A new report involving Edinburgh researchers details hundreds of examples of leading brands leveraging the coronavirus pandemic to further their corporate interests.
Manufacturers of unhealthy food and drinks – and producers of alcohol and tobacco – have been guilty of ‘signalling virtue while promoting harm’, the study has found.
It warns of a ‘corporate capture’ of the crisis by industries that fuel a rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as heart disease, some cancers, respiratory disease and diabetes.
The authors say that such actions risk exacerbating the pandemic as people living with NCDs are suffering worse outcomes from Covid-19.
Key input
Professor Linda Bauld, of the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute, leads SPECTRUM, the multi-university consortium which undertook the study in collaboration with the NCD Alliance – a civil society network of 2,000 organisations in 170 countries.
Professor Bauld said there are clear links between junk food, smoking and alcohol and the NCDs that put people at greatest risk from Covid.
“Many countries have been hard hit – not just by a lack of public health infrastructure, but because of the fundamental vulnerability of their populations,” said Professor Bauld.
“One of the major reasons for that vulnerability are non-communicable diseases – and many of these NCDs are directly caused by the products that these companies make.”