Food Prices and Public Health, Part 1: Why should health activists care about rising food prices?

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Anyone who shops at a supermarket or follows world news knows that food prices have been going up. Here in the United States, higher food and energy prices have been driving inflation and contributing to record levels of hunger and food insecurity. According to a March report[1] by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food prices went up 2.9% in the last year. Of concern, healthier food eaten at home has increased by 3.6%, while less healthy food eaten away from home increased at about half the rate, only 1.9%. The cost of fresh vegetables rose by 4.7%  in March and 6.7%  in February. The cost of meats, poultry, fish and eggs were up by 7.9%  over the past 12 months.

 
Rushing to buy bread as wheat runs short and food prices rise in Mozambique

In other parts of the world the increases have been much higher. In mid-April, a World Bank report on its Food Price Index, a measurement of global food prices, showed that food prices had gone up 36% in the last year. Compared to a year ago, the price of corn is up 74%, wheat 69%, soybeans 36% and sugar 21%. These crops constitute the staple diet in many parts of the world and are also the basic ingredients that multinational food companies use to manufacture the energy dense and nutrient poor processed foods that they sell around the world.[2] The Bank estimates that 44 million people have been driven into poverty since last June as a result of the price spikes. Since 2008, more than 130 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty by increases in the cost of basic commodities such as food and energy. After the 2008 food crisis and again in the last year, skyrocketing food prices have contributed to political unrest in Egypt, Tunisia, Haiti, China and elsewhere.

What are the causes of this surge in food prices and what are its public health consequences?  What role has the food industry played? Most importantly, how can public health officials, activists and researchers contribute to an understanding of the health impact of rising food prices and inform policies that will reverse these increases or mitigate their effects?  In a series of four reports over the next few weeks, I’ll examine these questions.

In this post, I discuss the reasons health professionals, researchers and activists should care about rising food costs. In the next post, I’ll briefly review the global, national and local factors that influence the supply and the demand for food, trying to sort out how these various forces interact to set the prices of both healthier and less healthy foods. In the third post, I’ll look more closely at two market influences on food prices: global and national speculation in food, which has grown significantly in the last decade, and the subsidies that governments offer various sectors of the food industry. I’ll also examine how the food industry has successfully externalized the consequences of unhealthy diets such as obesity and diabetes onto consumers and tax payers, allowing food prices to remain lower but amplifying the social and economic costs of food-related diseases. Finally, I’ll describe and analyze some of the strategies proposed to make healthy food more affordable.

The goal in these reports is to encourage public health professionals and food activists to consider the role of food prices in hunger, obesity and food related health conditions, and to make food prices a target for policy analysis and political action.

Consequences of Rising Food Prices

Changes in food prices influence health in a variety of direct and indirect ways, and of course have varying impacts on populations and nations of different economic levels. In both developed and developing countries, higher costs of basic foods drive poor people further into poverty and food insecurity, reducing the income available for other purposes such as housing, health care and education. In developed nations, most households spend on average 10-15% of their income on food while in developing nations this may increase to 70-80%.  Thus food price is very much a class issue, affecting poor people and countries more than the better off.

In the United States today, increasing food prices travel in tandem with high unemployment, cuts in funding for safety net programs and a housing crisis that in the last two years has pushed more than 2 million Americans out of their homes. Thus, higher prices for food are only one component of rapidly deteriorating living conditions for a growing portion of Americans. According to a recent Census Bureau report,[3] the poverty rate in the United States rose to 14.3% in 2009, the highest since 1994. A record 43.6 million Americans lived in poverty last year. Not surprising then that Feeding America, a national coalition of food support programs, last year gave food to 37 million Americans, including 14 million children, a 46 percent increase from 2006.[4]

An important US and global trend is that on average prices for energy dense, nutrient poor processed foods (those high in fat, sugar, salt and calories) have declined or remained stable while prices for healthier foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables have increased.[5] In the United States, for example, in the last 30 years the indexed cost of fruits and vegetables has increased by 40% while the cost for soda has declined by 20% .[6] The table below shows unindexed changes for various food items, confirming that prices for healthy foods have increased far more than prices for less healthy ones. This trend contributes to increased consumption of unhealthy food and decreased consumption of healthier food, especially among poor people, thus exacerbating the already high disparities in food-related health conditions. In Mexico, NAFTA contributed to lower prices and wider availability of processed food imported from the US and declines in local agriculture, thus fueling epidemics of obesity and diabetes, especially among the urban poor and middle classes.[7]

Fruits and Vegetables Have Led Retail Food-Price Increases

In theory, increasing food prices could lead some food outlets to substitute healthier, less expensive food for less healthy products. For example, according to the Wall Street Journal, Hardees and Carl’s Jr., two fast food chains owned by CKE Restaurants, have recently introduced turkey burgers, which are less expensive and have half the calories of beef burgers.[8]But observers doubt whether most chains are ready to invest in the re-tooling needed for such changes or whether demand for healthier fare can compete with the taste for high fat meals supported by human evolution and billions of dollars in advertising. More commonly, fast food chains have responded to the economic crisis by promoting “value meals” that offer high calorie, fat, sugar and salt products at a discount.

Why Food Prices are a Public Health Priority 

Few trends harm public health more than rising food prices. Both in the United States and around the world, higher food prices contribute both to hunger and food insecurity and to obesity and food-related chronic conditions, the world’s two greatest killers. Inadequate nutrition makes people more vulnerable to infectious diseases, still a major cause of death in the developing world. In both developed and developing countries, the greater increase in the cost of healthier food encourages more people to buy the high calorie, fat, sugar and salt products that are associated with global epidemics of diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. Without intervention, rising food prices will contribute to rising illness and death and growing disparities between better off and poorer populations and nations.

Some nutrition professionals shy away from making food prices a priority, given the multiple influences on the cost of food and the complexity of intervening in a meaningful way. But their importance to health makes this an untenable option. In the next post, I’ll examine these multiple influences and consider appropriate roles for markets and governments in setting food prices. Below, I suggest some sources for further reading on food prices and invite CHW readers to suggest others.

For More Information:

Andreyeva T, Long MW, Brownell KD. The impact of food prices on consumption: a systematic review of research on the price elasticity of demand for food. Am J Public Health. 2010;100(2):216-22.

De Schutter O. Food commodities speculation and food price crises. Briefing Notes 02, September 2010. United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.

Kaufman F. The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It. Harper’s Magazine, July 2010, 27-34.

