The Perils of Partnership by Jonathan H Marks

The Perils of Partnership by Jonathan H Marks

Collaboration with industry has become the paradigm in public health. Governments have developed increasingly close relationships with companies that are creating or exacerbating the very problems public health agencies are trying to solve. Nowhere is this more evident than in partnerships with food and soda companies to address obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases. The author argues that public-private partnerships and multi-stakeholder initiatives create webs of influence that undermine the integrity of public health agencies; distort public health research and policy; and reinforce the framing of public health problems and their solutions in ways that are least threatening to the commercial interests of corporate partners. We should expect multinational corporations to develop strategies of influence. But public bodies need to develop counter-strategies to insulate themselves from corporate influence in all its forms. The author reviews the ways in which we regulate public-public interactions (separation of powers), and private-private interactions (antitrust and competition law), and argues for an analogous set of norms to govern public-private interactions. The book also offers a novel framework that is designed to help public bodies identify the systemic ethical implications of their existing or proposed relationships with industry actors. The book makes a compelling case that, in public health, the paradigm public-private interaction should be at arm's length: separation, not collaboration. The author concludes with a call for a new paradigm in public health, and offers a vision of the future that avoids the ethical perils of partnership with industry.

What are we to make of this mismatch between our avowed scepticism and the relative omnipresence of industry in public health efforts? Enter Jonathan Marks, Director of the Bioethics Program at Penn State University, and his excellent book The Perils of Partnership: Industry Influence, Institutional Integrity, and Public HealthHe shows us how industry engagement imperils the work of public health and argues that, by consequence, the goals of public health are far better served by dissociation from the private sector altogether. * Sandro Galea, The Lancet *
Recommended. * B.A. D'Anna, CHOICE *
Marks's book is a gift... * Sharon Batt, Hastings Center Report *

Jonathan H. Marks is the Director of the Bioethics Program at Pennsylvania State University, and affiliate faculty at Penn State Law and the School of International Affairs. Whether writing about torture, fracking, obesity, or public health, his work addresses the intersections of ethics, law, and policy. His research also explores institutional ethics, integrity, and corruption.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780190907082
ISBN 10	0190907088
Title	The Perils of Partnership
Author	Jonathan H Marks
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Oxford University Press Inc
Year published	2019-05-09
Number of pages	256
Prizes	Winner of Finalist for the North American Society for Social Philosophy 2019 Book Award.
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.