Scientists cite disease “epidemic” in launch of new “Center to End Corporate Harm”

Citing an “industrial epidemic of disease,” a group of scientists have launched an organization aimed at tracking and preventing diseases tied to pollution and products pushed by influential companies.

The new “Center to End Corporate Harm” is based at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and will bring together scientists to develop strategies “to counter the destructive influence of polluters and poisoners,” according to a press release announcing the launch.

“Industries that produce health-harming products, including fossil fuels, plastics, petrochemicals, tobacco, and ultra-processed foods, have waged a decades-long assault on government regulatory agencies and policymaking to rig rules in their favor at the expense of public health. At the same time, these health harming products have contributed to a rise in chronic disease. We are working to change that,” the center states on its website.

The organization, which is currently housed within the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE), said it is working on a range of projects, including exposing industry financial ties and lobbying that influence science and policy, and researching industry tactics that undermine science and regulation pertinent to public health.

The center said that a range of products that include fossil fuels, chemicals, alcohol, tobacco and ultra-processed foods are responsible for roughly one in three deaths around the world, and that a rise in chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and dementias can all be tied to exposure to various industrial products. 

“Time and again health-harming industries have lied about their products, hiding the harms from the public and regulators and now many of these industries are, collectively, the leading cause of death and disease globally,” Nicholas Chartres, lead scientific advisor to the new center, said in a statement.

The new center includes scientists, researchers, and physicians from not only the UCSF PRHE, but also from the university’s Center for Climate Health & Equity, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, and the Institute for Health Policy Studies. Researchers from University of Colorado and the University of Sydney area also among those participating in the new center.

“The increase in many chronic diseases is the manifestation of a global economic system that prioritizes products and profit over health, and it is producing an industrial epidemic of disease,” Tracey Woodruff, director of the new center and PRHE director, said in a statement. “Health-harming industries such as fossil fuels, plastics, chemicals, tobacco, and ultra-processed foods have rigged the regulatory and political systems in their favor and it’s critical to public health to hold these industries accountable.”

The center will collaborate with, and make use of the collections within, the UCSF Industry Documents Library, which is a compilation of millions of internal corporate documents dating back decades from a variety of industries, including from the drug, chemical, food, and fossil fuel industries.    

(Featured photo by Getty Images for Unsplash+.)