Schaffnit-Chatterjee C. Where are food prices heading? Deutsch Bank Research March10, 2011.

 

References

[1] US Department of Labor.  Consumer Price Index Summary. March 2011. Washington, D.C., released April 15, 2011.

[2]  World Bank. High and Volatile Food Prices Continue to Threaten the World’s Poor. Washington, D.C., April 14, 2011.

[3] DeNavas-Walt C, Proctor BD, Smith JC. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-238, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2010.

[4]  Feeding America. Hunger Study 2010.

[5] Drewnowski A. The cost of US foods as related to their nutritive value. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010;92(5):1181-8.

[6] Putnam J, Allshouse J, Kantor LS. U.S. Per Capita Food Supply Trends: More Calories, Refined Carbohydrates, and Fats. FoodReview 2002;25(3):2-15.

[7] Freudenberg N. Free trade, the food industry and obesity: How changes in US – Mexico food trade contribute to an epidemic. Corporations and Health Watch, 2007.

[8] Gasparro A. Restaurants see brighter side of low calorie meals. Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2011.

 

Image Credits:

1.      ILRI via flickr

2.      Ian Muttoo via flickr

3.      Economic Research Service, USDA , Reference 6

Food Prices and Public Health, Part 2: Global, national and local influences on food prices

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch
Protest against high food prices in Algeria, January 2011

Around the world, rising food prices are moving investors, companies, politicians and eaters into action. On Wall Street last week, McDonalds Corporation announced that it expected higher beef prices, sending its stock prices down 2% in one day, despite higher than expected quarterly earnings.[1] In Uganda, riots broke out in downtown Kampala to protest rising food and fuel costs, adding another nation to the roster of those experiencing political turmoil due to higher food costs.[2] And in China, the second largest economy in the world, inflation reached 5.4% in March, a 32 month high, driven mostly by an almost 12% increase in food costs.[3] In the longer term, as shown below, the real price of food, as measured by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization’s Food Price Index, has doubled since 1990.

In last week’s post I made the case that rising food prices pose a serious threat to global and US public health, increasing hunger and food insecurity and obesity and diet-related chronic disease, together the leading causes of illness and death. I argued that reversing the rise in food prices was an urgent public health priority and that developing new approaches to lowering food prices and the gap between the cost of healthier and less healthy food offered the food justice movement an important opportunity to reach new constituencies. This week, I examine how supply and demand factors influence food prices at each of three levels: global, national and local.

Global Level

For the last three centuries, food has been a global commodity but in the past 50 years the globalization of food has accelerated, with important implications for food prices. Long term influences on food supply—and therefore on prices—are the natural resources available for producing food such as land and water. As the world’s population increases while the supply of arable land and water stays approximately fixed, the world confronts the classic dilemma of constrained supply and growing demand described by Thomas Malthus in 1798.[4]

After World War II, the Green Revolution harnessed technology to increase crop yield and therefore feed more people. In recent years, however, investment in agricultural research and development has declined significantly,[5] leading to less rapid increases in crop yields. In the convoluted logic of the market, as research led to increased productivity and declines in prices, it became less profitable to invest in more research. Now, as population continues to increase, this failure of supply to meet demand leads to increased prices.

In the short term, weather and climate also influence the supply of food. In 2010-11, extreme heat and drought in Russia and Argentina and heavy rains in Australia and Canada led to declines in wheat production, contributing to a 78% increase in the price of wheat.[6] While climate change cannot definitively be implicated in any one crop failure, most scientists agree that climate change contributes to weather extremes which make food supplies more volatile, contributing to swings in prices.[7]Rising energy prices have also contributed to higher food prices since global agribusiness relies heavily on oil for fertilizers, pesticides and transport.

Wheat field in Canada

Agricultural operations also affect food supply. Only about half of what is harvested actually reaches the fork so reducing this waste could dramatically increase food supplies and lower prices.[8] Similarly, animal diseases such as avian flu or mad cow disease, now more globalized than ever, can decimate livestock, leading to temporary declines in supply and increases in price.[9]

Corporate practices also affect the global supply of food. International trade agreements, usually shaped by multinational food companies, make it easier for some countries to export food. For example, the North American Free Trade Agreement dramatically increased export of inexpensive processed food from the US to Mexico, leading to changes in Mexican diets—and health.[10] Speculation can also affect food supplies. If future food prices are estimated to be higher than current ones, food producers—or speculators—can hoard food. Last summer, speculators bought up huge supplies of cocoa in hope of profiting on higher prices.[11]

Beginning in the early 1990s, but especially in the last few years, Goldman Sachs, AIG, JP Morgan, and Bear Stearns, among others also involved in the 2008 financial collapse, created commodities funds to attract investors looking to move their money out of the collapsing housing market.[12] By betting that the price of food will continue to rise, these investors hope to profit. Some analysts believe that this speculation contributed to the dramatic food price increases in 2008 and again this year, [12],[13] although others disagree.[6]

Finally, the concentration of various sectors of the food industry can influence supply and price. When food production is dispersed and highly competitive, many producers compete in part by increasing supply. When the industry is highly concentrated, however, major producers maintain profits by reducing the supply or discouraging new competitors, thus preventing new or cheaper supplies coming to market. Monsanto’s near monopoly on crop seeds illustrates how a few companies can lead to price increases that ripple through the market.[14] As the world food supply depends increasingly on a few crops such as corn, sugar, wheat, soy and rice, produced by a few companies, the potential for constrictions on supply and increases in price grows.

Global demand factors also have an important influence on the food supply and prices. As already noted, increases in the world population require more food to feed more people. Prosperity also increases demand. As more people can spend more on food, demand increases. Many observers consider the growing prosperity in Brazil, Russia, India and China as an important driver of food prices. As people in these and other nations eat more meat, more land is used to grow grain to feed the animals, further reducing the supply of other foods and increasing the price.

Another influence is the growing demand for particular commodities. For example, the rise of biofuels in the last 10 years has increased the market for corn and sugar cane. Moving some of these crops into the energy sector reduces the food supply, increasing prices. Another economic force influencing the demand for food is the depreciation of the dollar. As the dollar falls relative to other currencies, more countries can afford to import food from the United States, an important factor in maintaining demand (and prices) for US crops. The figure below illustrates some of these influences in the period 1996 to 2008.

