A recent groundbreaking set of reports published in the science journal The Lancet revealed that big pharmaceutical companies, social media, and unregulated extractive industries pose significant risks to public health.
The research uses a new, broader definition of determinants: the systems, practices, and pathways through which commercial actors drive health and equity.
It also demonstrates that some of these commercial goods and practices are directly related to avoidable ill health, planetary damage, and social and health inequity.
The Lancet series investigates not only immediately harmful products (such as alcohol or ultra-processed foods), but also commercial practices that affect human health, health inequities, and planetary health.
Some apparently benign, even beneficial, businesses have significant and avoidable health consequences. They have an adverse effect on health in subliminal or indirect ways.
According to the report, the pharmaceutical industry’s use of intellectual property to raise prices and limit access to critical drugs is a prevalent practice. A recent, large-scale example is the pre-sale of COVID-19 vaccines to wealthy nations.
Because of the industry’s long-standing opposition to lowering the price of antiretroviral drugs for HIV, untold thousands of people, mostly in developing countries, perished as a result of a lack of treatment.
Another sector of particular concern is social media, particularly given the recent increase in its consumption. A plethora of research supports the negative effects of social media on mental health, particularly an increase in cases of depression and anxiety.
Furthermore, other industries frequently use social media to promote harmful products and for “social washing,” a strategy used by companies to promote themselves as more socially responsible than they actually are, solely for brand promotion.
We’ve also seen an increase in “surveillance capitalism,” in which private information is collected through social media use. The information is then used by junk food companies, for example, to specifically market unhealthy commodities through platforms such as Facebook.