Lessons from Corporate Influence in the Opioid Epidemic: Toward a Norm of Separation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan H. Marks
Keyword(s):  
Opioid Epidemic ◽  
Corporate Influence

Beyond Disclosure: Developing Law and Policy to Tackle Corporate Influence

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 275-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan H. Marks
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Opioid Epidemic ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Public Health Agencies ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
Medical Centers ◽  
Academic Medical ◽  
Intractable Problems

Corporate influence is one of the most pressing issues in public health. It cuts across many of our most intractable problems—from obesity to the opioid epidemic. Companies develop close relationships with public health agencies, research universities, academic medical centers, professional societies, and patient advocacy organizations—often funding medical research and public health interventions intended to address the very challenges these corporations are creating or exacerbating. How we view relationships with industry, including how these relationships are framed in ethical discourse, shapes our legal and policy responses to them. In recent years, fueled in part by the opioid epidemic, the ethical framing of industry relationships has begun to evolve in significant ways. But legal and policy responses have not yet caught up. In this article, I develop a temporal account of corporate influence, and legal and policy responses to corporate influence. This account clarifies the limitations and adverse effects of conflicts of interest disclosure, especially when implemented as the sole legal or policy response. Disclosure can illuminate corporate influence—but policymakers cannot and should not rely on disclosure to eliminate corporate influence or its effects. Nor should we allow disclosure to crowd out structural and systemic responses to corporate influence—including sequestration of and separation from private-sector entities.

The American Opioid Epidemic in Special Populations: Five Examples

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Blanco ◽  
Mir M. Ali ◽  
Aaron Beswick ◽  
Karen Drexler ◽  
Cheri Hoffman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Special Populations ◽  
Opioid Epidemic

Commercial Fishing as an Occupational Determinant of Opioid Overdoses and Deaths of Despair in Two Massachusetts Fishing Ports, 2000–2014

2021 ◽  
pp. 104829112110234
Author(s):  
Scott Fulmer ◽  
Shruti Jain ◽  
David Kriebel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cause Of Death ◽  
Death Certificate ◽  
The United States ◽  
Opioid Overdose ◽  
Commercial Fishing ◽  
Opioid Epidemic ◽  
Death Certificate Data ◽  
Deaths Of Despair

The opioid epidemic has had disproportionate effects across various sectors of the population, differentially impacting various occupations. Commercial fishing has among the highest rates of occupational fatalities in the United States. This study used death certificate data from two Massachusetts fishing ports to calculate proportionate mortality ratios of fatal opioid overdose as a cause of death in commercial fishing. Statistically significant proportionate mortality ratios revealed that commercial fishermen were greater than four times more likely to die from opioid poisoning than nonfishermen living in the same fishing ports. These important quantitative findings suggest opioid overdoses, and deaths to diseases of despair in general, deserve further study in prevention, particularly among those employed in commercial fishing.

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