Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health
In a nutshell, public-health professor Freudenberg finds that the greatest threat to the health and well-being of humanity is an upside-down health system. He contends that, rather than a political-economic system that supports the health of the general population, public health is compromised to support the well-being of our current political-economic system. He refers to what he calls a “corporate consumption complex,”  a disproportionately small group of business and political interests, as if it is an entity that thrives on “hyperconsumption” by a mass populace whose good health is being sacrificed in the name of profit. He makes his case via examples of both blatant and unintentional disregard for public health within the food, alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical, gun, and automobile industries, which value profit over consumer health. His argument is so strong, passionate, and laced with intemperate phrases that it is clear that  Freudenberg’s intention is less a call to reason than a rallying cry for an army of Davids against a systemic Goliath. --Donna Chavez