Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor of Public Health at City University of New York and Hunter College, and author of a new book, Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health, joined Steve Heilig, CHE Director of Public Health & Education, and Director of Public Health & Education at the San Francisco Medical Society on this call for a conversation about his book. Lethal but Legal examines how corporations have impacted and influenced public health over the last century, first in industrialized countries and now in developing regions.
During this discussion Dr. Freudenberg and Steve discussed the complex relationship between private corporations, public health, and environmental health policy. In his book, Dr. Freudenberg writes, “Every day, corporate managers make decisions about what products to make and how and where to market them. These seemingly ordinary choices, the lifeblood of our market economy, shape our environment and lifestyles so pervasively that their influence is all but invisible. But, increasingly, what corporations decide also shapes our patterns of health and disease.”
We explored with Dr. Freudenberg how reforms he outlines in his book aim to strike a healthier balance between large companies' right to make a profit and governments' responsibility to protect their populations.
Featured Speaker
Nicholas Freudenberg, DrPH, is Distinguished Professor of Public Health at the City University of New York School of Public Health and at Hunter College and founder and director of Corporations and Health Watch (www.corporationsandhealth.org), an international network of activists and researchers that monitors the business practices of the alcohol, automobile, firearms, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and tobacco industries.
The call was moderated by Steve Heilig, CHE Director of Public Health & Education, and Director of Public Health & Education at the San Francisco Medical Society.