Category: Society

bath.ac.uk

Public health regulation against unhealthy diets is strongly opposed by the food and drinks lobby.
Unhealthy diets lead to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), like heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
Food industry lobby groups oppose regulations, and also challenge scientific evidence about harmful effects of substances like sugar.
Researchers suggest that they are using similar arguments as the tobacco industry lobbies used in the early 2000s.
Experts say this study is enlightening, and that industries should not be allowed to dilute public health policy.

Bulleted by Michał Słupski
on September 18, 2020

york.ac.uk

Since 2009, alcohol companies have been funding increasingly more research - evidenced by almost 13,500 studies funded by the alcohol industry.
There are many legitimate fields for research, however there’s a group of these studies that claim health benefits of alcohol, or that substance abuse is a choice.
Another problem is that the alcohol industry funds this research through affiliate organisations, and the funding source is often not shown in those papers.
Researchers believe that the alcohol industry is too deeply involved, and certain studies should be conducted by independent academics.

Bulleted by Michał Słupski
on September 18, 2020

Study that tracked people for 14 years proves that disagreeableness doesn’t help in competing for power.
Being a jerk doesn’t help people be successful - they have the same chance of being put in positions of power as people who are generous, trustworthy and nice.
The problem is that giving power to disagreeable people causes organizations to fail, according to a body of research, and provides bad role models for society at large.
Dominant and aggressive behaviour doesn’t help people get ahead faster in business, but it doesn’t apply to politics, where power dynamics are much different.

Bulleted by Michał Słupski
on September 4, 2020

Giving heroin users a safe and legal supply of the drug has worked in several countries for decades, and now cities in the UK are seeing the benefits, too.
The program is funded with money seized from criminals, and it has enabled addicts to start turning their life around.
With the need to constantly buy street heroin (with money from crimes), they were able to engage with health, housing and welfare agencies.
Their psychological and physical health got much better.
Compared to other efforts to fight this problem, this is the only one that works, and the UK pilot program is going to be extended for another year.

Bulleted by Michał Słupski
on August 28, 2020

pcmag.com

Research from online activist group Avaaz shows that last year, global health misinformation networks on Facebook generated around 3.8 billion views.
They identified 42 pages as the main drivers of misinformation, followed by over 28 million people.
Content from these pages had about 10 times more views than content from leading health organizations like WHO and the CDC.
Research authors suggest two ways to reduce this problem: provide users with fact-checked corrections, and decrease the reach of misinformation pages.

Bulleted by Michał Słupski
on August 20, 2020

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