PHM-Exch> Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink industries

[Claudio Schuftan]

>From a recent Lancet publication

On behalf of the Lancet Non-Communicable Disease Action Group
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Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol,
and ultra-processed food and drink industries

Key messages
• Transnational corporations are major drivers of
non-communicable disease epidemics and profit from
increased consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and
ultra-processed food and drink (so-called unhealthy
commodities)
• Alcohol and ultra-processed food and drink industries use
similar strategies to the tobacco industry to undermine
effective public health policies and programmes
• Unhealthy commodity industries should have no role in
the formation of national or international policy for
non-communicable disease policy
• Despite the common reliance on industry self-regulation
and public–private partnerships to improve public health,
there is no evidence to support their effectiveness or safety
• In view of the present and predicted scale of
non-communicable disease epidemics, the only
evidence-based mechanisms that can prevent harm
caused by unhealthy commodity industries are public
regulation and market intervention.


Recommendations of action for non-communicable diseases

For public health policy making, research, and programmes:
• Unhealthy commodity industries should have no role in the formation of
national or
international policy for non-communicable diseases
• Interactions with the tobacco industry should be restricted and made
consistent with
recommendations of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
• Discussions with unhealthy commodity industries should be with government
only
and have a clear goal of the use of evidence-based approaches by government
• In the absence of robust evidence for the effectiveness of
self-regulation or
private–public partnership in alcohol, food, and drink industry, rigorous,
timely, and
independent assessment is needed to show that they can improve health and
profit.

For public health professionals, institutions, and civil society:
• Highly engaged, critical action is needed to galvanise an evidence-based
constituency
for change to implement effective and low-cost policies, to place direct
pressure on
industry to change, and to raise public awareness of the unhealthy effects
of these
industries
• Funding and other support for research, education, and programmes should
not be
accepted from the tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drinks
industries or
their affiliates and associates.

For governments and international intergovernmental agencies:
• Evidence-based approaches such as legislation, regulation, taxation,
pricing, ban, and
restriction of advertising and sponsorship should be introduced to reduce
death and
disability from non-communicable diseases.

For governments, foundations, and other funding agencies:
• All approaches in the prevention and control of non-communicable
diseases—i.e.,
self-regulation, public–private partnerships, legislation, pricing, and
other regulatory
measures—should be independently and objectively monitored
• Funding of policy development research into modes of regulation and market
interventions should be accelerated and prioritised
• A new scientific discipline that investigates industrial diseases and the
transnational
corporations that drive them, should be developed.

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