Our Approach

A fundamental barrier to our ability to advance science and safeguard and promote health is the influence of national and transnational corporations that produce health-harming products on science and policy. The promotion of biased science, disinformation, and fake news by industries with a business stake in maintaining the status quo undermines fair and equitable government decision-making and action to address these risk factors. These problems will worsen as the economic and political influence of corporations increases. 

The World Health Organization, along with academics from health research fields, have termed this corporate threat to public health as the Commercial Determinants of Health, which we also call “corporate drivers of disease.”

We use the industry’s own words to expose their collaborations, strategies, and actions that put profits over people. We leverage UCSF’s industry documents library - the world’s largest publicly accessible collection of corporate documents - to rigorously sunshine how corporations are working together and through front groups to undermine science and rig the rules of democracy in their favor.

Our work includes:

• Researching industry tactics to reveal common practices among health-harming industries that undermine science, regulations and health.
• Sunshining conflicts of interest by exposing industry financial ties and lobbying that influence science and policy.
• Communicating our research findings and proposed solutions to correct the balance of power in policymaking to prioritize health.