NU prof to study health rhetoric

School of Law professor Richard Daynard and a team of researchers from the Northeastern Public Health Advocacy Institute of the school of law and will examine how personal responsibility rhetoric is used to block wide-scale public health measures.
Daynard, who will serve as principal investigator, received a $2.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) after filing a grant proposal late spring of 2008. He will collaborate with California-based Berkeley Media Studies Group in California.
“It’s pretty unusual for a law professor to receive grants from NCI,” he said. “Though this is my third one, I needed to explain how this research would contribute to reducing cancer rates in the US.”
Over five years, Daynard and his team will look at whether manufacturers have a strong incentive to undermine public health measures aimed at decreasing use of any tobacco products and over-consumption of sodas and fast foods — which both cause cancer and other chronic diseases, Daynard said.
 “The rhetoric of personal responsibility is very useful for this purpose. It resonates with conventional wisdom, [moving] responsibility away from the manufacturers, despite deceptive marketing and public relations campaigns they may have engaged in,” Daynard said.
Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, is collaborating with the law school research group for the third time. Gottlieb is directing legal research, which includes looking at how personal responsibility rhetoric is used to protect the tobacco and food industries from lawsuits, and legislative and regulatory reforms.
“They want to resist rule-making by administrative agencies, like the Food and Drug Administration, Federal Trade Commission, or US Department of Agriculture,” Gottlieb said. “These companies would prefer to let the market decide [and] not be blamed for the hundreds-of-billions of dollars related in health care costs, loss of productivity, and premature death.”
Such companies also want to improve their public relations, so consumers don’t abandon their stocks if they are a publicly traded company, Gottlieb said.
Laura Dorfman, co-principal investigator and executive director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group, will stay on for all five years of the study and will help in looking at how debate about personal responsibility and different policies surrounding the tobacco and food industries appears in litigation, legislation and the news.
“We have a lot of social constraints that make it harder to eat healthy. Some of the arguments made around personal responsibility, distract from those issues,” Dorfman said.
This kind of research is needed to improve the environment people live in, Dorfman said.
“We have to understand how the policy debates occur and the parameters in the political environment [where] those public health policies ... are made,” Dorfman said.
The results will help people in public health understand the context in which public health is happening in either the political or social realm, Dorfman said.
Berkeley Media Studies Group’s mission is to study public health issues in the news and to apply those studies in helping public health advocates do a better job when talking to the media and policy-makers, according to the group’s website.
Gottlieb and his team have also identified landmark legislation, particularly important lawsuits against the tobacco and food industries. He and his team will examine internal files, the transcripts of hearings in Congress or state legislations, and trial-related public relation and media materials to code how these companies’ explain personal responsibility.
“Public health officials and advocates will be able to design their proposals and campaigns to protect themselves against [rhetorical] personal responsibility attack[s] through this research,” Daynard said.
 

1 comments

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Sat Jul 11 2009 16:37

I agree that companies should not be deceptive, but when will people be responsible for their actions? If I buy a gun and shoot someone it is not Smith & Wesson's fault. I PULLED THE TRIGGER.

Richard Daynard supports the "It must be someone else's fault" philosophy. Just because I sit in front of a TV and play video games all day, get no physical activity and have poor dietary habits, it must be Burger King's fault that i'm fat. How would I know that eating three Whoppers a day along with fries and a coke would make me fat.

Where does personal responsibility come into play Daynard??? Thanks to the lawyers we now have to make someone at fault for our own stupidity. Guess what...orange juice is healthy, but if you drink two gallons of the stuff a day you can very well get an ulcer and fat. Maybe we should put a $.25 tax on every orange so people don't get fat from these awful pieces of fruit.

I believe in free choice. If i want to eat a bag of chips and have a coke, I see nothing wrong wit that. I know they aren't healthy, but i like to indulge every once and a while. Don't get states to add soda taxes because people are to stupid to eat/drink in moderation!!!

Someone needs to take a stand against lawyers like you that want to hold everyone responsible except yourself. It's great that you don't want soda in schools, but how about banning sloppy joes, french fries and fish sticks while your at it. You wnet against the tobacco companies. Surprise, surprise, surprise...something that is lit on fire and put in your mouth is bad for you.

Richard Daynard, i don't know why a fine university like Northeastern has you as part of their faculty. If you want to help people why don't you teach the values of proper nutrition and MODERATION. Don't get all high and mighty and push a soda tax. Get real and stop protecting the stupid.

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