Critical Social Policy: 564 Critical Social Policy and public health Corporate strategy, corporate capture: Food and alcohol industry lobbying (original) (raw)
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Corporate strategy, corporate capture: Food and alcohol industry lobbying and public health
2010
Abstract This article examines two industry sectors—those making and selling fast food and alcoholic beverages or associated products. We examine their role in influencing policy and decision making on the regulation of their products for health reasons. We argue that the food and alcohol industries engage in a very wide range of tactics and strategies to defend and indeed to promote their 'licence to operate'.
International Journal of Health Policy and Management
Lacy-Nichols and Williams’ examination of the food industry illustrates how it altered its approach from mostly oppositional to regulation to one of appeasement and co-option. This reflection builds upon this by using a commercial determinants of health lens to understand, expose and counter industry co-option, appeasement and partnership strategies that impact public health. Lessons learned from tobacco reveal how tobacco companies maintained public credibility by recruiting scientists to produce industry biased data, co-opting public health groups, gaining access to policy elites and sitting on important government regulatory bodies. Potential counter solutions to food industry appeasement and co-option include i) understanding corporate actions of health harming industries, ii) applying mechanisms to minimize industry engagement, iii) dissecting industry relationship building, and iv) exposing the negative effects of public private partnerships. Such counter-solutions might help ...
2019
The food, tobacco and alcohol industries have penetrated markets in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with a significant impact on these countries’ burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Tangcharoensathien and colleagues describe the aggressive marketing of unhealthy food, alcohol and tobacco in LMICs, as well as key tactics used by these industries to resist laws and policies designed to reduce behavioural risk factors for NCDs. This commentary expands on the recommendations made by Tangcharoensathien and colleagues for preventing or managing conflicts of interest and reducing undue industry influence on NCD prevention policies and laws, focusing on the needs of LMICs. A growing body of research proposes ways to design voluntary industry initiatives to make them more effective, transparent and accountable, but governments should also consider whether collaboration with health-harming industries is ever appropriate. More fundamentally, mechanisms for identifying, managing and mitigating conflicts of interest and reducing industry influence must be woven into – and supported by – broader governance and regulatory structures at both national and international levels.
Analysis of Alcohol Industry Submissions against Marketing Regulation
PLOS ONE, 2017
A growing body of literature points to the role of vested interests as a barrier to the implementation of effective public health policies. Corporate political activity by the alcohol industry is commonly used to influence policy and regulation. It is important for policy makers to be able to critique alcohol industry claims opposed to improved alcohol marketing regulation. The Australian National Preventive Health Agency reviewed alcohol marketing regulations in 2012 and stakeholders were invited to comment on them. In this study we used thematic analysis to examine submissions from the Australian alcohol industry, based on a system previously developed in relation to tobacco industry corporate political activity. The results show that submissions were a direct lobbying tactic, making claims to government that were contrary to the evidence-base. Five main frames were identified, in which the alcohol industry claimed that increased regulation: (1) is unnecessary; (2) is not backed up by sufficient evidence; (3) will lead to unintended negative consequences; and (4) faces legal barriers to implementation; underpinned by the view (5) that the industry consists of socially responsible companies working toward reducing harmful drinking. In contrast with tobacco industry submissions on public policy, which often focused on legal and economic barriers, the Australian alcohol industry placed a heavier emphasis on notions of regulatory redundancy and insufficient evidence. This may reflect differences in where these industries sit on the 'regulatory pyramid', alcohol being less regulated than tobacco.
The paper explores the tension that has emerged between the United Nations’ and the World Health Organisation’s stance on private sector involvement in the Post-2015 global health landscape. This tension – with the UN strongly advocating the need for private sector inclusion as part of their ‘corporate sustainability’ endeavours and WHO putting forward a much more ambiguous position – has, the paper argues, galvanised new forms of public health advocacy especially in relation to those ‘harm industries’ that have vested interests in perpetuating and encouraging the risk behaviours for the global chronic disease burden. In turn, the narratives of corporate sustainability promulgated by the UN have produced new spaces of opportunity for the strategic elision of the CSR activates of otherwise contentious industries with the priorities and language of the Post-2015 sustainable development agenda. Drawing on the example of the ardent public health advocacy now circulating around the activities of the alcohol industry and its involvement at WHO; the paper draws on a particularly contentious example of CSR activity - SABMiller’s Tavern Intervention Programme in South Africa – to explore not only how CSR has emerged as a new battleground in competing visions of ‘who owns public health’, but also for claims to scientific knowledge and moral authority. While there is now a significant corpus of anti-corporate work within public health, there has been little critical reflection on the significance and limits to such a perspective for the Post-2015 sustainable development agenda in general and for the alcohol control movement in particular. This then further entrenches the faultlines between the ideologies of the anti-corporate public health movement, on the one hand, and that of the alcohol industry on the other.
