Sick planet corporate food and medicine

Summary: Neoliberals often point to improvements in public health and nutrition as examples of globalisation's success, but this book argues that the corporate food and medicine industries are destroying environments and ruining living conditions across the world. Scientist Stan Cox expertly draws out the strong link between Western big business and environmental destruction. This is a shocking account of the huge damage that drug manufacturers and large food corporations are inflicting on the health of people and crops worldwide.Companies discussed include Wal-Mart, GlaxoSmithKline, Tyson Foods and Monsanto. On issues ranging from the poisoning of water supplies in South Asia to natural gas depletion and how it threatens global food supplies, Cox shows how the demand for profits is always put above the public interest. While individual efforts to "shop for a better world" and conserve energy are laudable, Cox explains that they need to be accompanied by an economic system that is grounded in ecological sustainability if we are to find a cure for our Sick Planet.

Record details

ISBN: 9781281878809
ISBN: 1281878804
ISBN: 0745327400
ISBN: 9780745327402
ISBN: 0745327419
ISBN: 9780745327419
ISBN: 1849643849
ISBN: 9781849643849
Physical Description: 1 online resource (xii, 219 p.)
remote
electronic resource
Publisher: London ; Ann Arbor : Pluto Press, 2008.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references, "Suggested Reading" list (p. 209-212), and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Acknowledgements -- Preface -- 1. Health care's malignant growth -- "If they build it, we'll fill it" -- An unhealthy industry -- Growing pains -- Those bad apples -- Green health care? -- The model wealth creator -- 2. Feeling OK? Are you sure? -- Disease mongering -- Direct-to-patient, direct-to-doctor -- 3. Side effects may be severe -- Colorful India -- Side effects -- Cracking down? -- 4. Swallowing the Earth whole -- Caution : this diet is not for everyone -- Appearances and reality -- All the fish in the sea -- A self-fattening industry -- 5. "Agroterrorists" can take a vacation -- The industrialized farm economy -- Hazards of food production -- Who wants to take away our freedom? -- 6. Hunger for natural gas -- Nitrogen, human existence, and economic logic -- Gas : so good it's bad -- Coal : a lousy plan B -- Full Jacuzzis, empty stomachs -- Nitrogen : too little, too much -- Needs and wants -- 7. Down-to-a-trickle economics -- Dimming, global and local -- Dark horizon -- The 66,000-lb gorilla in the living room -- 8. Supernatural food -- Goliath junior vs. Goliath senior -- Shop where you work? -- Industrial-strength organic -- Other routes -- A gaping hole -- 9. The world is your kitchen -- Some of the planet's toughest little molecules -- Turning up the heat on Teflon -- Chemical stewardship -- Paths of least resistance -- The chemical amnesty program -- 10. Political impossibility vs. biological impossibility -- Three big books -- Efficiency -- The European mirage -- Different kinds of impossibility -- Notes -- Suggested reading -- Index.
Restrictions on Access Note:	Restrictions unspecified
Reproduction Note:	Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010.
System Details Note:	Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212
Action Note:	digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve
Source of Description Note:	Description based on print version record.