Scientists cite disease “epidemic” in launch of new “Center to End Corporate Harm”
The new “Center to End Corporate Harm” is based at
the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and will bring together
scientists to develop strategies “to counter the destructive influence of
polluters and poisoners,” according to a press release announcing
the launch.
“Industries that produce health-harming products, including
fossil fuels, plastics, petrochemicals, tobacco, and ultra-processed foods,
have waged a decades-long assault on government regulatory agencies and
policymaking to rig rules in their favor at the expense of public health. At
the same time, these health harming products have contributed to a rise in
chronic disease. We are working to change that,” the center states on its
website.
The organization, which is currently housed within the UCSF
Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE), said it is working
on a range of projects, including exposing industry financial ties and lobbying
that influence science and policy, and researching industry tactics that
undermine science and regulation pertinent to public health.
The center said that a range of products that include fossil
fuels, chemicals, alcohol, tobacco and ultra-processed foods are responsible
for roughly one in three deaths around the world, and that a rise in chronic
diseases such as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and dementias can all be
tied to exposure to various industrial products.
“Time and again health-harming industries have lied about
their products, hiding the harms from the public and regulators and now many of
these industries are, collectively, the leading cause of death and disease
globally,” Nicholas Chartres, lead scientific advisor to the new center, said
in a statement.
The new center includes scientists, researchers, and physicians from not only the UCSF PRHE, but also from the university’s Center for Climate Health & Equity, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, and the Institute for Health Policy Studies. Researchers from University of Colorado and the University of Sydney area also among those participating in the new center.
“The increase in many chronic diseases is the manifestation
of a global economic system that prioritizes products and profit over health,
and it is producing an industrial epidemic of disease,” Tracey Woodruff,
director of the new center and PRHE director, said in a statement.
“Health-harming industries such as fossil fuels, plastics, chemicals, tobacco,
and ultra-processed foods have rigged the regulatory and political systems in
their favor and it’s critical to public health to hold these industries accountable.”
The center will collaborate with, and make use of the
collections within, the UCSF Industry Documents Library,
which is a compilation of millions of internal corporate documents dating back
decades from a variety of industries, including from the drug, chemical, food,
and fossil fuel industries.
