Tobacco control, climate change, public health, primary care—the name of the game is “conflict of interest”

Although the involvement of big companies in dictating the terms of tobacco control and responses to climate change are far too obvious to escape attention, the situation is no different in other areas of public health.1 From drug manufacturers to vaccine lobbyists, deciding on aspects of national health programmes to deciding on specific public health interventions, conflicts of interest appear to be all pervasive.The seeds of allowing conflict of interest in public health were probably sown after the Alma-Ata declaration on primary healthcare, which was claimed as a watershed in public health practice.2 To be fair, if that vision of Alma-Ata had been implemented, it would have considerably strengthened health services across most low and middle income countries and that in turn would have led to implementation of health friendly policies and interventions.Although the rich countries of the world (like the powerful multinationals of the current world) signed the Alma-Ata…
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