television than ever before and that estimated expenditures on TV commercials this year will top $60 billion.

Yet, advertisers have been slow to adopt new technologies that would allow TV ads to target viewers as precisely as Internet ads. In another recent story, the New York Times reports that food companies are increasingly using internet games and contests to target food ads at children, often circumventing their own voluntary guidelines on advertising to children in the process.

CVS Agrees to Pay State and Feds $17 Million for Overbilling Medicaid

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

CVS has agreed to pay the federal and state governments more than $17 million to settle claims that the nationwide retail pharmacy chain overcharged Medicaid, according to a CNN report.

CVS was charged with submitting inflated prescription claims in 10 states — California, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, Rhode Island, Alabama and Minnesota. A CVS whistleblower pharmacist in Minnesota first brought the case forward.

On Tax Day, New Reports on Unfair Taxes and Corporate Tax Evaders

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a story on America’s two-class tax system as part of its ongoing series on taxes.

Reporters Barlett and Steele wrote, “During the 1950s…corporations paid 49 percent of their profits in taxes. Last year, it was about half that rate, a decidedly more modest 26 percent. In 2010, corporate tax collections totaled $191 billion – down 8 percent from $207 billion as recently as 2000. Perhaps a more telling yardstick, corporate tax revenue in 2009 came to just 1 percent of gross domestic product – the lowest collection level since 1936, or three-quarters of a century ago. In 2010, it edged up to a puny 1.3 percent – the second-lowest since 1940.”

Meanwhile, Pay Up Now, a Chicago group that promotes boycotts of corporations that pay little or no federal income tax, published a chart showing Pre-Tax Income and Federal Tax for 100 U.S. Corporations from 2008-10. Some of their findings:

  • From 2008-2010 Coca-Cola made $2.1 billion and paid $8 million in taxes at a rate of 0%. In 2010 Coca-Cola made $746 million and also paid $8 million in taxes, 1% of their total income.
  • Bunge Ltd., a global agribusiness, made almost $5 billion from 2008-2010, and paid $103 million in taxes, a rate of 2%. In 2010 Bunge Ltd’s income was at $3 billion, and they paid $33 million in taxes, 1% of their total income.
  • Merck & Co. made $26.8 billion in profits from 2008-2010 and paid $1.3 billion in taxes at a rate of 5%. In 2010 the company made $1.6 billion and paid $399 million in taxes, 24% of their total income.
  • Altria Group, the tobacco company, made $15.3 billion in profits from 2008-2010 and paid $4.4 billion in taxes, a rate of 29%. In 2010, the company made $5.7 billion and paid 1.4 billion, 25% of their total income.

Buying Silence: Big Soda Takes a Page from Big Tobacco

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CHW Contributing writer Michele Simon describes how the American Beverage Association (the lobbying arm of soft drink companies) has donated $10 million to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in a move she interprets as an effort by the soda industry to buy credibility in the face of renewed calls for taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages.

Snoop Dogg Targets Black Youth for BLAST, a Colt 45 Malt Liquor

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In a now familiar script, Pabst Brewing Company hired the rapper Snoop Dogg to promote Blast, which Pabst describes as “a premium malt beverage with natural fruit flavors and a kick that is uniquely Colt 45.”

Blast is 12 percent alcohol by volume, more than twice most major beer brands, and is sold in 23.5-ounce cans. One can at the suggested retail price of $2.49 provides the equivalent alcohol intake of more than four 12-ounce bottles of beer. Snoop Dogg promotes Blast in a YouTube Video that manages to be offensive to women, African-Americans and young people, and in comments on Facebook and Twitter, leading a marketing campaign designed to bypass industry guidelines that restrict alcohol advertising to young people. In response, the Marin Institute, an alcohol policy and advocacy group, has launched Petition Pabst: Stop Targeting Youth, Give Snoop the Boot.