The Bottom Line or Public Health: Tactics Corporations Use to Influence Health and Health Policy, and What We Can Do to Counter Them PDF
Preview The Bottom Line or Public Health: Tactics Corporations Use to Influence Health and Health Policy, and What We Can Do to Counter Them
The Bottom Line or Public Health This page intentionally left blank The Bottom Line or Public Health Tactics Corporations Use to Infl uence Health and Health Policy, and What We Can Do to Counter Them edited by william h. wiist 1 2010 3 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2010 by Oxford University Press Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Materials appearing in this book prepared by individuals as part of their offi cial duties as United States government employees are not covered by the above-mentioned copyright, and any views expressed therein do not necessarily represent the views of the United States government. Such individuals’ participation in the Work is not meant to serve as an offi cial endorsement of any statement to the extent that such statement may confl ict with any offi cial position of the Unites States government. Except where otherwise noted, all authors of original material in this book warrant that within the past two years they have not received gifts, grant funds, payments as a consultant, representative, writer or other services to a for-profi t corporation, nor served on a corporate board, corporate advisory group, corporation sponsored institute or foundation, nor have they held fi nancial interest in a corporation or industry about which they have written Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data CIP data on fi le ISBN 978-0-19-537563-3 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Alvin, Judy, Cynthia M. G. Aiden and Addy. May you live in a beautiful and sustainable world fi lled with peace, health, and happiness; free from tyranny and with democracy for all. This page intentionally left blank Preface There are two things the reader needs to know about this book before proceeding further: 1. The book takes a point of view, a viewpoint that is critical of the institution known as the corporation, its practices, and the economic philosophy and legal rulings upon which the corporation is founded and by which it operates. The focus of the book is on the fundamental characteristics of the corporation, not the operations of specifi c corporations or industries that have an infl uence on health. That information is merely illustrative of the corporate institution. The book is not intended to provide a balanced perspective about corporations, including the benefi ts society may derive from corporations. The ideology and beliefs that underpin the corporation are already ubiquitous and promulgated by most news media (e.g., Wall Street Journal, CNBC), publishers, policy institutes, the educational system, particularly business schools, legislatures, and the courts. While harmful practices or products of a single company or an entire industry are sometimes criticized, the above institutions rarely critique the fundamental nature of the corporation or its operating principles. The conventional wisdom is that the corporation as it is currently structured and operates is necessary and always benefi cial. Therefore, it is unnecessary for this book to present that viewpoint. vii viii preface 2. This book is intended for both academic and advocacy audiences. The chapters were written by both academics familiar with research about corporations and by staff of organizations who are working directly on issues related to the corporation. Readers may think that my perspective as a university professor working for government is entirely theoretical without the benefi t of fi rsthand experi- ence that would give me a more favorable viewpoint about corporations. To the contrary, my personal experience with a publically traded, for-profi t corpora- tion and a private, for-profi t corporation contributed to my academic interest in further studying the corporation as an institution. For many years prior to completing my formal education, I worked at the minimum wage on an assembly line in a factory. This was the same factory at which my father worked for 30 years and that did not have a retirement plan, and where he was likely exposed to the substance that ended his life two years after retirement. More recently, during my professional career, I was employed by a small privately held corporation that operated in an informal manner with consid- erable employee involvement in corporate decision making. Employees were well acquainted with each other and most were on a fi rst name basis with the owner, the board, and other offi cials. When the corporation was purchased by a larger, publically traded corporation, the goals, operations, and management style quickly changed. One morning, not long after the new management took over, I dropped off my company laptop with the technicians for repairs. As usual, the technicians were pleasant and in a cheerful mood. They promised to have the laptop ready in 2 hours. When I returned at the designated time to retrieve the laptop, the technicians were not in their offi ce. As I looked for my laptop, a stranger walked in and asked if he could help me. He informed me that the two technicians no longer worked there and that he was now in charge. Although many employees still worked closely with top corporate offi cials, those offi cials used the sudden, unexpected termination procedure many times over the coming years to terminate numerous employees working at all levels. Because of my personal experience working on a factory assembly line and for the corporation described above, I understand, in a way that many academ- ics do not, fi rsthand how the corporation operates. Due to space limitations, the chapters in this book are not the “last word” on a topic nor do they provide a comprehensive review of the subject mat- ter. The chapters serve as an introduction to the topics and as a stimulus for further scholarship and advocacy by others who might be willing to work on preface ix in this new frontier for public health, “the corporation.” In making the argu- ments they make, the chapter authors courageously take positions contrary to conventional wisdom. Often those who are experts in a fi eld have vested interests in the status quo, particularly if they have ties to corporations from a consultancy, grants, and so forth that make their fi nancial confl icts of interest so extensive that they are unwilling, or intellectually unable, to make the arguments that the authors in this book have made. Or, it may never have occurred to them to even consider examining the corporation in such a fundamental way as the chapter authors of this book have. The other individuals have simply accepted the con- ventional wisdom. The authors of chapters in this book are critical thinkers who do not accept the conventional wisdom. By defi nition they are radicals: they examine the root causes of the problem. Because of the nature of this book, the chapter authors have all provided a statement that they have no cor- porate confl icts of interests. Chapter authors use both scholarly and journalistic sources: journals, books, popular press books, news media, magazines, Web sites and personal experience. Sources from outside traditional academic sources are also used, in part because, compared to a few scholars and advocacy organizations, relatively few academics critically examine the fundamental nature of the corporation as an institution, its source of power and infl uence, or the tactics the corporation uses. Few academics conduct research on the relationships between corporate or market variables and public health measures or publish such material in scholarly journals. The thesis of the book is that because of the way the corporation, as an institution, was structured historically, mainly through court rulings, all cor- porations either use the same tactics to infl uence health policy or they have the same tactics available for their use. When I presented this thesis for the fi rst time at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association in Washington, D.C., I also laid out counter tactics that public health profes- sionals and advocates can use. Based on this schema, the book is divided into three sections. The fi rst section of the book serves as an introduction to the topic. In Chapter 1, “The Corporation: An Overview of What It Is, Its Tactics and What Public Health Can Do” I provide an overview of the history of the corporation and the lessons that history holds for public health professionals, the prevailing economic model underlying the corporation, an enumeration of the six tactics the corporation uses, and provide examples of their use, and describe the key counter tactics public health professionals and advocates can use. In Chapter 2, “Corporations, Public Health and the Historical Landscape that Defi nes Our
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