Global Health Program

We examined the relationship between meditation experience, psychological mindfulness, quiet ego characteristics, and self-reported physical health in a diverse sample of adults with a range of Buddhist experience (N = 117) gathered from a web-based survey administered to Buddhist practitioners around the world between August 1, 2007 and January 31, 2008. Practicing meditation on a regular basis and greater experience with
Buddhism was related to higher psychological mindfulness scores. Psychological mindfulness was correlated with a latent variable called ‘‘quiet ego characteristics’’ that reflected measures based on Bauer and Wayment’s (Transcending self-interest: psychological explorations of the quiet ego. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp 7–19, 2008) conceptual and multidimensional definition of a ‘‘quiet ego’’: wisdom, altruism, sense of interdependence with all living things, need for structure (reversed), anger/verbal aggression (reversed), and negative affectivity (reversed). In turn, quiet ego
characteristics were positively related to self-reported health. Our findings provide continuing support for the key role psychological mindfulness may play in psychological and physical well-being.

The 2010 US Supreme Court Citizens United v Federal Election
Commission 130 US 876 (2010) case concerned the plans
of a nonprofit organization to distribute a film about presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton. The Court ruled that prohibiting
corporate independent expenditures for advocacy advertising
during election campaigns unconstitutionally inhibits free
speech. Corporations can now make unlimited contributions to
election advocacy advertising directly from the corporate
treasury. Candidates who favor public health positions may be
subjected to corporate opposition advertising. Citizen groups and legislators have proposed remedies to ameliorate the effects of
the Court’s ruling. The public health field needs to apply
its expertise, in collaboration with others, to work to reduce
the disproportionate influence of corporate political speech
on health policy and democracy.

Objectives: This article reviews adverse influences of for-profit
enterprises on health care and public health, and examines significance for public policy.

Research Design: Narrative review.

Results: For-profit health-care industries may increase costs and
reduce quality, leading to market failure and contributing to the
USA’s unflattering position in international comparisons of healthcare efficiency. Drug and device corporations use strategies such as making biased inferences, influencing scientists and physicians, marketing rather than informing the public, and lobbying to control their own industry regulations to create market advantage. Successful marketing leads to the increased use of costly profit-making drugs and procedures over cheaper, nonpatented therapies. Because resources are limited, the overuse of costly modalities contributes to expensive health care, which presents a challenge to universal coverage. The free market also fosters the proliferation of industries, such as tobacco, food, and chemicals, which externalize costs to
maximize profits, seek to unduly influence research by paying
experts and universities, and attempt to control the media and
regulatory agencies. Most vulnerable to the cumulative harm of
these tactics are children, the poor, the sick, and the least educated.

Conclusions: The free market can harm health and health care. The corporate obligation to increase profits and ensure a return to
shareholders affects public health. Such excesses of capitalism pose formidable challenges to social justice and public health. The recognition of the health risks entailed by corporation-controlled markets has important implications for public policy. Reforms are required to limit the power of corporations.

Institutions and informal networks have formed a movement
that is challenging the growing power and pervasive influence of large corporations. The movement’s analyses show that the historical development and current function of the corporate
entity requires production of a profit regardless of consequences to health, society, or the environment. As a result, public health professionals frequently address health problems related to
products, services, or practices of corporations. There are possibilities for links between public health and the anticorporate movement. Public health research and the professional preparation curriculum should focus on the corporate entity as a
social structural determinant of disease.

"When corporations claim the same citizenship rights as human citizens, they exercise an undue influence on health policy and democratic processes. Surprisingly, the same basic repertoire of tactics has been found to be employed by corporations to effect this influence, regardless of the specific industry at work. In this book, authors from around the world reveal the range of tactics used across the corporate world that ultimately favor the bottom line over the greater good.

The Bottom Line or Public Health deconstructs some of the most ubiquitous tactics at play, including public relations, political influence, legal maneuvering, and financial power, using the pharmaceutical, food and agriculture, tobacco, alcohol, and motor vehicle industries as illustration. However, there is a growing global movement to counter this corporate force. The book discusses the role of non-governmental organizations, indigenous peoples' groups, health advocates, and social justice activists, and the ways in which they are working to reduce corporate power and put control of policy back in the hands of individuals. The Bottom Line or Public Health is for scholars interested in studying the corporate entity, and for individuals and organizations who want to reclaim democracy for human citizens so that health is placed above the bottom line. "

Because the corporate goal is to obtain the highest profit possible, not social welfare, public health or environmental sustainability, business interests often give little or no consideration to the effects of corporate practices on indigenous peoples. Thus, the estimated 257 to 370 million indigenous peoples in about 5,000 communities in 70 countries, speaking 5,000 of the 6,000 existing languages, often experience severe detrimental consequences from commercial activity. The effects of extractive industries such as mining, agricultural crops and timber, and the theft of intellectual property rights illustrate some of those consequences.