Public health interventions are often resisted
Evidence suggests that, for example, some food and beverage companies are adopting similar tactics to those adopted earlier by the tobacco companies to avoid public health interventions (such as taxation and regulation) that might threaten their profits.
From Moodie et al. [6]:
- Transnational corporations are major drivers of non-communicable disease epidemics and profit from increased consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink (so-called unhealthy commodities).
- Alcohol and ultra-processed food and drink industries use similar strategies to the tobacco industry to undermine effective public health policies and programmes.
- Unhealthy commodity industries should have no role in the formation of national or international policy for non-communicable disease policy.
- Despite the common reliance on industry self-regulation and public–private partnerships to improve public health, there is no evidence to support their effectiveness or safety.
- In view of the present and predicted scale of non-communicable disease epidemics, the only evidence-based mechanisms that can prevent harm caused by unhealthy commodity industries are public regulation and market intervention