 

National and Local Levels

At the national level, many of the same factors operate to influence supply and demand. Public subsidies for some crops (but not others) can increase the supply and reduce the price of subsidized products. In the US for example, the $30-40 billion annual subsidies for corn, sugar and soy have led to falling prices and increased consumption of the processed foods that depend on these industrial food staples, a subject of controversy in the debate on the 2012 Farm Bill. In another domain, federal food assistance programs such as school meal program and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) and Women, Infants and Children spent almost $95 billion in Fiscal Year 2010, helping to feed many hungry people but also maintaining demand and prices of supported products.[16]

Vertical and horizontal integration of the food industry and concentration within an industry also influences food prices nationally. Some industries make profits by making their products ubiquitous and cheap (think soda, candy and snack foods) while others, usually small producers, develop limited niche markets, which maintain high prices (think of artisanal cheese or ramps) by limiting supply. As noted in last week’s post, the disparity in prices for healthy and unhealthy foods contributes to health inequities.

Public policies that enable food companies to transfer or externalize to consumers and tax payers the harmful consequences of their products (e.g., the cost of treating diabetes) help to keep food prices low but increase long term social costs. Similarly, market power enables companies like Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retail company, to drive tough bargains with its suppliers, allowing lower prices for consumers but keeping down wages of farm and store workers and pushing small local stores out of business.[17]

At the local level, state and municipal economic conditions and policies can also influence prices. In neighborhoods with few food outlets, prices are likely to be higher given the reduced role of competition. One study found that people living in poor neighborhoods pay more for both healthier and less healthy food, showing how food prices can widen health inequalities related to both food insecurity and obesity.[18]

Public subsidies for farmers markets and local community-supported agricultural program can increase the supply of healthy affordable food in low income communities. Conversely, the absence of such public support often serves to limit beneficiaries of these alternatives to better off communities and individuals.

Taxes can also influence the price of food. Some jurisdictions tax junk food and many have proposed taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages, a move so far usually defeated by the soda industry and anti-tax conservatives. Such taxes are presumed to reduce demand by increasing price.

To develop strategies to promote health by lowering the cost of food, especially healthy food, public health officials and food activists will need to identify appropriate targets for action, then develop political strategies to achieve such changes. In the next post, I’ll examine in more detail two possible targets for action: speculation in food and public subsidies for unhealthy food.

 

References

[1]Associated Press. McDonald’s Profit Is Up; So Are Costs. New York Times, April 22, 2011, p. B4.

[2] Kron J. Protests in Uganda Over Rising Prices Grow Violent. New York Times, April 22, 2011, p. A9.

[3] Barboza D. Fast Growth and Inflation Threaten to Overheat Chinese Economy. New York Times, April 15, 2011.

[4] Malthus T.R. 1798. An essay on the principle of population. Oxford World’s Classics.

[5] Alston JM, Beddow JM, Pardey PG. Agricultural Research, Productivity, and Food Prices in the Long Run Science 2009:325;1209-1210

[6] Schaffnit-Chatterjee C. Where are food prices heading? Deutsch Bank Research March10, 2011.

[7] Nelson GC, Rosegrant MW, Palazzo A, et al. Food Security, Farming, and Climate Change to 2050: 
Scenarios, Results, Policy Options. Washington, D.C.2010: International Food Policy Research Institute.

[8] Stuart T. Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal. New York: Norton, 2009.

[9] Rich KM,Perry BD. The economic and poverty impacts of animal diseases in developing countries: New roles, new demands for economics and epidemiology. PrevVet Med. 2010 Sep 8. [Epub ahead of print]

[10] Freudenberg N. Free trade, the food industry and obesity: How changes in US – Mexico food trade contribute to an epidemic. Corporations and Health Watch, 2007.

[11] Chu S. Speculators’ new craze for chocolate leaves a bitter taste. The Independent, 11 July 2010.

[12] Kaufman F. The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away with It. Harper’s Magazine, July 2010, 27-34.

[13] De Schutter O. Food commodities speculation and food price crises. Briefing Notes 02, September 2010. United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.

[14] Neuman W. Rapid rise in seed prices draws U.S. scrutiny. New York Times, March 12, 2010, B1.

[15] Trostle R. Global Agricultural Supply and Demand: Factors Contributing to the Recent Increase in Food Commodity Prices, WRS-0801, Economic Research Service/USDA, 2008.

[16]  USDA. The Food Assistance Landscape, FY 2010 Annual Report. Washington, D.C., March 2011.

[17]  Lichtenstein N. The Retail Revolution How WalMart created a brave new world of business. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009.

[18]  Stewart H, Dong D. Variation in retail costs for fresh vegetables and salty snacks across communities in the United States. Food Policy 2011;36:128-135.

 

Image Credits:

1.     Magharebia via flickr

2.     FAO

3.     Ocean.flynn via flickr

4.     Trostle, 2008

Center for Science in the Public Interest calls for Food Day on October 24th

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

In a column in the Huffington Post, Michael Jacobsen, Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, calls for “a huge grassroots mobilization for changing what Americans eat – and what the food industry produces – for the better.” Food Day, to be celebrated on October 24, 2011, calls for action on five key priorities:

• Reducing diet-related disease by promoting healthy foods
• Supporting sustainable farms and stopping subsidizing agribusiness
• Expanding access to food and alleviating hunger
• Reforming factory farms to protect animals and the environment
• Curbing junk-food marketing to kids

DOT Inspector General Finds Foxes Make Ethical Hen House Guards

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

At the request of Senators John D. Rockefeller and Mark Pryor, the Inspector General of the US Department of Transportation reviewed whether former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) officials employed or under contract with automakers are in a position to exert undue influence on NHTSA’s safety defect investigations. The Inspector General found 63 auto industry and NHSTA officials had switched sides since 1984 and 23 auto industry officials took jobs directly involving the investigation of safety defects. However, the IG found “no evidence suggesting undue influence or pressure on NHTSA’s employees conducting safety defect investigations.”

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Urges Cities to Use Market Power to Pressure Gun Industry

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has released a report, Utilizing the “Buyer Power” Strategy to Reform the Gun Industry, that urges municipal officials to utilize their buying power as mass-purchasers of firearms for police forces to pressure gun manufacturers to modify how they make and distribute guns.

Chevron in Ecuador: Corporate Propaganda, New Media Activism and Environmental Health

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

The lawsuit against U.S. oil giant Chevron brought by indigenous people in Ecuador’s Amazon can tell us a great deal about corporate propaganda, new forms of media activism – both good and bad – and the consequences these have for environmental health. It also offers important lessons for activists seeking changes in other sectors.

