Search results: the corporation not me

The George Institute in Australia (see clarification below) publishes an annual index holding the ten largest U.S. food and beverage corporations accountable for how they addrss nutrition challenges.

The 2018 Index ranks corporations on their governance, products, accessability, marketing, lifestyle, labeling, and engagement.  Here’s what it looks like.

 

Here’s how this is explained:

Seven out of ten companies claim to focus on improving health and nutrition (all except Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper Snapple and Kraft Heinz), as expressed in their mission statements or corporate growth strategies, the objectives they defined related to health and wellness are mostly limited to product development, product reformulation and responsible marketing. Only two companies (Nestlé and Unilever) have defined a more comprehensive set of objectives within their nutrition strategy.

To remind you: food corporations are not social service or public health agencies.  They have stockholders to please as their first priority.  The conflicts of interest with public health approaches are obvious.  That’s why none of them does particularly well on this Index.

Clarification from a reader

I believe you are referring to the US Spotlight Index, a product of the Access to Nutrition Foundation, an independent nonprofit in the Netherlands.  (https://www.accesstonutrition.org).  The George Institute provided research support for the US Spotlight index. RWJF [Robert Wood Johnson Foundation] was a major funder.  The Foundation has also published an India Spotlight Index (2016) and a Global Index (latest in 2018).  Shiriki Kumanyika chairs the Expert Group.

Jonathan Marks.  The Perils of Partnership: Industry Influence, Institutional Integrity, and Public Health.  Oxford University Press, 2019.

I blurbed this one:

Jonathan Marks is the go-to expert on the hazards of public-private partnerships.  His account of the perils reads easily, is well referenced, is clear and to the point, and applies to partnerships with drug, food, and any other corporations.  Anyone who cares about the ethical implications of such partnerships for public health will find this book invaluable.

The book is about industry partnerships in general, but Marks uses food-company examples such as the American Beverage Association’s gift to the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania in what seemed to be a direct exchange for the city’s dropping a soda tax initiative, and the USDA’s promotion of cheese.

Marks concludes that

Public-private partnerships, multistakeholder initiatives, and other close relations with industry are premised on a positive conception of consensus, compromise, and collaboration.  But the “three C’s” are not inherently good.  On the contrary, tension between regulators and corporations is ordinarily necessary to protect public health.  And achieving common ground with industry may put off the table measures that might promote public health.  The default relation between industry and government should be arm’s lengths relations involving institutional tension, “struggle,” and direct conflict.

The point: the agenda of corporations is to promote profit, not public health.  This creates an inherent tension, not easily resolved.

The Lancet has been busy.  Last week, it published a blockbuster report on the need for worldwide dietary changes to improve human health and that of the environment.  I posted about this EAT-Forum report on Friday.

Now, The Lancet releases yet another report, this one taking a unified approach to dealing with the three most important nutrition issues facing the world: Malnutrition (undernutrition), obesity, and the effects of our food production and consumption system on the environment and climate change—for which this report coins a new term: The Global Syndemic.

This report breaks new ground in identifying the food industry as one of three main barriers to ending this “Syndemic.”  I’ve added the numbers for emphasis.

• Powerful opposition by [1] commercial vested interests, [2] lack of political leadership, and [3] insufficient societal demand for change are preventing action on The Global Syndemic, with rising rates of obesity and greenhouse gas emissions, and stagnating rates of undernutrition.
• New social movement for change and radical rethink of the relationship between policymakers, business, governance and civil society is urgently needed.
• The Commission calls for a global treaty to limit the political influence of Big Food (a proposed Framework Convention on Food Systems – modelled on global conventions on tobacco and climate change); redirection of US$5 trillion in government subsidies away from harmful products and towards sustainable alternatives; and advocacy from civil society to break decades of policy inertia.

Wow.  This is telling it like it is—at long last.  From the press release:

• A key recommendation from the Commission is the call to establish a new global treaty on food systems to limit the political influence of Big Food.
• The food industry’s obstructive power is further enhanced by governance arrangements that legitimise industry participation in public policy development, and the power that big corporations have to punish or reward governments by relocating investment and jobs.
• Regulatory approaches to product reformulation (eg. salt and sugar reduction), labelling and marketing to children are needed because industry-led, voluntary approaches have not been effective.

Yes!

