Corporations and Health Watch

Beyond Apologies: An Interview with Debra Efroymson

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Corporations and Health Watch

Debra Efroymson is Regional Director for HealthBridge, a global nonprofit organization that aims to improve the health of vulnerable populations and to develop new solutions to preventing and reducing the inequitable distribution of noncommunicable diseases. Based in Bangladesh, she has written about livable cities, tobacco control and NCD prevention. Her new book Beyond Apologies: Defining and Achieving an Economics of Wellbeing is Continue reading Beyond Apologies: An Interview with Debra Efroymson

Drug companies accused of blocking access to cheap drugs

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Corporations and Health Watch

Access to cheap drugs which can prevent blindness is being blocked by pharmaceutical companies, a British Medical Journal investigation has alleged. The Daily Telegraph reports that BMJ describes how drug manufacturers are accused of attempting to derail trials which would show that a drug which costs just £65 a dose works just as well as current treatments sold to the NHS for more than ten times as much.

Trans Pacific Partnership Leak shows how corporations can sue governments

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Corporations and Health Watch

The recent leak of a secret chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Investor-State Dispute Settlement system (ISDS) is getting many people on both the left and the right upset. In this interview from the Washington Post, Rachel Wellhausen, at the University of Texas explains how the ISDS works.

CSPI Petition Tells USDA and HHS: Don’t Let the Food Industry Threaten Progress on Nutrition!

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Corporations and Health Watch

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee report is hot off the presses—and the meat industry, corn refiners, soda makers, and just about every other special-interest agribusiness concern in Washington are already attacking it.

The report is Continue reading CSPI Petition Tells USDA and HHS: Don’t Let the Food Industry Threaten Progress on Nutrition!

When it comes to e-cigs, Big Tobacco is concerned for your health

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Corporations and Health Watch

The health warning on a MarkTen electronic cigarette package is 116 words long. That’s much longer than the warnings on traditional cigarette packs in the United States. Nicotine, the e-cig warning says, is “addictive and habit-forming, and it is very toxic by inhalation, in contact with the skin, or if swallowed.” “Why the concern?” asks a special investigative report from Reuters.

UK alcohol industry’s “billion units pledge”: interim evaluation flawed

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Corporations and Health Watch

Flaws in the United Kingdom’s Department of Health’s interim evaluation of an alcohol industry pledge to remove one billion alcohol units from the market raise questions about the claimed success argues a new report in the British Medical Journal. The authors say that the report should be withdrawn and revised targets set.

Gun deaths in New Mexico

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Corporations and Health Watch

About 34 percent of New Mexicans say they have guns at home, lower than in other states where the number can be closer to 50 percent. However, New Mexico is one of the states with the least amount of gun regulation – and a high firearm-related fatality rate. A report from KUNM in New Mexico finds that a large majority of gun deaths in New Mexico are from suicide, which account for nearly 75 percent of gun deaths in New Mexico.

Parents wrongly think sugary drinks healthy

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Corporations and Health Watch

Bamboozled by misleading product marketing and labeling, parents have failed to get the message that sugary drinks — beyond soda — are not healthy for kids. That’s the conclusion of a new study from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at University of Connecticut, published today in Public Health Nutrition, reports USA Today. As soda sales decline, beverage makers are increasingly turning to waters, flavored waters, juices, sports drinks and even milk products as options.

Choice, responsibility, and health: What role for the food movement?

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Corporations and Health Watch

In making decisions about how best to improve the food choices people make, the food movement faces a dilemma. On the one hand, individuals decide what to put in their mouths and swallow, suggesting that improvements require changing what’s inside people’s heads: their knowledge, skills, and motivation. On the other hand, Continue reading Choice, responsibility, and health: What role for the food movement?

Advertising Happy Meals to Children—An Interview with Jim Sargent

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Corporations and Health Watch

McDonaldsBurgerKing — The proportion of children with any recall of 1) a premium/tie-in, 2) any food, or 3) healthy food after seeing fast-food television advertising targeted to children, by company (McDonalds, Burger King).

Earlier this month, PLOS One published “Children’s Recall of Fast Food Television Advertising—Testing the Adequacy of Food Marketing Regulation”, a report on a study that Continue reading Advertising Happy Meals to Children—An Interview with Jim Sargent