First, a little background in case you’re not familiar with the case. Ecuadorean indigenous people said Texaco dumped more than 18 billion gallons (68 billion litres) of toxic materials into the unlined pits and rivers between 1972 and 1992, and that these activities had destroyed large areas of rainforest and also led to an increased risk of cancer among the local population. In 2001, Chevron acquired Texaco. The current trial began in 2003 when a U.S. appeals court ruled that the case should be heard in Ecuador.

A number of studies have attempted to quantify the health impact of the oil giant’s operations in Ecuador. Epidemiological surveys have confirmed what people in the area know from their own experience: rates of cancer, including mouth, stomach and uterine cancer, are elevated in areas where there is oil contamination. A court-appointed independent expert in the trial estimated that Chevron is responsible for 1401 excess cancer deaths.

The latest news in the case is that in February, 2011 a court in Ecuador ordered Chevron to pay more than $8.6 billion in damages ruling in favor of the 30,000 indigenous people represented by the suit. However, Chevron has vowed to appeal the ruling, meaning that the long-running case dating from drilling in the South American nation during the 1970s and 1980s could last for years.

True to its word to fight the judgment at each step, just before the historic judgment lawyers for Chevron convinced a U.S. District Court in New York to stop enforcement of the anticipated order. The judge granted the order preventing enforcement, and the case remains in legal limbo.

Big Money is at Stake

Make no mistake, the judgment in Ecuador means big money is at stake. The lawyer representing the indigenous Ecuadoran people, Steve Donzinger, has won a monumental victory. The judgment against Chevron is on the all-time roster of environmental recoveries. If it were ever collected — which remains uncertain — it would rank second only to BP’s promised $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Assuming a scenario in which Chevron is ordered to pay the maximum penalty, the reduction in cash would decrease its equity value and, according to one estimate, drop the stock price from $104 to down about $99.

Multimedia Battle Over “Truth”: Chevron’s vs. Environmental Activists’

With all this money at stake, it means that Chevron is pushing a no-holds-barred, multimedia assault to advance its version of the story. It’s a wide ranging effort across several different platforms. The campaign started, as most things do these days, with Google, moved to TV-news magazine shows and YouTube, touched documentary filmmaking, and circled back around to a very effective counter-attack by some very clever new media activists.

Google Ad Buy

The first line of battle for any activist these days is the Internet. And, originally, environmental activists were winning the battle of Google. If you searched using the words “Chevron in Ecuador” back in 2003, the first result would be a website created by Amazon Watch, an environmental activist group that blames “Chevron’s negligence” for injuries and deaths in the country.

Today, you can still find the sites of environmental activists in Google search returns, but now when people do Google searches for “Chevron” and “Ecuador,” paid links to those sites appear at the top of the screen, like this one for “The Amazon Post”.

Note the tag line for the ad, “Scheme to Defraud U.S. Company Exposed,” makes no overt mention of Chevron. Yet, once you click on the link, you’ll find a site clearly from the perspective of the oil giant, “The Amazon Post: Chevron’s views and opinions on the Ecuador lawsuit.” They also have sponsored ads at the top of each page of results for searches using the terms “Chevron” and “Ecuador.” It’s difficult to know exactly how much Chevron has spent on their Google Ad buy, but it’s safe to say that it’s far more than the environmental groups like Amazon Watch can afford.

It’s also fairly easy to avoid these kinds of attempts at corporate propaganda, at least for most relatively savvy web users. Chevron’s next attempt at influencing public opinion is more difficult to discern.

Dueling TV News Magazine Segments

In May, 2009 the CBS news magazine show “60 Minutes,” produced a segment called “Amazon Crude” about the Chevron case, it seemed the tide of public opinion might be turning against the third largest corporation in the U.S. The report detailed the environmental damage done to the Amazon region and the devastating health consequences for the people living there.

Chevron fought back in a rather remarkable media move. It hired a former CNN journalist, Gene Randall, to produce a similar, but favorable to Chevron, news-magazine-style-story, which the company then posted to YouTube and advertised heavily via Google. The video “report” for Chevron may be unprecedented for how it blurs the line between public relations and journalism. At least one analyst wondered whether this propagandist counter-news-production raises the specter of whether of a surge of newly out-of-work journalists who might be tempted to go “over to the dark side” and further muddy the line between news and corporate advocacy.

Digital video released over the Internet has continued to be a site of political battles over the environmental justice issue of the Amazon region. Activists from the group Amazon Defense Coalition have continued to release videos documenting Chevron’s toxic legacy in the Ecuadoran rainforest, as in this video which reportedly offers “devastating proof of Chevron toxic pits in Ecuador.” While the video is compelling, it’s hard to imagine what would be considered sufficient “proof” in the face of Chevron’s aggressive campaign of corporate disinformation about the environmental damage in Ecuador.

Following the “60 Minutes” segment and the faux-reporting corporate piece and counter volleys of online digital video, media activism against Chevron’s toxic practices shifted to documentary filmmaking. Predictably, Chevron was once again on the assault.

Chevron vs. Joe Berlinger, Documentary Filmmaker

The well-received documentary “Crude,” released in 2009, helped renew the public outcry over oil pollution in the Amazon. The filmmaker Joe Berlinger spent several years following key players in the multibillion-dollar class-action lawsuit filed in Ecuador against Chevron. Ultimately, Berlinger was forced to fight his own battle against Chevron’s lawyers.

Berlinger obtained astonishing access to the private strategy sessions of the lawyers suing Chevron, and Chevron used that access against Berlinger. Attorneys for the oil company filed a lawsuit against Berlinger, demanding access to all of his unedited footage that he shot for the documentary. U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in favor of Chevron and ordered Berlinger to turn over all 600 hours of footage he shot for the film. Chevron’s lawyers argued that they needed the tape to help stop the Ecuadorian lawsuit and related criminal prosecutions. Berlinger, along with many others, says the ruling is deep blow to the long-recognized journalistic privileges of documentary filmmakers. The ruling came in May, 2010 and has been largelyupheld by a court of appeals over the following months. It can be seen as a cautionary tale for lawyers who invite in documentary filmmakers to tell the story of their legal fights.

Chevron vs. YesMen: Astroturf vs. “Identity Correction”

In late-in-the-game PR move that some might regard as signaling a recognition of defeat, Chevron launched their “We Agree” campaign.

