Full title: Vested interests in addiction research and policy. Why do we not see the corporate interests of the alcohol industry as clearly as we see those of the tobacco industry?

Author: Sally Casswell

The aim of this publication is to compare the current status of global alcohol corporations with tobacco in terms of their role in global governance and to document the process by which this difference has been achieved and the consequences for alcohol control policy.

Smoking is a recently established risk factor for colon cancer. This study wants to explore the hypothesis that women may be more susceptible to smoking-attributed colon cancer than men as one of the possible explanations for the high colon cancer risk of Norwegian women.

Author: Pekka Sulkunen (University of Helsinki)

In the introduction to the thematic issue Pekka Sulkunen argues for the relevance of integrating the social sciences into the addiction debate. He proposes the concept of 'geography' to overcome the difficulties in using 'national cultures' as a point of reference in comparative studies not only in the addiction field.

Authors: University of Stirling, Alcohol Health Alliance UK and British Liver Trust

‘Health First: An evidence-based alcohol strategy for the UK’ sets out for the first time a series of no-nonsense recommendations to tackle the harm caused by excess drinking across the UK. It calls for the UK Government to prioritise Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP), amongst a set of key policies aimed at curbing the nation's drink problem. The strategy was developed by a group of experts independent from government and the alcohol industry under the auspices of the Alcohol Health Alliance.
Although the strategy was developed for the UK, it contains evidence and policy arguments which will be of interest to all researchers, advocates and policymakers across Europe who are seeking to address the harms of alcohol.

Full title: Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink industries

Authors: Prof Rob Moodie, David Stuckler, Carlos Monteiro, Nick Sheron, Bruce Neal, Thaksaphon Thamarangsi, Paul Lincoln, Sally Casswell, on behalf of The Lancet NCD Action Group

The 2011 UN high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) called for multisectoral action including with the private sector and industry. However, through the sale and promotion of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink (unhealthy commodities), transnational corporations are major drivers of global epidemics of NCDs. What role then should these industries have in NCD prevention and control? The study emphasises the rise in sales of these unhealthy commodities in low-income and middle-income countries, and consider the common strategies that the transnational corporations use to undermine NCD prevention and control.