International Breastfeeding Journal, 2020
BackgroundThe marketing practices of the breastmilk substitutes industry have been known for decades, but little is known about the influence of the baby food industry, more generally, on public health policy, research and practice, also known as ‘corporate political activity’ (CPA). In this study, the baby food industry refers to for-profit companies that manufacture, market or distribute breastmilk substitutes and food products for infants and young children under two years. In addition, trade associations, public relations firms, marketing agencies and individuals or groups affiliated with the baby food industry are also considered to be part of the baby food industry. The aim of the current study was to systematically identify and monitor the CPA of the baby food industry in the USA, shown by the activities of Nestlé, the largest industry actor in this sector in the country.MethodsThe case study consisted of an analysis of publicly available information for data published between January and November 2018. We included documents from the industry, the government and other sources, including professional organisations, charities and consumer associations. We analysed data using an existing framework to classify the CPA of the food industry.ResultsDuring the period of data collection, Nestlé employed a list of action-based ‘instrumental strategies’. The most prominent strategy was ‘information strategy’, used to fund, produce and disseminate industry-preferred information. Nestlé was further found to ‘establish relationships with key opinion leaders and health organisations, and the media’, ‘seek involvement in community’ and directly influence policies and programs through indirect access and the placement of actors in government policy settings. The company also used argument-based ‘discursive strategies’ to frame the debate on diet- and public health-related issues.ConclusionThis study showed that Nestlé used various CPA strategies which may have influenced public health policy, research and practice in ways favourable to the baby food industry. These results could be used to further recognise and pre-empt the influence of corporations on health, in order to ensure that commercial interests do not prevail over public health goals.
Addiction, 2011
Aim It has been proposed that alcohol industry 'social aspects/public relations' organizations (SAPROs) serve the agenda of lending credibility to industry claims of corporate responsibility while promoting ineffective industryfriendly interventions (such as school-based education or TV advertising campaigns) and creating doubt about interventions which have a strong evidence base (such as higher taxes on alcoholic beverages). This paper investigated whether submissions to Australia's National Preventative Health Taskforce (NPHT) from alcohol industry bodies regarding the Australian SAPRO, Drinkwise, have used this organization to demonstrate corporate responsibility while promoting industry-friendly interventions. Method Submissions to the Australian National Preventative Health Taskforce (NPHT) discussion paper Australia, the healthiest country by 2020 (n = 375) were examined to identify those with primary alcohol content. A thematic analysis of the resulting 33 submissions was conducted to determine which organization, institution or individual discussed Drinkwise. Setting Australia. Findings Nine of the 33 submissions discussed Drinkwise; all were submitted by the alcohol industry or its affiliates. Every industry submission referred to Drinkwise either as providing evidence of social responsibility or by suggesting the industry-friendly actions of Drinkwise as alternatives to those recommended by the NPHT report. Conclusions Drinkwise has been used by the alcohol industry to create an impression of social responsibility while promoting interventions that maintain profits and campaigning against effective interventions such as higher taxes on alcohol.a dd_3499 1560..1567
International Journal of Health Policy and Management
In response to growing concerns about chronic diseases, food insecurity, low-wage food labor, and global warming, the food industry has developed new strategies to respond to its critics and pursue its business and political goals. As Lacy-Nicholas and Williams described in a recent review, the food industry has expanded its repertoire from opposition to critics to appeasement, co-option, and partnerships.1 Defining themselves as "part of the solution," the food industry seeks to disarm its opponents, shift policy debates to favor its interests, or delay decisions that jeopardize its profits or power. This commentary explores how health professionals, can respond to this changing repertoire. Lessons from previous campaigns to control harmful industry practices,2 suggest that no single strategy will counter changing food industry efforts to achieve its goals. Thus, advocates must consider a portfolio of approaches that can be deployed in response to changing circumstances, ...
International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 2022
The “Part of the Solution” article describes how the food industry has evolved its strategies to respond to critics and government regulation by co-option and appeasement to create a less hostile environment. Rather than focusing research on single industries it would be more efficient and productive to focus on corporate political activities (CPA) that directly influence democratic institutions and processes having authority over laws, policy, rules and regulations that govern industry. The most influential and direct CPA are election campaign donations, lobbying, and the reverse revolving door. In the U.S. those CPA flow from rights of corporations that underlie all industry strategies. The U.S. history of how corporations obtained their rights is described, and research about the affirmative effects of those three CPA is summarized. Health research is needed about those CPA and their effects on health law, policy and regulation in the U.S. and other nations.