scholarly journals The World Health Organization, Corporate Power, and the Prevention and Management of Conflicts of Interest in Nutrition Policy Comment on "Towards Preventing and Managing Conflict of Interest in Nutrition Policy? An Analysis of Submissions to a Consultation on a Draft WHO Tool"

Author(s):  
Gary Jonas Fooks ◽  
Charlotte Godziewski

The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) draft Decision-Making Process and Tool to assist governments in preventing and managing conflicts of interest in nutrition policy marks a step-change in WHO thinking on large corporations and nutrition policy. If followed closely it stands to revolutionise business-government relations in nutrition policy. Ralston and colleagues outline how the food and beverage industry have argued against the decision-making tool. This commentary expands on their study by setting industry framing within a broader analysis of corporate power and explores the challenges in managing industry influence in nutrition policy. The commentary examines how the food and beverage industry’s collaboration and partnership agenda seeks to shape how policy problems and solutions are interpreted and acted on and explores how this agenda and their efforts to define conflicts of interest effectively represent non-policy programmes. More generally, we point to the difficulties that member states will face in adopting the tool and highlight the importance of considering the central role of transnational food and beverage companies in contemporary economies to managing their influence in nutrition policy.

Author(s):  
A. Rob Moodie

Managing conflict of interest (CoI) among the interested stake-holders in nutrition policy is a vexed and controversial issue. This commentary builds on Ralston and colleagues’ highly informative analysis of the 44 submissions to the World Health Organization (WHO) draft tool on preventing and managing CoI in national nutrition programs. The commentary proposes that the commercial sector actors are, by definition, too conflicted to objectively respond to the draft tool. The responses of the commercial sectors are predictable, as they mimic their positions during the prior negotiation for the development of the Framework for Engagement of Non-State Actors (FENSA). Their overall approach, and specific responses, are typical of the now standard methods of the ultra-processed food and beverage industry’s ‘corporate playbook.’ In addition, Ralston et al’s analysis raises a number of other issues, such as: why these corporations are so keen to be included in the world of multi-stakeholder partnerships, why so few member states responded to the draft tool, and problems with the term ‘private sector.’ The commentary ends with a suggestion for WHO to seek broader involvement from the 160+ member states who have yet to participate in the consultations regarding the draft tool.


Author(s):  
Katherine Severi

Ralston et al present an analysis of policy actor responses to a draft World Health Organization (WHO) tool to prevent and manage conflicts of interest (COI) in nutrition policy. While the Ralston et al study is focussed explicitly on food and nutrition, the issues and concepts addressed are relevant also to alcohol policy debates and present an important opportunity for shared learning across unhealthy commodity industries in order to protect and improve population health. This commentary addresses the importance of understanding how alcohol policy actors – especially decision-makers – perceive COI in relation to alcohol industry engagement in policy. A better understanding of such perceptions may help to inform the development of guidelines to identify, manage and protect against risks associated with COI in alcohol policy.


Author(s):  
Frank Mahoney ◽  
James W. Le Duc

Multinational collaborations on international outbreak investigations and response have a long history. Development of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948 was closely linked to efforts by the global community to prevent, detect, and respond to outbreaks of international concern. Through the International Health Regulations (IHR) of 2005, a legally binding instrument requiring countries to report certain outbreaks and public health events, WHO outlined a strategy for disease threat response. Efforts by global partners to strengthen cooperation have evolved over the years, including roles and responsibilities of WHO, its Member States, and other partners. Among the challenges faced by Member State and WHO in implementing the IHRs are limited funding to support staffing and operational support as well as sometimes conflicting multijurisdictional decision-making. The response to recent outbreaks provides evidence that much work remains to be done to strengthen IHR mechanisms.


2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (12) ◽  
pp. 2218-2227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Safreed-Harmon ◽  
Sarah Blach ◽  
Soo Aleman ◽  
Signe Bollerup ◽  
Graham Cooke ◽  
...  

Abstract Cascade-of-care (CoC) monitoring is an important component of the response to the global hepatitis C virus (HCV) epidemic. CoC metrics can be used to communicate, in simple terms, the extent to which national and subnational governments are advancing on key targets, and CoC findings can inform strategic decision-making regarding how to maximize the progression of individuals with HCV to diagnosis, treatment, and cure. The value of reporting would be enhanced if a standardized approach were used for generating CoCs. We have described the Consensus HCV CoC that we developed to address this need and have presented findings from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, where it was piloted. We encourage the uptake of the Consensus HCV CoC as a global instrument for facilitating clear and consistent reporting via the World Health Organization (WHO) viral hepatitis monitoring platform and for ensuring accurate monitoring of progress toward WHO's 2030 hepatitis C elimination targets.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 52-55
Author(s):  
Husnul Khotimah ◽  
Tijaniyah

