Health groups urge government to tackle lobbying

Addiction Economy Thought for Today - Lobbying works. Obvs, or they wouldn't spend the money on it. So nice to see this group of 100 health groups urging the government to put a stop to it.

"MPs are being urged to stop accepting freebies to sports and cultural events from tobacco, alcohol and junk food firms because their products cause so much illness and death.More than 100 health groups are urging Britain’s lawmakers to reject offers of gifts and hospitality from “unhealthy products industries” because they use an array of underhand tactics to disguise the harm they create in order to protect their sales."

Portman Group says "we reject the narrow-minded principle of excluding alcohol producers from discussions on which they have much to offer, such as responsible marketing and encouraging the moderate consumption of their products.”

Grant Ennis will laugh at this. His work and the detailed academic analysis of Nason Maani, May CI van Schalkwyk and others shows that this 'corporate responsibility' spiel is a clear and deliberate form of disinformation and distraction and should rightly be prevented.

Which is a shame for me, because I spent about 20 years doing corporate responsibility stuff thinking I was helping and it was only in around 2017 I realised it was not only not working, but sucking up the time, energy and money of governments who could have spent that time more usefully designing restrictions! Doh!