scholarly journals Ethics, morality, and conflicting interests: how questionable professional integrity in some scientists supports global corporate influence in public health

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xaver Baur ◽  
Lygia Therese Budnik ◽  
Kathleen Ruff ◽  
David S. Egilman ◽  
Richard A. Lemen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Professional Integrity ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
Conflicting Interests

Expanding the concept of the professional integrity of obstetrics during a public health emergency

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 435-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank A. Chervenak ◽  
Amos Grünebaum ◽  
Eran Bornstein ◽  
Shane Wasden ◽  
Adi Katz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
New York ◽  
Clinical Judgment ◽  
Ethical Judgment ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Public Health Emergency ◽  
Ethical Challenge ◽  
Professional Integrity ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Obstetric Services

AbstractThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has placed great demands on many hospitals to maximize their capacity to care for affected patients. The requirement to reassign space has created challenges for obstetric services. We describe the nature of that challenge for an obstetric service in New York City. This experience raised an ethical challenge: whether it would be consistent with professional integrity to respond to a public health emergency with a plan for obstetric services that would create an increased risk of rare maternal mortality. We answered this question using the conceptual tools of professional ethics in obstetrics, especially the professional virtue of integrity. A public health emergency requires frameshifting from an individual-patient perspective to a population-based perspective. We show that an individual-patient-based, beneficence-based deliberative clinical judgment is not an adequate basis for organizational policy in response to a public health emergency. Instead, physicians, especially those in leadership positions, must frameshift to population-based clinical ethical judgment that focuses on reduction of mortality as much as possible in the entire population of patients served by a healthcare organization.

To Protect and Kill: US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Management of Human–Wildlife Conflict, 1996-2011

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Green Criminology ◽  
Wildlife Conflict ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Conflicting Interests ◽  
Human Wildlife Conflict

AbstractHarms against nonhuman animals have become a significant concern in different disciplines (e.g., green criminology). This paper presents a multi-disciplinary discussion of one form of animal harm—wildlife harm—created by state agencies charged with protecting animals. Specifically, this issue is examined by reviewing the complex problems faced by theUSFish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), which is charged with competing objectives: between protecting economic and public health interests, and protecting wildlife. In managing the human–wildlife conflicts brought to its attention, theUSFWSmust often make tradeoffs between protecting economic and public health interests, and protecting wildlife. As the data reviewed here indicate, this leads theUSFWSto kill a large number of animals each year to protect economic and public health interests—more than 40 million animals since 1996. The political and economic factors that influence these killings, and how the state balances conflicting interests, are also examined.

scholarly journals "The Gypsy issue” in Hungary during the interwar years (I)

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 60-68
Author(s):  
Tamás Hajnáczky ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The Other ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Conflicting Interests ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
The Creation

During the interwar years in Hungary, the authorities approached the issue of Gypsy settlements mainly through regulations concerning public health. Measures to try to settle the so-called “wandering Gypsies” resulted indirectly in the creation of new Gypsy settlements. The conflicting interests of government ministries and the local authorities became all the more apparent, as they both expected the provision of the accompanying necessary funds to resolve the “Gypsy issue” from the other party. The implementation of the decrees issued by the central authorities were often obstructed and faced criticism from officials, doctors, and gendarmerie responsible for their implementation at the local level. During the period in question, the content of the “Gypsy issue” gradually changed: during the 1920s it mostly meant the setllement of “wandering Gypsies”; while later, in the 1930s, along with the old ones new challenges arose related to the Gypsy settlements, which increased both in size and number. The author uses little-researched primary sources: resolutions approved by the Hungarian authorities and Hungarian interwar periodicals such as: the Csendőrségi Lapok (Gendarmerie Journals), Magyar Közigazgatás (Hungarian Public Administration) and Népegészségügy (Public Health).

scholarly journals "Part of the Solution:" Food Corporation Strategies for Regulatory Capture and Legitimacy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Lacy-Nichols ◽  
Owain Williams
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Regulatory Capture ◽  
Solution Strategy ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
Market Strategies

Background: For decades, the food industry has sought to deflect criticisms of its products and block public health legislation through a range of offensive and defensive strategies. More recently, food corporations have moved on to present themselves as "part of the solution" to the health problems their products cause. This strategic approach is characterised by appeasement, co-option and partnership, and involves incremental concessions and attempts to partner with health actors. This paper details how corporate practices have evolved and changed over the past two decades and gives some definition to what this new political economy signifies for the wider behaviours of corporations producing and selling harmful commodities. Methods: This paper draws on public health and political science literature to classify the food industry’s "part of the solution" strategy into three broad components: regulatory responses and capture; relationship building; and market strategies. We detail the key characteristics and consequences of each component. Results: The three components of the food industry’s "part of the solution" strategy all involve elements of appeasement and co-option. They also improve the political environment and resources of the food industry. Regulatory responses offer incremental concessions that seek to maintain corporate influence over governance processes and minimise the threat of regulations; relationship building fosters access to health and government stakeholders, and opportunities to acquire and maintain channels of direct influence; and market strategies to make products and portfolios healthier bolster the market share and revenue of food corporations while improving their public image. Conclusion: Rather being a signal of lost position and power, the food industry’s repositioning as "part of the solution" has created a highly profitable political economy of ‘healthy’ food production, alongside continued production of unhealthy commodities, a strategy in which it is also less burdensome and conflictual for corporations to exercise political power and influence.

