Scientists Identify Corporate Structure as Bad for Public Health

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Scientists Identify Corporate Structure as Bad for Public Health

 

Corporate power is a major cause of health problems, according to the

October/December 2005 special issue of the International Journal of Occupational

and Environmental Health. Contributions to the issue reveal how corporate

structure results in pressure to influence science and place the public at risk

from pesticides, lead, asbestos, toxic municipal sewage sludge, and other

harmful substances.

 

" Occupational and environmental health diseases are in fact an outcome of a

pervasive system of corporate priority setting, decision making, and influence, "

state guest editors David Egilman and Susanna Rankin Bohme. " This system

produces disease because political, economic, regulatory, and ideological norms

prioritize values of wealth and profit over human health and environmental

well-being. "

 

Skip Spitzer, Program Coordinator at PAN North America and a contributing author

to the journal notes that, " In market economies, private corporations play such

a decisive role in the economic sphere that they are often able to secure more

rights than people. Corporations deeply influence politics, law, media, public

relations, science, research, education and other institutions. It's no surprise

that corporate self interest routinely supersedes social and environmental

welfare. "

 

In his article " A Systemic Approach to Occupational and Environmental Health " ,

Spitzer describes how corporations are part of a " structure of harm " , meaning

that the very way in which corporations are structured produces social and

environmental problems and undermines reform. The pressure to compete in the

marketplace and create demand for their products creates incentives for

corporations to shape the political system, the mass media, and science for

commercial ends. Corporations use this power to avoid taking responsibility for

the larger environmental and social impacts of their actions (or

" externalities " ), including the public health impacts of developing dangerous

new technologies. Spitzer quotes Reagan administration economist Robert Monks

describing the corporation as " an externalizing machine, the same way that a

shark is a killing machine - no malevolence...just something designed with

sublime efficiency for self-preservation, which it accomplishes without any

capacity to

factor in the consequences to others. "

 

The editors conclude that corporate corruption of science is widespread and

touches many aspects of our lives, as indicated by the range of articles in the

issue. In " Genetic Engineering in Agriculture and Corporate Engineering in

Public Debate " , Rajeev Patel, Robert Torres, and Peter Rosset analyze Monsanto's

efforts to convince the public of the safety of genetically modified crops.

Other articles describe how industry pressure on government agencies such as EPA

have influenced cancer research and resulted in approving toxic municipal sewage

sludge as crop fertilizer.

 

 

Source: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health,

http://www.ijoeh.com/

 

 

 

Caroline Collard

 

World's first fully certified organic skin, body, oral and health care products

www.happyandhealthy.org.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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