The documents

• The Press Release
• The Policy Brief
• The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change: The Lancet Commission report – Boyd A Swinburn et al. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32822-8/fulltext
• Obesity needs to be put into a much wider context – Sabine Kleinert, Richard Horton, The Lancet https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)33192-1/fulltext
• Rethinking systems to reverse the global syndemic – Rachel Nugent, RTI International https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)33243-4/fulltext
• Transforming food systems for better health – José Graziano da Silva, Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)33249-5/fulltext

The press

▪ The Guardian
▪ The Times (London)
▪ Irish Farmers Journal

Additional press, posted January 30

Newswires (syndicated in international outlets):

• ‘Radical rethink’ needed to tackle obesity, hunger, climate: report – Agence France-Presse
• To fix climate change, fix the obesity and starvation epidemics, reports say – CNN
• Obesity, bad nutrition, climate change pose triple danger, commission says – Reuters
• Also covered by Xinhua, IANS.

UK:

• Public health experts call for global food treaty – Financial Times
• Take on food industry to beat malnutrition and obesity, says report – The Guardian
• Tackling obesity ‘needs treaty like climate change’ – The Times
• Also covered by BBC Radio 4, BBC 1 Breakfast, BBC News 24, The Economist (Espresso), The Guardian (Op-ed), The Telegraph, The Independent, Daily Mail.

US:

• Report: ‘Radical Rethink’ Needed to Tackle Obesity, Hunger, Climate – Voice of America
• Big Food Blamed for Ills Far Beyond Flab in Sweeping Report – Bloomberg
• Want to fix obesity and climate change at the same time? Make Big Food companies pay. – Vox
• Also covered by Thomas Reuters Foundation, Devdiscourse.

Rest of world:

• Vested interests, misplaced economic incentive major drivers: Lancet report – Indian Express
• Obesity, malnutrition 2 sides of climate change – Hindustan Times
• Eat right to save the planet – Deccan Chronicle
• Also covered by El Pais, O Globo, The Wire, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Japan Times, New Zealand Herald, The Australian, El Confidential, Algemeen Dagblad, Nouvel Observateur.

The World Resources Institute has a new report on how to feed the world in a way that is sustainable.

The report is based on the premise that 56% more food will be needed by 2050.  Given that premise, the unavailability of more land on which to grow food, and the need to mitigate greenhouse gases, the report recommends (among other things) increasing the efficiency of production and managing demand.

I’d like to see some careful evaluations of the basic premise of this report as well as its recommendations, which seem to place a large burden on individuals rather than governments or corporations.  The word “corporation” does not appear in the report; food companies come up only in the context of food waste (a non-controversial issue):

• The full report is here.
• The working papers for each of its recommendations are here.
• The charts are summarized here.

Coming October 30: My new book about food company sponsorship of nutrition research and its effects on public health.

Here is what some early readers had to say about it:

“What happens when one of the country’s great nutrition investigators follows the money in food and science? You get this riveting, provocatively-written book, which deftly explores how the processed food industry has deepened our dependence on its products by sponsoring and manipulating food research for decades. This book should be read by anyone who has been seduced by the words, ‘New study shows…’—which is all of us.”  —Michael Moss, author of Salt Sugar Fat

“Marion Nestle is a tireless warrior for public health, and her meticulous research and irrefutable arguments are desperately needed right now. This book, as frightening as it is, compels us to discover where true health begins: nutrition starts in the ground, with real food that is sustainably grown, eaten in season, and alive.”  —Alice Waters, founder, owner, and executive chef of Chez Panisse

 “In clear, concise language, Marion Nestle details the many ways our ideas about what to eat are being manipulated by Big Food.  If you want to make better choices, read this book.”  —Ruth Reichl, former editor of Gourmet Magazine

 “Marion Nestle is a national treasure.  She has the courage to take on multinational corporations and the wisdom to separate the facts from the spin.  If you care about our food system and the health of your family, Unsavory Truth is essential reading.”  —Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation

“Marion Nestle has been a guiding light for sanity, credibility, and justice in food and nutrition for decades; she stands alone in her field. In Unsavory Truth, she exposes the awful deceptions practiced on eaters by manipulative food companies using ‘scientific research’ try to make themselves look good.”  —Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything

 “Marion Nestle is a truth-teller in a world awash with nutrition lies of one kind and another. In this scintillating and eye-opening book, Nestle reveals how much of our confusion about food in modern times has been spread by the food industry itself, which passes off marketing as science and funds ‘research’ designed to show that its products are harmless. Unsavory Truth is essential reading for anyone in search of hard facts about what to eat.”  —Bee Wilson, author of First Bite and Consider the Fork

Campbell’s has just announced that it will divest its portfolio of healthier foods: Bolthouse Farms carrots, organics, salsa, hummus and dips, fresh soups.
Why? Activist shareholder pressure to make more money, faster.
These healthier-for-you products only generated $2.1 billion in sales last year, not nearly enough apparently.
While waiting for someone to buy them, or the entire company, the company’s new CEO plans to concentrate on “operational discipline,” which I assume is a euphemism for firing lots of people.
The CEO plans to focus on the money-making “core” products: Campbell Soups, Prego, V8, SpaghettiOs, Kettle Chips, Mlano, Goldfish and other such things.