scholarly journals How upstream policy reforms enable the use of industry data and science

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
A Gilmore
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Industry Data ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Better Regulation ◽  
Smart Regulation

Abstract Corporations have worked to promote and embed policymaking reforms which increase reliance on and provide a conduit for industry-favourable science. Such systems have become increasingly mainstream in policy making across the world, yet most are unaware of the corporate influence behind them. We will present evidence that diverse corporations worked collectively to promote and embed 'Better Regulation' (now known as 'Smart Regulation') in the European Union. The desired outcome was to reduce policymakers' ability to pass public health policies which could be detrimental to corporate interests and profits. We will illustrate how these regulatory frameworks have now been embedded. Delegates will hear examples of the ways in which corporations have gone on to use these systems to feed misleading science into the policymaking process, ultimately in attempts to dilute, delay or prevent public health policies.

scholarly journals How Coca-Cola Shaped the International Congress on Physical Activity and Public Health: An Analysis of Email Exchanges between 2012 and 2014

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (23) ◽  
pp. 8996
Author(s):  
Benjamin Wood ◽  
Gary Ruskin ◽  
Gary Sacks
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Physical Activity ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
Industry Sponsorship ◽  
Rising Incidence ◽  
Front Groups

There is currently limited direct evidence of how sponsorship of scientific conferences fits within the food industry’s strategy to shape public policy and opinion in its favour. This paper provides an analysis of emails between a vice-president of The Coca-Cola Company (Coke) and prominent public health figures in relation to the 2012 and 2014 International Congresses of Physical Activity and Public Health (ICPAPH). Contrary to Coke’s prepared public statements, the findings show that Coke deliberated with its sponsored researchers on topics to present at ICPAPH in an effort to shift blame for the rising incidence of obesity and diet-related diseases away from its products onto physical activity and individual choice. The emails also show how Coke used ICPAPH to promote its front groups and sponsored research networks and foster relationships with public health leaders in order to use their authority to deliver Coke’s message. The study questions whether current protocols about food industry sponsorship of scientific conferences are adequate to safeguard public health interests from corporate influence. A safer approach could be to apply the same provisions that are stipulated in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control on eliminating all tobacco industry sponsorship to the food industry.

Beyond Disclosure: Developing Law and Policy to Tackle Corporate Influence

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 275-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan H. Marks
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Opioid Epidemic ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Public Health Agencies ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
Medical Centers ◽  
Academic Medical ◽  
Intractable Problems

Corporate influence is one of the most pressing issues in public health. It cuts across many of our most intractable problems—from obesity to the opioid epidemic. Companies develop close relationships with public health agencies, research universities, academic medical centers, professional societies, and patient advocacy organizations—often funding medical research and public health interventions intended to address the very challenges these corporations are creating or exacerbating. How we view relationships with industry, including how these relationships are framed in ethical discourse, shapes our legal and policy responses to them. In recent years, fueled in part by the opioid epidemic, the ethical framing of industry relationships has begun to evolve in significant ways. But legal and policy responses have not yet caught up. In this article, I develop a temporal account of corporate influence, and legal and policy responses to corporate influence. This account clarifies the limitations and adverse effects of conflicts of interest disclosure, especially when implemented as the sole legal or policy response. Disclosure can illuminate corporate influence—but policymakers cannot and should not rely on disclosure to eliminate corporate influence or its effects. Nor should we allow disclosure to crowd out structural and systemic responses to corporate influence—including sequestration of and separation from private-sector entities.

scholarly journals Mechanisms for addressing the influence of corporations on public health

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (Supplement_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Mialon ◽  
S Vandevijvere ◽  
A Carriedo ◽  
L Bero ◽  
F Gomes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Policy Science ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media

Abstract Introduction Manufacturers, such as producers of cigarettes, drugs or ultra-processed foods, influence health policy, research and practice. This influence is one of the main barriers against the implementation of public health policies around the world. Our goal was to identify existing mechanisms to limit this influence. Methods We conducted a scoping review in 2019. We searched five scientific databases: Web of Science Core Collection; BIOSIS; MEDLINE; Base; Scopus. Twenty-eight institutions and networks related to our research objective were also contacted to identify additional mechanisms and examples. In addition, we identified mechanisms and examples drawn from our collective experience. We have classified the mechanisms into two groups: those of international organizations and governments; those for universities, the media and civil society. Results Thirty-one publications were included in our review, including eight scientific articles. Nine mechanisms focused on several industries; while the other documents targeted specific industries. We identified 49 mechanisms that could help limit corporate influence in health policy, science and practice. For 41 of these mechanisms, we found examples, around the world, where they have been implemented. The main objectives of the mechanisms identified were to manage conflicts of interest and ethical issues, while increasing the transparency of public-private interactions. Mechanisms for governments (n = 17) and universities (n = 13) were most frequently identified, with fewer examples existing to protect the media and civil society. Discussion The development, implementation and monitoring of these mechanisms are essential to protect public health from industrial influence. Key messages We found 49 mechanisms that could help limit corporate influence in health policy, science and practice. There are fewer mechanisms to protect the media and civil society, than to protect governments and universities.

Public Health and Newborn Hearing Screening

1997 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Terrey Oliver Penn ◽  
Susan E. Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Hearing Screening ◽  
Newborn Hearing Screening ◽  
Newborn Hearing
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