Public Program: 5th Annual C. Everett Koop Panel Discussion - “Corporate Threats to Children’s Health” this Monday

Please join us for the 5th Annual C. Everett Koop Panel Discussion, “Corporate Threats to Children’s Health” in Silsby 028 at 4:30 pm on October 6, 2014. A reception and student dinner will follow the public talk.

People's days are so busy that most people don’t take the time to really think about what they are putting into their bodies. In fact, the leading causes of chronic disease and death are from products that people voluntarily consume such as heavily processed foods, alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, and environmental toxins. Voluntary use of these products, which often begins in childhood, means that their associated harms are entirely preventable. Society should be aware of the outcomes of its decision-making and lifestyle choices as well as the influence of the corporations that profit from the sale of these harmful products.

Dartmouth is excited to bring together scholars from different fields of expertise that want to help identify common attributes of these products, discuss how they can be harmful, and highlight potential solutions for society. These panelists bring insight from a legal perspective to illustrate how corporations are driven by profit but negligent about producing products that may be harmful. Clinical and scientific evidence that focuses on public, environmental, and behavioral health will be discussed.

Joel Bakan is a professor of law at the University of British Columbia and an internationally renowned legal scholar and commentator. A former Rhodes Scholar and law clerk to Chief Justice Brian Dickson of the Supreme Court of Canada, Bakan has law degrees from Oxford, Dalhousie, and Harvard. His critically acclaimed international hit, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (Free Press, 2004), became a bestseller in several countries and inspired a feature documentary film, The Corporation, which won the best foreign documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. 

 

Bruce Lanphear, MD, MPH, is a Clinician Scientist at the Child & Family Research Institute, BC Children's Hospital and Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. His primary goal is to help quantify and ultimately prevent disease and disability due to exposures to environmental contaminants and pollutants, such as lead, tobacco and pesticides. He is leading an effort to build an online atlas of environmental health to enhance public understanding of how environmental influences impact human health.

 

 
 
 
James Sargent is a pediatrician and behavioral epidemiologist whose current research involves evaluating media and marketing influences on adolescent cancer risk behaviors, including smoking, alcohol consumption, eating, and sexual activity. Dr. Sargent is Co-director of the Cancer Control Research Program at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and holds the Scott M. and Lisa G Stuart Professor of Pediatric Oncology. Dr. Sargent received his MD from the Tufts University School of Medicine in 1984 and completed his residency in pediatrics at Boston City Hospital. He has been at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth since 1989.