Future healthcare journalPub Date : 2025-06-30eCollection Date: 2025-06-01DOI: 10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100274
Christoffer van Tulleken
{"title":"If commercial incentives are the engine, then conflicts of interest are the lubricant.","authors":"Christoffer van Tulleken","doi":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100274","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100274","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":73125,"journal":{"name":"Future healthcare journal","volume":"12 2","pages":"100274"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12277469/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144683648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Future healthcare journalPub Date : 2025-06-30eCollection Date: 2025-06-01DOI: 10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100266
Annabelle Marie Derin Elegbede
{"title":"Young people are demanding better from Britain's big food businesses: Bite Back movement.","authors":"Annabelle Marie Derin Elegbede","doi":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100266","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100266","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Multinational conglomerates and other major food corporations dominate food options in the UK. At Bite Back, a youth-led movement, we have extensively documented the ways in which big food businesses target children as part of their market monopoly. These businesses employ tactics such as misleading health claims, advertising incessantly, promoting junk food every chance they get, as well as excluding young people from critical discussions about public health and reflections on their own impact. However, their negligence extends beyond individual wellbeing. Our research uncovered their significant contribution to environmental degradation, with many of these corporations responsible for alarming levels of carbon emissions. This article explores the dangerous liaisons between multinational conglomerates and the health of the public and the planet. This article also aims to show what youth-led activism looks like in a system rigged against young people, particularly in the face of such powerful and influential businesses.</p>","PeriodicalId":73125,"journal":{"name":"Future healthcare journal","volume":"12 2","pages":"100266"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12277461/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144683703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Future healthcare journalPub Date : 2025-06-30eCollection Date: 2025-06-01DOI: 10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100256
Joseph Dickenson, Sean Devlin
{"title":"Young people's perspective on the influence of alcohol, tobacco, vaping and fast food industries.","authors":"Joseph Dickenson, Sean Devlin","doi":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100256","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As young people, alcohol, tobacco, vapes and fast food are everywhere in our lives. They are commonplace at social events, in our media, and in adverts; explained away as part of growing up. Many young people are unaware of the health risks of these substances, partly due to the success of industry marketing. For example, most people are aware of the risks to their livers from drinking alcohol, but far fewer of us realise the small scale of consumption required. The rise of vaping and fast food in particular has been accelerated by their low cost and widespread availability. As teenagers, most of us have limited spending power - our income comes from Saturday jobs or a handful of hours of shift work, so processed foods are the easiest choice. Vapes are easily available on most high streets, and young people often pass shops that sell them on their way to school. Society's casual attitude towards these promotes more consumption and obscures the risks. Our social media feeds influence us all, in a myriad of ways, ranging from athletes promoting an ideal body image, to companies sponsoring adverts for their products, to influencers casually showing alcohol, smoking and vaping as part of their regular lives. We explore solutions such as tighter regulations on packaging; clearer labelling of the risks of substances can help young people to make healthier, more informed decisions. We propose that vapes be subject to the same regulations as tobacco on storage, and mandating drab packaging; moving away from the bright, colourful designs that seem designed to target children specifically. Increasing the duty paid on these products could be beneficial, but it risks pushing consumers to potentially more risky alternatives, and further widens the socio-economic divide between rich and poor. We also suggest that teaching children to think critically from a young age will enable them to make better decisions about their health, as well as many other aspects of their lives.</p>","PeriodicalId":73125,"journal":{"name":"Future healthcare journal","volume":"12 2","pages":"100256"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12277467/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144683704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Future healthcare journalPub Date : 2025-06-30eCollection Date: 2025-06-01DOI: 10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100263
Christoffer van Tulleken
{"title":"Ultra-processed foods and public health: Evidence of harm and of conflicts of interest in the food industry to evade regulation.","authors":"Christoffer van Tulleken","doi":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100263","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100263","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The global pandemic of diet-related disease is increasingly recognised as <i>commerciogenic -</i> driven by financial incentives in the food system which drive the marketing and consumption of harmful food, including ultra-processed food (UPF). Despite international consensus on the harms of UPF and the adoption of precautionary policies by organisations such as WHO, UNICEF and governments in Latin America, UK policy response remains compromised by widespread conflicts of interest. These conflicts exist across government agencies, regulatory bodies, academia and media institutions, many of which are directly or indirectly funded by the food industry. Drawing parallels with tobacco control, the paper concludes that eliminating these conflicts is essential to formulating effective public health policy. Without structural change and the exclusion of industry actors from policymaking, rates of diet-related disease will continue to rise.</p>","PeriodicalId":73125,"journal":{"name":"Future healthcare journal","volume":"12 2","pages":"100263"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12277474/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144683656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Future healthcare journalPub Date : 2025-06-30eCollection Date: 2025-06-01DOI: 10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100255
Mark Sullivan