The campaign featured a Facebook “Like” button in the top, right-hand corner. The people photographed are uniformly attractive and lightly demographically diverse, with earnest expressions near polished, graphically designed signs that say things that are vaguely liberal, like “Oil Companies Should Put their Profits to Good Use,” “Oil Companies Need to Get Real,” and “Fighting AIDS Should be Corporate Policy.” These sentiments are all displayed under a Chevron corporate-branded website with the heading, “We Agree.” So, we’re good right? We can put that whole messy business in the Amazon is behind us, can’t we?

While some people might have been persuaded by Chevron’s “We Agree” campaign (they had 146 Facebook “Likes” at last count) not everyone was so moved.

The anti-corporate activists The Yes Men launched one of their “identity correction” campaigns in direct opposition to Chevron’s “We Agree” campaign. The Yes Men are the activists and performance artists who have spoofed the World Trade Organization among others (and are featured in the documentary “The Yes Men Fix the World“). The Yes Men saw the Chevron “We Agree” campaign as something of a challenge.

At almost the same time, the Yes Men together with Rainforest Action Network and Amazon Watch, put up their own, satirical website, which could easily fool web surfing neophytes.

The satirical site carries much of the same graphic design, logo, branding and imagery – but the language and text of the ads is much more pointed. Instead of “Oil Companies Need to Get Real,” the YesMen site reads, “Oil Companies Should Clean Up their Messes,” clearly implicating Chevron in the environmental disaster in the Amazon.

The YesMen site also includes download-able posters of their graphic arts messaging should anyone decide they wanted to spread the message of Chevron’s corporate environmental irresponsibility to a wider audience. The timing and effectiveness of the satirical site quickly became a PR-disaster for Chevron which reportedly spent $50 million dollars on the fake grassroots “We Agree” campaign. The YesMen followed up the success of this campaign with another soon afterward, the “Chevron Thinks We’re Stupid,” which quickly went viral.

What does this tell us?

There are several lessons to take away from the Chevron case. First, large oil companies routinely put profits over peoples’ health and above concerns about the environment. Furthermore, corporations will go to great lengths to use the media to manipulate the truth about what they’ve done in the service of profits and at the expense of human lives, health and the environment.

The other set of lessons the Chevron case has for health activists is that the site of political activism around environmental health has shifted. The location of struggle and protest is less often in the streets and more often in a battle over URLs, graphic user interface, and Google PageRank. The political battle over whose version of the truth prevails in media forms long considered journalistic, such as documentary filmmaking, are now under assault by large corporations. In the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision in favor of Citizens United (see Citizens United: A First Anniversary Update) there are likely to be more such corporate victories over independent media in the courts.

In many respects, the lawsuit against Chevron brought by indigenous people in Ecuador’s Amazon is a harbinger of things to come in corporate propaganda. We can expect more use of new forms of media activism, both the nefarious corporate manifestations such as Google ads for “The Amazon Report” and the lawsuit against Joe Berlinger, as well as the more democratic efforts of activists such as TheYesMen. The impact on environmental health depends at least in part on which of these strategies is most effective. 

For more information on Jessie Daniels, please visit our Contributing Writers page. 

 

Photo Credits:

1.     ChevronToxico: Campaign for Justice in Ecuador

2.     Google

3.     Chevron

4.     The Yes Men

BMSG Reports Explore Food Industry’s Harmful Target Marketing Strategies

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

The first of two recent reports by the Berkeley Media Studies Group explains how target marketing to communities of color by soda and fast food companies contributes to racial inequality. The report states that the explicit goal of these marketing strategies is to increase consumption of junk food in African-American and Latino communities. The second report builds on the theme of target marketing, detailing how the soda and fast food industries exploit the cultural ties and values of African-American and Latino mothers, ultimately making communities sicker by influencing the food choices of these women.

Should Corporations Serve Shareholders or Society?: The Origins of the Debate

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Discussions about corporations’ influence on health often implicitly or explicitly raise the following question: if the law allows corporations to amass money and consequent power, then why doesn’t the law require corporations to protect, and not harm, health?   This simple question has been asked, in various forms, for at least a century.

Adolph A Berle

The debate surrounding this question involves two competing versions of the corporation.[1] In the first version, the corporation is viewed as the property of the individuals who purchased its shares—the stockholders or owners.  According to this view, “the corporation’s purpose is to advance the purposes of these owners (predominantly to increase their wealth), and the function of its directors, as agents of the owners, is faithfully to advance the financial interests of the owners.”[2] Those who adhere to this view argue that corporate law should govern “little more than the private relations between the shareholders of the corporation and management.”[3] In the second version, the corporation is viewed “as a social institution.”[4] Proponents of this view believe that corporate law should be “deliberately responsive to public interest concerns,”[5] which includes health and safety considerations.

While federal and state courts have heard many legal challenges over the fundamental nature of a corporation, commentators trace the debate’s formal origin to two articles published in the Harvard Law Reviewin the early 1930s.[6] In 1931, Adolf A. Berle, a professor at Columbia Law School, wrote Corporate Powers as Powers in Trust.  In this article, he argued that “all powers granted to a corporation or the management of a corporation . . . are necessarily and at all times exercisable only for the ratable benefit of all the shareholders as their interest appears.”[7] Berle believed that corporations were simply vehicles for advancing and protecting shareholders’ interests and that corporate law should be interpreted to reflect this principle.  He suggested that any other account of corporations’ function and purpose would “defeat the very object and nature of the corporation itself.”[8]

One year later, E. Merrick Dodd, a professor at Harvard Law School, challenged Berle’s position in For Whom are Corporate Managers Trustees.  Dodd suggested that, “there is in fact a growing feeling not only that business has responsibilities to the community but that our corporate managers who control business should voluntarily and without waiting for legal compulsion manage it in such a way as to fulfill those responsibilities.”[9] He quoted the heads of several major corporations, such as General Electric, to argue that business leaders had come to recognize that corporate managers needed to consider social responsibility when running their companies. 

"If we recognize that the attitude of law and public opinion toward business is changing, we may then properly modify our ideas as to the nature of such a business institution as the corporation and hence as to the considerations which may properly influence the conduct of those who direct its activities." - E. Merrick Dodd, Jr.

