It’s now more commonly known that alcohol and tobacco use make us ill. Less known is that just four industries account for at least one-third of global preventable deaths. These industries are: unhealthy processed food and drinks, fossil fuels, alcohol and tobacco. Collectively they cause 19 million deaths every year, according to a recent series of reports published in The Lancet.
These deaths happen because of accepted business practices that prioritise profit over health - and not only through the companies’ products. This include cigarettes that cause cancer, sugary drinks that result in obesity or coal that drives carbon dioxide emissions, for example. The world’s largest commercial companies routinely operate in a way that masks their practices and allows them to continue and expand in the name of neoliberal economic freedoms.