As I keep saying, food corporations cannot be expected to be agents of public health as long as Wall Street investors call the shots.

Remember when Jeffrey Dunn’s Bolthouse aimed to make carrots “cool?”  And kids would eat them if they were marketed like junk food?

I guess this strategy didn’t work, alas.

The Guardian’s account of the verdict: Monsanto ordered to pay $289m as jury rules weedkiller caused man’s cancer

Dewayne Johnson, a 46-year-old former groundskeeper, won a huge victory in the landmark case on Friday, with the jury determining that Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer and that the corporation failed to warn him of the health hazards from exposure. The jury further found that Monsanto “acted with malice or oppression”…Johnson’s case was particularly significant because a judge allowed his team to present scientific arguments. The dispute centered on glyphosate, which is the world’s most widely used herbicide…During the lengthy trial, the plaintiff’s attorneys brought forward internal emails from Monsanto executives that they said demonstrated how the corporation repeatedly ignored experts’ warnings, sought favorable scientific analyses and helped to “ghostwrite” research that encouraged continued usage.

Here’s what this is about:

(1)  The carcinogenicity of Roundup (glyphosate)

In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) ruled that glyphosate, the weed killer used with genetically modified crops, is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”  Glyphosate’s maker, Monsanto (now merged with Bayer) did not like this decision and went to work casting doubt on the science.  As IARC explains and documents:

Following the classification of glyphosate in March 2015 as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A) by the IARC Monographs Programme, IARC has been the target of an unprecedented number of orchestrated actions by stakeholders seeking to undermine its credibility. In the interest of transparency, IARC has documented some of these instances, and our responses can be found on the Agency′s Governance website.

(2) What’s at stake for Monsanto

Glyphosate is used in incomprehensibly huge amounts.  The organic advocate, Charles Benbrook, published statistics on its use in 2016.  Monsanto’s published a rebuttal to Benbrook’s paper, but did not dispute his figures; instead, it argued only glyphosate is safe.  Benbrook’s data show that 250 million pounds of glyphosate were applied to US crops in 2014 (by another source, worldwide use was 825,804,000 kilograms, or more than 1.8 billion pounds that year).

(3) What’s at stake for the plaintiff, Dewayne Johnson

As the San Francisco Chronicle’s account explains:

Johnson was a groundskeeper and pest-control manager for Benicia schools from 2012 until May 2016. His job included spraying glyphosate, in the high-concentration brand called Ranger Pro, from 50-gallon drums 20 to 30 times a year for two to three hours a day.

He testified he wore protective clothing, including a sturdy jacket, goggles and a face mask, but said he couldn’t fully protect his face from wind-blown spray. And twice, he told the jury, he got drenched with the herbicide, once when a spray hose became detached from a truck that was hauling it, and another time when a backpack container he was carrying leaked.

After the first drenching in 2014, he said, he got rashes on his skin that did not respond to treatment. Welts and lesions soon appeared on his legs, arms, face and eyelids. His first cancer diagnoses came soon afterward.

(4)  The evidence for the jury’s decision

Through discovery during the trial, documents came to light exposing Monsanto’s efforts to discredit the science linking glyphosate to cancer.

U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) has performed an extraordinary public service by posting the key documents in the case on its website.  There, you can find links to an astonishing number of federal court and discovery documents, exhibits, news reports, and commentary.

Also worth reading: Stacy Malkin’s Secret Documents Expose Monsanto’s War on Cancer Scientists (July 12)

Monsanto was its own ghostwriter for some safety reviews,” Bloomberg reported, and an EPA official reportedly helped Monsanto “kill” another agency’s cancer study. An investigation in Le Monde details Monsanto’s effort “to destroy the United Nations’ cancer agency by any means possible” to save glyphosate.

(5) What this means: Comment from USRTK’s Carey Gillam

Monsanto and its chemical industry allies have spent decades actively working to confuse and deceive consumers, farmers, regulators and lawmakers about the risks associated with glyphosate-based herbicides. As they’ve suppressed the risks, they’ve trumpeted the rewards and pushed use of this weed killer to historically high levels. The evidence that has come to light from Monsanto’s own internal documents, combined with data and documents from regulatory agencies, could not be more clear: It is time for public officials across the globe to act to protect public health and not corporate profits.