Dodd provided several interpretations of this view relative to the requirements of corporate law.  First, he explained that if “social responsibility” meant that corporate managers paid more attention to the needs of their employees and consumers, this would ultimately benefit shareholders.  Dodd supported this argument by noting that employee satisfaction leads to greater productivity and ultimately increased profits.  By this logic, managers could actually increase profits by focusing on the needs of groups other than shareholders.[10] Next, Dodd argued that courts had provided great latitude to corporate managers, allowing them “a wide range of discretion as to what policies will best promote the interests of the stockholders . . .”[11] For example, Dodd suggested that corporate charitable giving, while not immediately increasing shareholder wealth, could generate good will in the community.[12] Such good will could benefit shareholders, since consumers would be more likely to think favorably of the corporation and buy its products.

For Dodd, these arguments meant that corporations are “affected not only by the laws which regulate business but by the attitude of public and business opinion as to the social obligations of business.”[13] He claimed that society’s view of the corporation as a purely private enterprise was shifting, and that corporate managers should “recognize that the attitude of law and public opinion toward business [was] changing . . .”[14] By arguing that corporate law should reflect shifts in public opinion about the purpose of corporations, Dodd paved the way for those who would later argue that corporations can and should act to benefit constituencies beyond their shareholders.[15] The echoes of Dodd’s argument are often heard among those who champion corporate social responsibility and responsible business practices.

Commentators continue to mention the Berle/Dodd debate, encapsulated by their Harvard Law Review articles, when contemplating how corporations should function within society.[16] Today, variations of this debate surface each time advocates challenge corporate practices that have harmed or may harm the public’s health.  The debate arises whenever policy-makers contemplate regulations that would require corporations to engage in behaviors that would protect the public’s health.  And, the debate over corporations’ fundamental purpose will continue for years to come, as new corporate practices come to light and new regulations are proposed.

Interestingly, the Berle/Dodd debate did resolve, but with an unexpected twist.  In 1954, Berle, who had espoused the view that corporations should be run exclusively to advance their shareholders’ interests, published The 20th Century Capitalist Revolution.  In this book, he mentioned his debate with Dodd and stated that “[t]he argument has been settled (at least for the time being) squarely in favor of Professor Dodd’s contention.”[17] Twenty years after articulating his original position, Berle conceded that the law had supported Dodd, in that it did allow directors some discretion to consider stakeholders other than a corporation’s shareholders.

Berle’s book was published one year after the New Jersey Supreme Court decided A.P. Smith Manufacturing Company v. Barlow (1953), which definitively established corporations’ ability to make philanthropic donations and offered support to Dodd’s arguments.  In all likelihood, this decision convinced Berle that even if corporations must be run with their shareholders’ best interests in mind, the law gives corporations some opportunities to consider other stakeholders.  For those who act to protect and promote the public’s health, this nuanced understanding of a corporation’s purpose is key.

 

References

[1] Kerr JE. Sustainability means profitability: the convenient truth of how the business judgment rule protects a board’s decision to engage in social entrepreneurship. Cardozo Law Rev. 2007;29:623-668, at 660.

[2] Allen WT. Our schizophrenic concept of the business corporation. Cardozo Law Rev. 1992;14:261-281, at 264-265.

[3] Millon D. Theories of the corporation. Duke Law J. 1990;1990:201-262, at 201.

[4] Allen WT. Our schizophrenic concept of the business corporation. Cardozo Law Rev. 1992;14:261-281, at 265.

[5] Millon D. Theories of the corporation. Duke Law J. 1990;1990:201-262, at 201.

[6] Schwartz DE. Defining the corporate objective: section 2.01of the ALI’s Principles. George Washington Law Rev.  1984;52:511-533, at 522.

[7] Berle AA. Corporate powers as powers in trust. Harvard Law Rev. 1931;44:1049-1074, at 1049.

[8] Berle AA. Corporate powers as powers in trust. Harvard Law Rev. 1931;44:1049-1074, at 1074.

[9] Dodd EM. For whom are corporate managers trustees. Harvard Law Rev. 1932;45:1145-1163.

[10] Dodd EM. For whom are corporate managers trustees. Harvard Law Rev. 1932;45:1145-1163, at 1156.

[11] Dodd EM. For whom are corporate managers trustees. Harvard Law Rev. 1932;45:1145-1163, at 1157.

[12] Dodd EM. For whom are corporate managers trustees. Harvard Law Rev. 1932;45:1145-1163, at 1159.

[13] Dodd EM. For whom are corporate managers trustees. Harvard Law Rev. 1932;45:1145-1163, at 1161.

[14] Dodd EM. For whom are corporate managers trustees. Harvard Law Rev. 1932;45:1145-1163, at 1163.

[15] Velasco J. The fundamental rights of the shareholder. U.C. Davis Law Rev. 2006;40:407-467.

[16] Matheson JH, Olson BA. Corporate cooperation, relationship management, and the trialogical imperative for corporate law. Minnesota Law Rev. 1994;78:1443-1491, at 1485.

[17] Berle AA. The 20th Century Capitalist Revolution. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co; 1954, at 169.

 

Photo Credits:

1.     Columbia University

2.     Harvard Law Review

3.     Amazon

New Report Shows Car Safety Rules Save Lives

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

A new report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found the number and rate of traffic fatalities in 2010 fell to the lowest levels since 1949, despite a significant increase in the number of miles Americans drove during the year. As Brian Wolfman noted on the Consumer Law and Policy Blog, “a combination of safety factors – safer vehicles (prompted by government rules), more seat belt use (prompted by government rules, increased enforcement, and public education), and less drunk driving (prompted by government rules, increased enforcement, and an all-out public awareness campaign) – have come together to bring the number of highway traffic deaths, in absolute numbers, to their lowest level since 1949. That’s astounding given the immense increases over the period in the number of drivers and miles driven and the increased speeds at which people drive. A triumph of government regulation that is hard to overstate.”

Citizens United: A First Anniversary Update

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Little more than a year after the January 21, 2010 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission, it is already apparent that the effects of the ruling are widespread, contaminate the democratic processes, and could be long-lasting. Because the effects of the ruling on the 2010 election campaign were significant, the potential effects on public health could be pervasive (1, 2). Finding new ways to undo its pernicious consequences is an important public health goal.

The Ruling

The Citizens United ruling (3) overthrew previous laws andcourt rulings ranging from the early 1900’s to parts of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, sometimes known as the McCain-Feingold law. The Court ruled that previous laws and regulations were so restrictive as to prohibit free speech. The ruling gave corporations the right to use unlimited amounts of money directly from the corporation’s treasury for independent election campaign advocacy. The results of the decision were immediately revealed in the November 2010 mid-term U.S. Congressional election campaign and its aftermath.

