This session analyzes why and how business actors may influence global health institutions and discusses to whom this may bring costs and benefits.
Questions treated in this session:
Should business influence Global Health institutions?
What are the strategic dilemmas faced by business actors in front of Global Health institutions?
What are the characteristics of influence tactics? What are the protection mechanisms?
What are the roles of business towards politics, science and society?
Preparation
Inspired by the required reading, analyze the extent to which the behavior of the tobacco industry can inform us about the behavior of the pharmaceutical industry. Choose a few similarities and differences and analyze them using the conceptual frameworks taught in class.
Required readings
World Health Organization. Tobacco Company Strategies to Undermine Tobacco Control Activities at the World Health Organization. Geneva: WHO, 2000. Executive Summary, pp. 1-21.
Optional readings
Hurt R.D., Robertson C.R.: “Prying Open the Door to the Tobacco Industry’s Secrets About Nicotine, The Minnesota Tobacco Trial, JAMA ; October 7, 1998 – Vol. 280, N° 13.
Yach D. and Bettcher D.: “Globalization of Tobacco Marketing, Research and Industry Influence: Perspectives, trends and impacts on human welfare” Development, 1999, 42:4; 25–30.
Carter S.M.: “Mongoven, Biscoe & Duchin: destroying tobacco control activism from the inside”. Tobacco Control, 2002.
