The Role of Corporate Credibility in Legitimizing Disease Promotion

[Guest guest]

The analysis summarized in the abstract seems applicable to the feigned

" credibility " of one-size-fits-all vaccination safety proclamations

emitted (like toxic air particulates) from vaccinology's high priests

and enforcers. The lead author might enjoy hearing about her abstract's

relevance to autism.

- - - -

The Role of Corporate Credibility in Legitimizing Disease Promotion

A. Mc 1* Ruth E. Malone 1

patricia.mcdaniel@...

American Journal of Public Health, 10.2105/AJPH.2008.138115

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/AJPH.2008.138115v1

Abstract

Objectives. We explored what corporate ''credibility'' means to tobacco

companies to determine why it matters to companies and what a lack of

credibility means to them.

Methods. We collected documents from an online tobacco industry document

archive and analyzed them with an interpretive approach.

Results. Tobacco companies conceptualized credibility not as being

worthy of belief or confidence but as inspiring it. Thus, credibility

was understood primarily as altering public perception of the industry.

''Truth'' was largely absent from tobacco industry conceptualizations of

credibility, which were linked with ''responsibility'' and

''reasonableness.'' However, industry research found that the public

regarded credibility and responsibility differently, expecting these to

entail truth telling, advertising reductions, less harmful products,

apologies for deception, making amends, or exiting the tobacco business

altogether. Overall, industry credibility-building projects failed

repeatedly.

Conclusions. Public health discourse increasingly attends to the roles

of corporations in promoting disease. Industries such as tobacco and

alcohol have been identified as profiting from harmful products. Yet

corporations' ability to continue business as usual requires sustaining

an implicit societal assent to their activities that depends on

corporate credibility. For public health to address corporate disease

promotion effectively, undermining corporate credibility may be

strategically important.

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/AJPH.2008.138115v1

..