Companies continue to sell harmful products, but history shows that in the end, consumers can win

In 2023 42 state attorneys general sued Meta to remove Instagram features Meta’s own research showed this – as confirmed by independent research – are harmful to teenage girls.

That same year, a report by the nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise found that gun manufacturers did targeted at the youth market with eye-catching advertising and product placement in video games.

And in the period preceding the Olympic Games in Paris the leading international health journal urged the International Olympic Committee to end its relationship with Coca-Cola due to increased obesity, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure associated with the consumption of sugary drinks.

Social media, guns, sugar: these are all examples of what we call “market-driven epidemics.”

When people think about epidemics, they may think that they are only caused by viruses or other germs. But as public health expertswe know this is only part of the story. Trade can also cause epidemics. That’s why our team coined this phrase in a recent study, because you can’t solve a problem without naming it.

Market-driven epidemics follow a familiar scenario. First, companies start selling an attractive, often addictive product. As more and more people start using it, the health damage becomes more and more clear. But even as evidence of harm increases and fatalities multiply, sales continue to soar as companies resist efforts by public health authorities, consumer groups and others to police them.

We see this pattern across many products, including social media platforms, firearms, sugar-sweetened beverages, ultra-processed foods, opioids, nicotine products, infant formula, and alcohol. Collectively, their damage contributes to over 1 million people die every year in the US.

How to fight the trade epidemic

In our study, we asked two key questions: Can such epidemics be combated by changing the consumption patterns of millions of people? And if so, what is needed?

We found the answers by looking at decades of efforts to reduce unhealthy consumption of three products: cigarettes, sugar, and prescription opioids.

In each case, Americans consumed more and more of these foods, even in the face of mounting health problems, until a tipping point was reached. Thereafter, there was a steady decline in consumption.

The immediate cause of each tipping point varied greatly. On cigarettes, he was the trusted, authoritative voice of the Surgeon General of the United States He stated unequivocally in 1964 that smoking causes cancer.

In the case of sugar, one of the key moments was the famed petition from 1999 entitled “America: Drowning in sugar” submitted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest and supported by 72 leading public health organizations and experts. The petition called on the Food and Drug Administration to require food labels to include the number of added sugars and their percentage of the recommended daily intake.

Once in force, the policy helped consumers make healthier food choices while highlighting how many products on the market contain sugar.

However, in the case of prescription opioids in 2011, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared an opioid epidemicsignaling to doctors that they were overprescribing and to the pharmaceutical industry that they were acting irresponsibly.

In each case, success came after years of sustained efforts by scientists, public health officials and advocates to sway public opinion, often against deliberate corporate efforts to undermine them.

Then came the 1964 report on smoking a decade of confusion that the industry has sown to divert public attention from the scientific consensus on the dangers of tobacco. The report provided conclusive authority that changed the narrative. Almost overnight, smoking ceased to be perceived as a universally accepted social custom and became a deadly addiction. Today, simply 1 in 9 American adults smokecompared to almost half of all adults in 1954.

Actions taken in 1999 by public health leaders connected the dots between rising obesity rates and sugary foods and beverages. People began to analyze their diet in detail, especially their sugar intake. As a result, annual sugar consumption has since fallen by more than 15 pounds per person, eliminating half the amount of sugar Americans added to their diets between 1950 and 2000.

The CDC’s report on opioids effectively conveyed to physicians that they cannot simply rely on patients to avoid the misuse of highly addictive drugs, underscoring their responsibility to support control the epidemic by limiting prescription opioids like OxyContin. Since the report, opioids have been prescribed by prescription reduced by 60% – more consistent with actual medical needs.

Learning from the past

While there are no basic solutions to today’s market epidemics, we can learn from history about steps that can effectively reduce the consumption of harmful products.

Changing attitudes towards smoking show that the authoritative voice of government can still be extremely useful in combating corporate resistance and the spread of corporate disinformation.

It may be effective to provide clear guidance on products and their alternatives, as public health leaders have done in recommending that consumers limit their consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.

What we can learn from opioids is that putting pressure on those making consumption decisions, who are not always the consumers themselves, can have a profound impact on changing patterns of operate.

Despite the progress made on these three issues, the United States continues to grapple with ongoing and emerging unhealthy food epidemics. For example, although smoking has declined dramatically, the shift to vaping and other nicotine-delivering products is creating up-to-date challenges, especially among teenagers.

Meanwhile, gun deaths continue to rise, and guns are now the leading cause child killer under 18, and the gun industry continues to oppose public health measures to reduce gun violence.

Currently, ultra-processed food is responsible for this almost 60% diets of the average American, but up-to-date evidence confirms their harmfulness and the food industry defends them.

But our research shows that these problems can be solved – that it is, in fact, possible to change the behavior of millions of Americans. This is very good news. This means that solid evidence and public health action can turn around some of the world’s biggest health challenges, potentially saving money millions of lives AND billions of dollars in health care costs.