Nicholas Freudenberg. Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption and Protecting Public Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. $29.95. pp. 324. Hardback. ISBN 978‐0‐19‐993719‐6.
Published date | 01 June 2016 |
Date | 01 June 2016 |
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.183 |
Book Review
Nicholas Freudenberg. Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption and Protecting
Public Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. $29.95. pp. 324. Hardback.
ISBN 978-0-19-993719-6.
It is well known in the public health community that noncommunicable
diseases (NCDs) now constitute the predominant cause of human death and
illness, a dubious first place distinction once held by infectious disease. In Lethal
But Legal, Nicholas Freudenberg, professor of public health at the City University
of New York, argues that while we as a species once succumbed to infectious
disease due to scientific ignorance and lack of technological prowess, we now
paradoxically suffer and die from NCDs, also known as chronic diseases, as a
result of some advances in these areas that successfully fuel economic growth
even while they promote profoundly unhealthy lifestyles and living environ-
ments. He argues that economic growth, which has been the solution to so many
societal ills, is now the cause of new threats, primarily due to six global
industries: alcohol, automobile, firearms, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals,
and tobacco. These actors wield significant power to shape global public and
health policy to serve their own profit-seeking interests above the interests of
human and environmental health and well-being.
The book is divided into two main sections: “Defining the Problem,”
and “Creating Solutions.” Chapter 1, “Manufacturing Disease,” describes the
techniques of various industries in pushing products that have demonstrably
contributed to ill health. Food and beverage corporations have scientifically
developed “hyperpalatable” foods to encourage what former FDA Commis-
sioner David Kessler has described as “conditioned overeating” (p. 4), further
promoted by sophisticated marketing strategies. “Neuromarketing,” for in-
stance, “uses clinical information about brain functions and mechanisms to
help explain—and influence—what happensinconsumers’brainsastheymake
decisions about what to buy” (p. 12). Tobacco corporations have remained
profitable by marketing their products in countries with weak public health
protections, such as Russia, Mexico, and Uruguay, and lobbying aggressively
against treaties and policies that would strengthen those protections. Similar
World Medical & Health Policy, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2016
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1948-4682 #2016 Policy Studies Organization
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