{"title":"Rethinking pharmaceutical development: A not-for-profit model to address global health inequities.","authors":"Mark Sullivan","doi":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100255","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100255","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Modern pharmaceuticals represent some of the greatest achievements in science and economic development. Yet, despite significant progress, profound inequities in access to essential medicines persist, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Traditional market-driven pharmaceutical models have succeeded where strong commercial incentives exist, but have failed to deliver for diseases with limited market potential, particularly in the neglected tropical diseases. This article outlines the reasons for inequity within the current system, the role of not-for-profit pharmaceutical development, and the urgent need for a new, complementary model for access that centres on public health priorities rather than market return.</p>","PeriodicalId":73125,"journal":{"name":"Future healthcare journal","volume":"12 2","pages":"100255"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12277471/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144683650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Future healthcare journalPub Date : 2025-06-30eCollection Date: 2025-06-01DOI: 10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100257
Margaret McCartney
{"title":"The NHS and the pharmaceutical industry: High risk of harmful interactions.","authors":"Margaret McCartney","doi":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100257","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100257","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The pharmaceutical industry has been responsible for many interventions of great benefit to patients. However, great harm to patients and healthcare systems have been created through conflicts of interest, when the behaviours of individual doctors and healthcare systems have been compromised and patient harm has resulted. The interests of the pharmaceutical industry and the NHS cannot be assumed to overlap. This means that medical decision making should be as independent and unbiased as possible. Transparency about conflicts is important, but should be a means to the end it must be part of a system which stops conflicts harming patients and healthcare systems. Given the uncertainty of how the benefits of transparency can be used in practice, it is an imperative that conflicts are avoided, and not just 'managed'.</p>","PeriodicalId":73125,"journal":{"name":"Future healthcare journal","volume":"12 2","pages":"100257"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12277477/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144683653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Future healthcare journalPub Date : 2025-06-30eCollection Date: 2025-06-01DOI: 10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100269
Alice Wiseman
{"title":"Countering industry promotion of harmful products to protect public health.","authors":"Alice Wiseman","doi":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100269","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100269","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), caused by the consumption and use of unhealthy products, cannot be attributed to individual behaviours alone. The way that our world has changed in recent decades shows that the problem needs to be addressed through changes in policy rather than focusing solely on behaviour change. The efforts to reduce the harm caused by smoking over the past 50 years have given us a blueprint for how to reduce the harm caused by the tactics used by big industry to promote and sell harmful products. These commercial determinants of health (CDOH) can be countered by pre-exisitng powers at the local level, but we need national policy changes to help counter these CDOH more effectively.</p>","PeriodicalId":73125,"journal":{"name":"Future healthcare journal","volume":"12 2","pages":"100269"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12277473/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144683646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Future healthcare journalPub Date : 2025-06-30eCollection Date: 2025-06-01DOI: 10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100265
Tony Waterston, Adriano Cattaneo, Nicole Bando, Jamie Errico, Robert Boyle, Sarah Brennan, Lori Lake, Melissa Mialon, Laurence Grummer-Strawn
{"title":"The urgent need to end sponsorship of healthcare professional associations by the commercial milk formula industry.","authors":"Tony Waterston, Adriano Cattaneo, Nicole Bando, Jamie Errico, Robert Boyle, Sarah Brennan, Lori Lake, Melissa Mialon, Laurence Grummer-Strawn","doi":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100265","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100265","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sponsorship of healthcare professional associations (HCPAs) by the commercial milk formula (CMF) industry violates the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. The financial ties and conflicts of interests brought about by such sponsorship distort education, research and practices in ways which undermine breastfeeding and compromise maternal and child health. The Health Advocates for Sponsorship-Free Feeding (HASFF) working group, convened by the World Health Organization, aims to address these challenges and has developed a range of tools and resources to support and encourage other HCPAs to end sponsorship from the CMF industry.</p>","PeriodicalId":73125,"journal":{"name":"Future healthcare journal","volume":"12 2","pages":"100265"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12277465/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144683655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Future healthcare journalPub Date : 2025-06-30eCollection Date: 2025-06-01DOI: 10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100264
Bartosz Helfer, Katarzyna Henke-Ciążyńska, Robert J Boyle
{"title":"Commercial influences on infant and young child feeding.","authors":"Bartosz Helfer, Katarzyna Henke-Ciążyńska, Robert J Boyle","doi":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100264","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.fhj.2025.100264","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Optimal infant and young child feeding is essential for child health, development and social wellbeing. Breastfeeding is the foundation of early nutrition, and powerfully protects infants and young children against both infectious and non-communicable diseases. The commercial milk formula industry systematically undermines breastfeeding through pervasive marketing and influence over science, education and policy, despite international guidance, including the World Health Organization (WHO) International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. Biased industry-sponsored research supports misleading claims about formula efficacy, while industry funding of nutrition regulators, professional education and healthcare practitioners creates conflicts of interest. To protect public health, stronger regulations, full implementation of the WHO Code and clear boundaries between the formula industry and health sectors are needed. We propose policy actions, including a binding global treaty and transparency measures, to counteract commercial influence and safeguard child health.</p>","PeriodicalId":73125,"journal":{"name":"Future healthcare journal","volume":"12 2","pages":"100264"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12277476/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144683645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}