Self-medication, known as self-medication, has now been widely used by people to treat their own diseases without a doctor's prescription. This is because the cost of examining and just consulting a doctor is very expensive for the community. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) self-medication is defined as the selection and use of drugs, including herbal and traditional medicine, by individuals to treat themselves from disease or symptoms of disease. As well as the world of digital information is currently mushrooming in various information systems to provide information to the public in real time. Therefore, the author will make a research on how web-based information systems can provide information to the public about self-medication for coughs and colds, which people often suffer from. The Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) method is one of the superior methods for calculating the parameters for drug decisions that can be consumed by the public, making it easier for people to choose the type of medicine according to the disease they are suffering


Blood ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 118 (21) ◽  
pp. 5077-5077
Author(s):  
Gurinder Sidhu ◽  
Rabia Latif ◽  
Jinli Liu ◽  
Constantine Axiotis ◽  
Ratesh Khillan ◽  
...  

Abstract Abstract 5077 Background: The incidence of BM fibrosis in MM is low and uncertain, and its causes are not known. Cytogenetic and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in some MM patients reveals prognostically significant anomalies. Methods: Records of patients with MM seen at Kings County Hospital from 2004 through 2010 were reviewed, the histological sections of patients reported to have fibrosis we re-examined. The degree of fibrosis was graded according to the World Health Organization system. Results: Records of 113 patients were reviewed, 110 (97%) were African American (AA). Of these, 62 (55%) were female and 51 (45%) male. Their age ranged (median 65) from 38 to 89 years. Cytogenetic data (CGD) was available in 46 patients; and abnormal in 10 (22%) and normal in 36 (78%) of those. All patients with abnormalities of chromosomal number were hyperdiploid. Of 113 patients, 62 (55%) were female, 110 were African American. Ages ranged from 38–89 (median 65) years. Cytogenetic data was available for 46 patients and abnormal in 10 (22%). All patients with abnormal chromosome numbers were hyperdiploid. FISH studies to detect abnormalities in chromosomes 13, 14 and 17 were available in 25 and abnormal in 2 (8%). BM fibrosis had been initially noted in 27 of 113 patients (24%), and confirmed by another hematopathologist; 17 (63%) were women. The ages of the patients with fibrosis ranged from 4–79 years: median age was 67, 67 for the women and 62 for the men. Focal and grades 1, 2 and 3 fibrosis were noted in 2 (7%), 12 (44%), 7 (26%) and 6 (22%) of patients. Grade 3 fibrosis was found in 24% of the women and 20% of the men with fibrosis. CG data was available for 17 fibrosis patients and abnormal (hyperdipliod) in 2 (18%). FISH studies for chromosomes 13, 14 and 17 were normal in the 7 patients studied. CGD for all 8 of the female fibrosis patients studied were normal, and abnormal in 2 of the 9 men (22%). Conclusions: Of our 113 AA myeloma patients 25% had detectable BM fibrosis, but it was grade 3 in only 5%. Female preponderance was more marked in the patients with fibrosis than in the whole MM group. CG and FISH data did not distinguish patients with and without fibrosis. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Author(s):  
Ronald Labonté

With public health attention on the commercial determinants of health showing little sign of abatement, how to manage conflicts of interest (COI) in regulatory policy discussions with corporate actors responsible for these determinants is gaining critical traction. The contribution by Ralston et al explores how COI management has itself become a terrain of contestation in their analysis of submissions on a draft World Health Organization (WHO) tool to manage COI conflicts in development of nutrition policy. The authors identify two camps in conflict with one another: a corporate side emphasizing their individual good intents and contributions, and an non-governmental organization (NGO) side maintaining inherent structural conflicts that require careful proscribing. The study concludes that the draft tool does a reasonable job in ensuring COI are avoided and policy development sheltered from corporate self-interests, introducing novel improvements in global governance for health. At the same time, the tool appears to adhere to a belief that private economic (corporate) and public good (citizen) conflicts can indeed be managed. I question this assumption and posit that public health needs to be much bolder in its critique of the nature of power, influence, and self-interests that pervade and risk dominating our stakeholder models of global governance.


2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (10) ◽  
pp. 380-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rex Haigh

In 1953 the World Health Organization produced a report dealing with ‘essential mental hospital provisions'. The report emphasised the importance of the atmosphere of the hospital:‘The most important single factor in the efficacy of the treatment given in a mental hospital appears to the Committee to be an intangible element which can only be described as its atmosphere, and in attempting to describe some of the influences which go to the creation of this atmosphere, it must be said at the outset that the more the psychiatric hospital imitates the general hospital as it at present exists, the less successful it will be in creating the atmosphere it needs. Too many psychiatric hospitals give the impression of being an uneasy compromise between a general hospital and a prison. Whereas, in fact, the role they have to play is different from either; it is that of a therapeutic community’ (World Health Organization, 1953)


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document