The Relevance of the Court’s Ruling to Public Health

Representative Darrell Issa

Corporate wealth gives companies the special ability to develop and test communications that frame issues, appeal to emotions, provide inaccurate and incomplete information, and increase the cognitive availability of ideas (4). This allows them to take advantage of voters’ decision-making vulnerabilities. Thus, corporate campaign election funds could be directed into tailored messages for or against candidates who take positions on a variety of public health issues ranging from abortion(5), coal-fired power plants, menu labeling, and worker health, to budget appropriations and other aspects of health that are vulnerable to market forces (6). Corporate lobbyists could pressure elected officials based on their contributions to the official’s campaign as a means of gaining legislative favors. Donations from insurance and pharmaceutical corporations in the 2008 election cycle seem to have gained them access and influence during health care financing reform (2). After the 2010 election Representative Issa (R-Calif.), chair of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, reportedly asked 150 trade associations, corporations and think tanks to provide a wish list of public health, environmental and other public protections they wanted eliminated (7). The Court’s ruling in Citizens United has raised concerns about the government’s ability to regulate the commercial speech of tobacco and other corporations in advertising their products (8). 

Follow the money

More money ($4 billion) was spent on the 2010 congressional elections by political parties and outside groups than in any previous midterm election cycle (9). According to reports by Public Citizen, in the 2010 election independent organizations that were the direct beneficiaries of corporate largess after the Citizens United ruling increased spending more than 400% over the 2006 mid-term election. About 54% of them disclosed anything about their sources. The groups that did not disclose information about sources spent 46% of the total $294 million spent by outside organizations on the election. In 60 of the 75 Congressional elections in which the seat was won by a candidate from a party different than the incumbent, the spending by outside organizations favored the winner. In the Senate election, winners had a 7-to-1 advantage in spending by outside organizations (10). The corporate funding ties and the political expenditures of some of the most influential of the independent organizations are known (11).

Campaign finance and disclosure laws in more than 24 states have been invalidated (10). The Citizens United ruling may have set a precedent to find that the public accommodations section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional because it prevents businesses from freely expressing themselves in a discriminatory manner (12). The Supreme Court considered a case in which AT&T requested a privacy exemption to government release of its records but the Court rejected a corporate right to personal privacy (13). A bill was introduced in Congress that would eliminate public funding of the presidential campaign (14). Several individuals tried to appropriate the Court’s ruling for personal reasons, including former U.S. House of Representative’s Majority Leader, Tom Delay in his appeal of his conviction for money laundering and conspiracy (15).Someone else announced that they want to marry a corporation (16).

Activities to Redress the Ruling

There are a variety of legislative options to redress the effects of the Court’s ruling (17,18). The Fair Elections Now Act with 160 co-sponsors in the House and 35 in the Senate would have provided federal election campaign funding on a four to one match to candidates who raised small donations of $100 or less (19). The Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act (DISCLOSE) includes requirements that corporate CEOs take responsibility and inform investors. Both the Fair Elections and DISCLOSE acts had strong support in both houses of the 111th session of Congress but did not pass, due in part to a Senate filibuster. Another bill was introduced for a constitutional amendment to enable Congress to regulate corporate expenditures for political speech (20). Eight Senators and 40 Representatives have endorsed a constitutional amendment (21). Other legislation would require permission from a majority of stockholders of advance notice (18). Bills considered in the 2010 Congressional session will have to be reintroduced in the current (2011) session.

Organizational Supporters of the Fair Elections Now Act

At least 16 states have passed laws with a variety of responses to Citizens United such as mandating disclosure of funding sources and prohibiting foreign contributions (10, 21). Seven state legislatures have introduced resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment to redress the Court’s ruling (22). The City of Pittsburgh passed an ordinance that denied corporations the right of personhood and affirmed the rights of nature (23). A group of over 50 former federal and state attorneys general and law professors sent a letter to the Senate and House opposing the Court’s decision and calling for a constitutional amendment (24).

Organizations that advocate for a constitutional amendment to deny corporations personhood or to remove their right of political speech include Public Citizen, Move to Amend, Free Speech for People, the Progressive Democrats of America, the Coffee Part, and others. The broad support for such a change is suggested by the strategy development conference held in 2010 by the Network of Spiritual Progressives and their proposed personhood and environmental responsibility constitutional amendment.25 Business for Democracy supports a constitutional amendment to prohibit corporate campaign funding but which would not ban corporate political speech. By August after the Court’s ruling 400,000 people had already signed a petition supporting a constitutional amendment (26).

Common Cause asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate possible conflict of interest by Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonio Scalia because of their possible connection to election campaign contributors while the Citizens United case was before the Court (27).More than three-fourths of U.S. citizens disagreed with the Court’s ruling, believe that congress should take action to curb the effects of the Citizens United ruling, and favor reinstating spending limits; positions that cross political party affiliation (28). The first anniversary of the Court’s ruling saw more than 100 protest demonstrations and rallies across the U.S. (21) 

What Public Health Professionals Can Do

Public health professionals must first recognize that on almost every health issue corporations are the opposition, ranging from issues of health behaviors, environmental or occupational health, access to safe and inexpensive medications, to healthcare (29). Rather than focusing advocacy efforts on a specific product, practice, policy, or on a specific corporation or industry, public health efforts might be more efficient in addressing the underlying, common factor: the rights given to corporations that allow them their influence and power over democratic processes, and thereby influence over public health policy and funding. The American Public Health Association (APHA) could pass related policies, educate members about the issue, and organize advocacy activities with its state affiliates in collaboration with outside organizations that have the similar aim of corporate reform. It is likely that only effective action by a larger, strong and coordinated grass roots movement will be able to counter corporate money and influence.

Academic public health programs need to conduct research on corporate influences and incorporate the study of corporate influence into curricula (30). Research is needed on the influence of corporate election campaign contributions and lobbying on the positions elected representatives take on public health policy issues. Research is also needed about the influence of the “revolving door” on government agency regulations and standards, and on monitoring and enforcement.

More academic curricula could include courses such as those at CUNY Hunter College (31). and Northern Arizona University32 that focus on or integrate corporate influences on health. Public health curricula must help students understand the pervasive and fundamental influence of corporations on public health and democracy. Graduates must be prepared to conduct research, health policy development, and advocacy campaigns that will take back democracy from corporations and protect and promote the health of the public.