(6) What happens next?

Monsanto will appeal, of course; its owner, Bayer, continues to insist that glyphosate is safe.  Press accounts say that hundreds, if not thousands, of more such cases are in the pipeline, a situation similar to that faced by the tobacco industry before that industry gave up and settled.  Will Bayer do so as well?  I’m guessing not without a fight.

By this time, you have no doubt heard about the Trump Administration’s attempts to stop the World Health Organization from promoting breastfeeding.  Incredible but true.

Here is a brief timeline of how this story got out.

May 25   Lucy Sullivan, executive director o 1000 Days (the first 1000 days of life are critical to an infant’s survival) sent out a tweet warning of a battle brewing over breastfeeding at WHO’s World Health Assembly, where countries are negotiating a resolution on infant and young child feeding.

June 7   Amruta Byatnal writes about “A Moment of Reckoning for Nutrition Advocates at the WHA” [World Health Assembly: “Nutrition advocates have accused the U.S. of siding with private sector interests, sparking a controversy over what they assumed would be a routine effort to provide advice on breastfeeding and the use of breast milk substitutes.”

July 8  The New York Times takes the story national: “Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution by U.S. Stuns World Health Officials.”  The Guardian also publishes an account.   These make it clear that the Trump Administration threatened Ecuador to drop its support of breastfeeding.  As the Times put it,

The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced….The confrontation was the latest example of the Trump administration siding with corporate interests on numerous public health and environmental issues.

Ironically, Russia stepped in and introduced the measure, which passed despite US attempts to block it.

July 9  President Trump sends out a tweet:

July 9  Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, also sends out a tweet, supporting the President: “America has a long history of supporting mothers and breastfeeding around the world and is the largest bilateral donor of such foreign assistance programs. Those unable to breastfeed shouldn’t be stigmatized; they should be equally supported with info and access to alternatives.”

July 9  The New York Times publishes an editorial: “Why Breast-Feeding Scares Donald Trump.”  Its answer: “It comes down to public health abroad could hurt American companies’ profits.”

What this is about

Infant formula works for babies, but breastfeeding is demonstrably better.  This is especially true for women who cannot afford formula, do not have clean water to dilute the powder properly, or lack refrigeration to store formula properly.

But breastfeeding has a serious political problem: it does not make money for formula companies.  As I explained in Waht to Eat:

Infant formulas cause controversy and are endlessly contentious for three important reasons.  Formulas are (1) largely unnecessary (most mothers can breast feed their infants), (2) not as perfect as breast milk for feeding babies, and (3) more expensive than breast feeding.  Breast milk is nutritionally superior to formula, but from a marketing standpoint it has one serious disadvantage: it is free.   Beyond one-time purchases of breast pumps, storage bottles, or special clothing, nobody makes money from it.

Formula companies are happy to pay lip service to “breast is best,” as long as policies do not promote breastfeeding over formula.

This is not the first time the US has taken this position.  In 1981, when the United Nations developed the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes, all of its member countries agreed to abide by the Code except for the United States and South Africa.  Eventually, South Africa signed on.  The U.S. was the last hold out and did not agree to abide by the Code until 1994.  Why not?  Because the Code could set a precedent that might adversely affect U.S. corporations.

The Washington Post (“US efforts”) and The Atlantic (“epic battle”) review this history.

The formula industry’s problem

As I also explained in What to Eat, only about 4 million babies are born in the US each year, meaning that the formula market is limited and static.  That is why formula companies work so hard to convince mothers that breastfeeding is too difficult, unsanitary, inefficient, and ineffective to continue, and that they would be better off switching to formulas and staying on formulas long past the time when babies should be eating solid foods.

The reactions

My favorites are from

• Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association (in an interview with Food Chemical News).

• From the American Public Health Association
• From medical experts interviewed in the New York Times
• From Vox

Add this to the growing list of ways the Trump Administration favors corporate interests over public health. Alas.

Additions

Maplight reports:

Three of the largest infant formula companies — U.S.-based Abbott Laboratories, Swiss-based Nestle, and U.K.-based Reckitt Benckiser — have spent $60.7 million lobbying U.S. lawmakers and officials during the last decade….While the New York Times reported that the formula manufacturers didn’t play a visible role in the debate over the WHO resolution, lobbying records show they have a significant Capitol Hill presence that often extends beyond infant nutrition.

Stephen Colbert’s take