Health wash in Helsinki

Abstract

In June 2013 the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion on Health in All Policies was held in Helsinki. The fourth plenary session featured speakers from the World Bank and World Economic Forum (WEF) and immediately reminded us of corporate ‘green wash’ whereby companies grossly exaggerate their environmental sustainability credentials to gain social credibility and consumer comfort. In Helsinki we witnessed a similar ‘health wash’, in which the private sector was portrayed as an essential and beneficent ‘partner’ in promoting health by providing its expertise and much needed resources. Jane-Llopis and Xydia-Charmanta (2013) (Director, WEF) reminded us that 44% of the world’s 100 top economies are corporations rather than countries, and argued that the private sector is flexible, innovative and more attentive to consumer convenience and satisfaction than the public sector. This portrayal of the private sector’s role in health promotion contrasted sharply with that of World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director General Dr Margaret Chan who, in her opening address, condemned the economic power and destructive health impact of large industries, including food, tobacco, soda and alcohol: ‘In the view of WHO, the formulation of health policies must be protected from distortion by commercial or vested interests’, whose tactics ‘include front groups, lobbies, promises of self-regulation, lawsuits, and industry-funded research that confuses the evidence and keeps the public in doubt’ (Chan, 2013). This theme echoed through the following five days. The Irish Minister for Children and Youth, Frances Fitzgerald, talked of the need to make the lobbying tactics of industry transparent and to ensure that health promotion advocates have the same access to politicians as industry representatives. Ilona Kickbusch spoke of the commercial determinants of health. The twitter wall at the conference was busily rinsing off this corporate ‘health wash’ with comments about the need to deal with industry’s adverse impacts. But the big question confronting the health promotion movement is how best to control corporate interests? The answer to this requires understanding why corporations have and maintain such power. Our global economic regime is structured to meet the needs of rich countries and transnational corporations. This is done through trade agreements that make the world safe for capitalism (Chang, 2008), taxation regimes that enable corporations to pay little tax (Tax Justice Network, 2013) and investment treaties that allow foreign companies to sue governments for new public health regulations that might put a dent in their profits (Khor, 2012). The fall of the Soviet Bloc has meant an ideological domination for capitalism that crowds out ideas for alternative economic regimes in dominant discourse and rich country media. Gramsci’s (1971) hegemonic capitalism has well and truly come to pass. It is this ideological climate that makes a ‘health wash’ so easy for industry to get away with. What reasonable person would oppose a public private partnership to provide more health services or gain more funds for a children’s hospital by having Ronald MacDonald Health Promotion International, Vol. 29 No. 1 doi:10.1093/heapro/dat054 # The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com Advance Access published 8 August, 2013