Note: An analysis of the Citizens United decision by Bill Wiist that will appear in a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Public Health can be found in First Look.

 

References

1. Rutkow L, Vernick JS, Teret SP. The potential health effects of Citizens United. N Engl J Med. 2010; 362(15): 1356-1358.

2. Wiist, WH. (March 17, 2011) Citizens United, public health and democracy: The Supreme Court ruling, its implications, and proposed action. American Journal of Public Health. Early release electronic version: DOI 10.2105/AJPH.2010.300043.

3. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, US 130 876 (2010).

4. Walker Wilson M.J. Too much of a good thing: Campaign speech after Citizens United.

Cardozo Law Review. 2010; 31(6):2365-2392.

5. Jacobson, J. Corporate cash secretly funneled to extremist Tea Party candidates who want to outlaw abortion — even contraception. October 16, 2010. Available at

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/148523/corporate_cash_secretly_funneled_to_extremist_tea_party_candidates_who_want_to_outlaw_abortion_–_even_contraception/?page=entire. Accessed October 18, 2010.

6. Brezis, M. & Wiist, WH Vulnerability of health to market forces. Medical Care. 2011; 49(3): 232-239.

7. Big Business already seeing investment in elections pay off. January 7, 2011. Money and Democracy Update Issue #43.publiccitizen@mail.democracyinaction.org

8. Piety, TR. Citizens United and the threat to the regulatory state: First impressions Michigan Law Review (2010); 109(16):16-22. http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/fi/109/piety.pdf

9. Kurtzleben D. 2010 Set Campaign Spending Records. The 2010 midterm elections had a record-setting $4 billion price tag. January 7, 2011. Available at

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/01/07/2010-set-campaign-spending-records. Accessed January 27, 2011

10. Public Citizen Congress Watch (January 2011). 12 Months After: The Effects of Citizens United on Elections and the Integrity of the Legislative process. Washington, DC: Public Citizen.

11. People for the American Way. After Citizens United: A Look into the Pro-Corporate Players in American Politics. An Updated Look into the Groups Empowered by the Citizens United Decision that are Propagating Their Pro-Corporate Agenda. Available at http://www.pfaw.org/sites/default/files/cit-u-follow-up-report.pdf. Accessed February 12, 2011.

12. Center for Media and Democracy. The Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” Decision Threatens the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Available at http://www.prwatch.org/node/9426. Accessed September 9, 2010.

13.  Liptak A. (March 1, 2011). Supreme Court Rules on AT&T Case. Available at

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02scotus.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=supreme%20court%20AT&T%20corporate%20privacy&st=cse. Accessed March 2, 2011.

14. Public Citizen Unlimited Corporate Spending in Elections – And Now No Public Financing To Boot!? House GOP Moves to Bolster Special Interest Funding of 2012 Presidential Elections. January 24, 2011. Available athttp://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=3265

15. With prison looming, DeLay looks to Citizens United and the Supremes, Jan 13, 2011. Available at

http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2011/01/13/with-prison-looming-delay-looks-to-citizens-united-and-the-supremes/. Accessed February 12, 2011.

16. Florida Woman Looks to Marry Corporation. January 21, 2010. e-mail newsletter. Money and Democracy Update Issue # 45. publiccitizen@mail.democracyinaction.org

17. Whitaker LP, Lunder EK, Manuel KM, Maskell J, Seitzinger MV. Legislative Options After Citizens United v.FEC: Constitutional and legal issues. March 8, 2010. Congressional Research Service Report 41096.

Available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41096.pdf. Accessed March 11, 2011

18. Garrett RS. Campaign Finance Policy After Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: Issues and Options for Congress. February 1, 2010. Congressional Research Service Report 41054. Available athttp://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R41054_20100201.pdf Accessed March 11, 2011.

19. Alterman, E. Kabuki democracy—and how to fix it. The Nation. January 24, 2011; 11-18.

20. Nichols, N. Donna Edwards’ no corporate monopoly of elections amendment. February 3, 2010. Available at

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/525477/donna_edwards_no_corporate_monopoly_of_elections_amendment. Accessed March 26, 2010.

21. Weissman, R. Democracy in Despair: Year Two. Public Citizen. January 27, 2011. e-mailPubliccitizen@mail.democracyinaction.org

22.  oskebuckley’s blog. Updated: 2010 state resolutions introduced in support of amending the Constitution. February 2, 2011. Available at http://freespeechforpeople.org/node/189. Accessed Marcy 11, 2011.

23. Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Pittsburgh bans natural gas drilling.

http://www.celdf.org/press-release–pittsburgh-bans-natural-gas-drilling

24. Clements, J.D. October 4, 2010. Citizens United v. FEC and Constitutional Amendment: Letter to Chairmen Leahy, Conyers, Feingold, and Nadler. Free Speech for People. Available athttp://www.freespeechforpeople.org/sites/default/files/finalfsfppfaw.pdf. Accessed October 10, 2010.

25. Network of Spiritual Progressives. ESRA: Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the US onstitution. Available at

http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php/2010062306243316. Accessed January 13, 2011.

26. Berman, A. Citizens unite against Citizens United. The Nation; August 16/23, 2010 29-30.

27. Lichtblau T. Advocacy Group Says Justices May Have Conflict in Campaign Finance Cases. January 19, 2011. Available athttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/us/politics/20koch.html?_r=3. Accessed January 20, 2011

28. Eggen D. Poll: Large majority opposes Supreme Court’s decision on campaign financing. Washington Post. February 17, 2010. Available at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/02/17/AR2010021701151.html. Accessed March 26, 2010.

29. Wiist WH, ed. The Bottom Line or Public Health: Tactics Corporations Use to Influence Health and Health Policy and What We Can Do to Counter Them. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2010.

30. Wiist WH. Public health and the anticorporate movement: rationale and recommendations. Am J Public Health. 2006;96(8):1370–1375.

31. Freudenberg N. The Role of Corporations and Government in Health Promotion and Health Policy. Hunter College City University of New York.  http://www.corporationsandhealth.org/course_outline.pdf

32. Wiist WH. Economic Globalization and Health. Northern Arizona University. Fall 2009 and 2010.

 

Photo Credits

1.     Onecle via flickr

2.     Republicanconference via flickr

3.     Cory M. Grenier via flickr