November 16, 2009 – 11:54 am
In the late 1800s, when the people of eastern Quebec realised the money that could be made from what was known locally as “cotton rock”, they decided to name their settlement after it. They never could have guessed what it might one day mean to come from a town called Asbestos.
All these years later, Canada [...]
November 4, 2009 – 3:41 pm
The discussion about relationships between public health and the food industry continues…
Boyd Swinburn, Professor of Population Health, and Director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University, writes:
“Stephen Leeder makes a well argued plea for people to quit blasting the food industry with moral indignation and to work with them to find [...]
October 22, 2009 – 8:59 am
The debate between Derek Yach of PepsiCo and public health sceptics is being watched from afar.
Obesity control expert Professor Boyd Swinburn has sent in his observations while travelling in the US. He writes:
“I am currently in Boston and read with interest the comments about Derek Yach and Pepsi’s PR mission to Australia.
The TV in the [...]
October 21, 2009 – 1:52 pm
I wrote a piece for Crikey today looking at how the soft drink companies are trying to rebrand themselves as the new best friends of public health.
In the US, Coca Cola has done a deal with the American Academy of Family Physicians new corporate membership program, enabling it to help “educate consumers about the role [...]
September 24, 2009 – 10:48 am
Right now, right around the country, well-meaning community groups, including men’s health groups, are out on the hustings, urging all men of a certain age to be screened for prostate cancer.
There are many potential downsides to such simplistic messages.
You can read more about some of them in this article, published today in the SMH and [...]
September 23, 2009 – 9:46 am
Ben Harris-Roxas is an expert in health impact assessment. After waking to this view this morning in Sydney, he’s been investigating the impact of dust storms on health.
He writes:
“Sydneysiders awoke to a red glow this morning and opened their curtains to find that the city had been shrouded in a dust storm, blown in [...]
September 10, 2009 – 10:19 pm
Who will be the first chief of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency?
It is such an important job and this will be such a landmark appointment, let’s hope there are many outstanding candidates. The Minister for Health will make the appointment, but has to run it by state and territory health ministers, according to [...]
September 2, 2009 – 6:30 pm
Don’t get too excited about the Preventative Health Taskforce recommendations, cautions Professor Boyd Swinburn, Professor of Population Health at Deakin University, and Director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Obesity Prevention. There have been other reports making similar useful recommendations which have gone nowhere.
He writes:
“The decision by the Preventative Health Taskforce to start with the [...]
By Croakey
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Posted in Food, alcohol, chronic diseases, health reform, prevention, public health, tobacco control
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Also tagged alcohol, Boyd Swinburn, food industry, obesity, Preventative Health Taskforce, self-regulation, tobacco
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September 2, 2009 – 3:24 pm
It was entirely predictable that yesterday’s launch of the National Preventative Health Strategy – which you can download here in all its glorious weight – would provoke cries of the Nanny State. (In fact I predicted it several weeks ago in this Crikey article which explores something of the history of the term, as well [...]
