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Summary. This blog uses a hypothetical case study (based on real-world examples) to show how partnerships with fast food companies can undermine public health and imperil the integrity of public health agencies.

Summary. This commentary raises the concern that efforts to ensure that industry is “at the table” for the WHO/FAO’s Second International Conference on Nutrition allow industry to influence the agenda, as well as the ways in which global health challenges are framed and addressed.

Summary. This blog explores the role of structural incentives and institutional cultures in the systemic suppression of serious threats to public safety and public health.

Summary. This piece explores the similarities and differences between the ethical and regulatory issues raised by direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs and those raised by the promotion of foods for their purported health-benefits.

Summary. This essay explores the ethical issues raised by the promotion of foods for their purported health benefits, and compares the U.S. and E.U. regulatory frameworks governing such claims.

Summary. This article outlines the systemic ethical implications of public-private partnerships with the food and soda industry—including research agenda distortion and framing effects (such as the characterization of obesity primarily as a problem of individual behavior, and the minimization or neglect of food systems and the role of powerful corporate actors in those systems).

Summary. This essay explores how oil and gas companies exploit secret settlements with families harmed by fracking in order to suppress evidence of the harmful effects of their commercial practices.

Summary. This piece challenges the claim that public health agencies should partner with food companies because they have a “shared responsibility” to address obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases. Governments should discharge their responsibilities, this piece argues, by effectively regulating industry actors, rather than collaborating with them.

Summary. This piece raises the concern that secret settlements with corporate actors (such as oil and gas companies engaged in fracking) may conceal serious threats to public health.

Summary. This article analyzes in detail the webs of relationships that opioid companies created with doctors, professional associations, universities, academic medical centers, and public health NGOs. The article shows how these relationships exacerbated the opioid crisis, and argues that the default relationship with opioid companies should be separation, not collaboration.

Summary. This essay outlines the webs of close relationships that opioid companies created with doctors, professional associations, universities, academic medical centers, and public health NGOs. The essay argues that these relationships exacerbated the opioid crisis.

Summary. This piece argues that, by framing individuals as the source of public health problems, nudging tends to serve the commercial interests of powerful corporate actors.

Summary. This article critically examines the social science literature on the disclosure of financial conflicts of interest, and argues that disclosure illuminates but does not eliminate corporate influence. To eliminate such influence, other structural reforms are necessary.

Summary. This article begins with a simple empirical claim – that professionals (doctors, lawyers, and psychologists, among others) may either facilitate or prevent human rights violations. They possess this power by virtue of their expertise, access and social status. Building on this claim, I argue that states are dependent upon the assistance of professionals in order to comply with their international human rights obligations. Compliance with these obligations is an essential condition of the legitimacy of states; non-compliance is a matter of global concern and, if systemic, renders the state liable to interference from external agents in the international community. It follows that states are, in this fundamental respect, dependent upon professionals. But professionals are also dependent upon states; their ability to perform their professional functions in full is contingent upon privileges and protections accorded to them by the state. Given this mutual dependence, I advance a contractarian account of the relationship between professionals and the state – one that gives rise to a duty on the part of professionals to assist the state with the performance of its human rights obligations. The content of that duty varies across professions and among professionals, since it depends upon the nature of the professional’s expertise, and the degree of access and social status she possesses. This account offers both theoretical and practical benefits. First, it avoids human rights foundationalism because it ties the ethical obligations of professionals to international legal norms, rather than to human rights conceived as ethical claims. Second, the account offers a further approach for bridging the gap that scholars and advocates have identified between human rights commitments and compliance. The incorporation of human rights norms into domestic law, political institutions and corporate governance may all contribute to this. But the essential role professionals can play in the acculturation of and compliance with human rights has been neglected. The account advanced here has a number of important practical implications – not least, the need for more (and better) human rights education and mentorship for professionals.

Summary. This book explores the systemic effects of public-private partnerships on public health. Focusing on partnerships involving the food and soda industries, the book argues that these relationships undermine public health and imperil the integrity of public health agencies, research universities, and public health NGOs. The default relationship with industry actors, the book argues, should be separation, not collaboration.

Summary. This working paper explores the concept of “institutional corruption,” and shows how the concept may illuminate the systemic ethical implications of public-private partnerships involving the food and soda industries.

Summary. This piece argues that, while considerable attention has been paid to financial conflicts of interest involving the pharmaceutical industry, conflicts involving the food and soda industries have been neglected. Such conflicts call for urgent attention from both scholars and policymakers.