Halo effect?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Halo effect?

So Wiist is especially persuasive in arguing that “externalization of costs is a major corporate activity with a direct effect on human health and the natural environment” from effects as diverse as air and water pollution, to causing specific diseases, to avoidance of taxes and corruption of government officials. The book’s contributors focus on five major corporate sectors that seem to have been especially damaging to the public’s health: tobacco, alcohol, agribusiness, automobiles, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Protecting and promoting the public’s health is predominantly a function of governments, but governments have been joined by others, especially non-governmental organisations (NGOs), in this activity. So it should not be surprising that corporations themselves have tried to co-opt NGOs and use them, and their “halo effect”, for their own purposes. BP, for example, gave millions to the Nature Conservancy over the years, many of whose members now express horror at these gifts in the wake of the Gulf oil spill. Private-public-NGO cooperation can make sense; but such cooperation is not necessarily consistent with public health goals, and each joint project should be judged on its own merits. The working assumption should probably be that corporations are much more likely to corrupt NGOs than NGOs are likely to get corporations to engage in meaningful public health activities.