Public Health
Posted on Monday, May 6th, 2013 by Michele Simon
By Michele Simon and John Stewart
This week, when tobacco giant Philip Morris International hosts it annual shareholders’ meeting in New York, the company will honor outgoing CEO Louis Camilleri for his years of service. But a look back at Camilleri’s tenure shows a trail and death and destruction unworthy of celebration.
In 2008, parent company Altria Group spun off the international division of Philip Morris to focus more on “emerging markets,” the euphemism corporations use to describe the exploitation of Global South nations. For decades, as the regulatory environment and public sentiment has turned against smoking in the U.S., tobacco corporations have set their sights overseas. As a result, Philip Morris International now derives more revenue from Asia than from the European Union, and nearly 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths occur in the Global South.
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Posted in Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: Corporate Accountability International, law, tobacco | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (0) |
Posted on Thursday, April 11th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Come see me present my new talk, Force Fed: Deconstructing Food Industry Lies, next Wednesday, 4pm, at the University of California, Wheeler Auditorium. For more details about the course, which features weekly lectures by guest speakers, see this article in the Daily Californian. Admission is free.
Posted in Big Food, Industry Tactics, Public Health | | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (0) |
Posted on Friday, March 15th, 2013 by Michele Simon
Hope to see you at one of these venues. To have me speak in your area, contact me here.
New York City
March 20: CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College
• Force Fed: How Food Industry Disinformation Undermines Public Health
For details, see PDF flyer.
Boston
March 21-23
Consuming Kids Summit: Reclaiming Childhood from Corporate Marketers
• Is This Even Legal? Demystifying the Laws on Marketing to Children (panel)
• Slowing Down the Clown: Policy Tools to Protect Children from Fast Food in Your Area (workshop)
Southern California
April 9: Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, Occidental College, Los Angeles
• Force Fed: Deconstructing Food Industry Lies
Class begins at 1:30pm; Room: Lower Herrick.
June 18-20: 7th Biennial Childhood Obesity Conference, Long Beach
• Marketing healthy foods to children: Do the ends justify the means? (panel discussion)
Posted in Food Policy, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children, Public Health | Tagged: deceptive health claims, law, targeted marketing | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (0) |
Posted on Tuesday, March 5th, 2013 by Michele Simon
It’s fair to say that the vegetarian world gave me my start. In 1996, I began volunteering with various groups to promote plant-based eating. I soon discovered Marion Nestle’s work on the politics of the meat and dairy industries and I was hooked. In the early years of doing this work I made numerous friends in the San Francisco area who I still remain close to today. Something about a shared bond over food choices and values that makes for lasting friendships. So it’s with a heavy heart that I write this unusual post, to expose an injustice being done to one of those dear friends: Colleen Holland.
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Posted in Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: law, public relations | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (17) |
Posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2013 by Michele Simon
2/28 Postscript: In happy news, Tara Marino reports that after an exchange with Lauren Fox (social media manager for AND), she will be reinstated. Fox claimed that Marino’s comments were not the reason for her removal but rather AND was deleting all non-members of the Academy. Marino provided her member number, which cleared things up. However, still no word back from the California affiliate.
I received the following email from registered dietitian Tara Marino who says she was recently “deleted” from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics LinkedIn group after expressing support for my report on the organization’s questionable corporate sponsors. (See previous post on a similar silencing attempt.)
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Posted in Alcohol Policy, Big Food, Industry Tactics, Marketing to Children, Public Health | Tagged: Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, co-opting science, deceptive health claims, McDonald's, public relations, targeted marketing, trade groups | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (5) |
Posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2013 by Michele Simon
This week, with the release of Saru Jayaraman’s new book, Behind the Kitchen Door, I’ve been writing about the powerful influence of the National Restaurant Association, for example, in lobbying against paid sick days for workers. Sadly, most of my colleagues in public health and the good food movement don’t pay enough attention to the many injustices workers face every day. So here is my attempt to help correct that situation.
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Posted in Big Food, Food Safety, Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: food safety, labor, Restaurant Opportunities Center, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (3) |
Posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 by Michele Simon
This week, food labor advocate Saru Jayaraman is releasing her new book, Behind the Kitchen Door, which relates heartbreaking stories of just some of the 10 million restaurant workers in the U.S. In a chapter called, Serving While Sick, she tells the disturbing tale of a fast-food worker who had no choice but to come to work with a bad cold since she couldn’t afford to go unpaid. When this worker tried to explain to her manager how perhaps handling food while coughing and sneezing was not such a good idea, she was laughed at. She later wondered how many customers she got sick that day because she couldn’t leave the counter every time she needed to wipe her nose.
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Posted in Big Food, Food Policy, Food Safety, Industry Tactics, Public Health | Tagged: food safety, labor, lobbying, Restaurant Opportunities Center, workers rights | Michele on Google+ | View/Add Comments (5) |
