Taking on Big Soda over Taxes: Lessons Learned from Fighting Big Alcohol
With soda taxes becoming an increasingly attractive policy option to help prevent diabetes and obesity and to fill empty state coffers, the soft drink industry is fighting back, and hard. While tobacco is often mentioned as the analogous issue, in fact, alcohol and soft drinks have much in common. In this piece, experienced alcohol control advocate Michele Simon translates lessons learned from the ongoing fight against Big Alcohol into six practical lessons for soda tax advocates.
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Assessing the Health Implications of the Supreme Court Decision on Corporate Campaign Contributions
The Supreme Court’s ruling in January extends the right of political speech to corporations, providing companies with a significant new advantage in their efforts to sway public opinion. In this commentary, media scholar Jessie Daniels analyzes the public health implications of “cloaked websites,” which she predicts will become an increasingly powerful tool for corporations as a result of the Court’s decision.
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Interview with T.J. Faircloth from Corporate Accountability International
Is it time for Ronald McDonald to hang up his clown shoes? T.J. Faircloth, Research Director for Corporate Accountability International (CAI), thinks that it is. In March, CAI launched a campaign called “Value [the] Meal” to pressure fast food companies to stop aggressively marketing to children, blocking labeling laws, and interfering with the development of healthier public policies. We interview T.J. to find out more about the campaign’s strategy and rationale.
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Globalization accelerates woes for Toyota, world’s leading car manufacturer
For more than a decade, Toyota customers have reported incidents of sudden acceleration, resulting in crashes, injuries, and deaths. The company now faces charges that it intentionally hid defects from customers. Nick Freudenberg explores what role globalization may have played in accelerating Toyota’s woes, and what can be done to prevent such corporate catastrophes in the future.
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PepsiCo vows to cut salt, sugar, and fat: Is Big Food getting healthy?
In March, PepsiCo Inc. announced that it was setting goals to substantially reduce the amount of sodium, sugar, and fat in its products over the next decade. Other Big Food companies like Kraft Foods Inc., ConAgra Foods Inc., and the Campbell Soup Co. have also recently vowed to make healthier products. CHW editor Emma Tsui briefly explores where this wave of industry health consciousness is coming from and how people are reacting to it.
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Posted April 2010
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