"Scientists launch a new research center to study what they say is now a leading disease risk factor: corporations."

"There’s been a marked shift in the types of diseases causing the most harm around the world over the past few decades. Chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease and metabolic disorders have overtaken infectious diseases like tuberculosis and cholera. It’s not genetics, age or lack of exercise driving the rapid rise in chronic disease, scientists at a new research center say.

“This shift, which has dramatically changed in the last 20 years, is due to corporate-produced risk factors,” said Tracey Woodruff, an expert on the health impacts of environmental exposures and director of the new Center to End Corporate Harm at the University of California, San Francisco.

“One in four deaths globally is due to exposures to chemicals, plastics and fossil fuels,” Woodruff said at a celebration of the center’s launch last week in San Francisco, adding that ultra-processed foods, opioids and tobacco are other “corporate-driven risk factors contributing to disease.”"

Liza Gross reports for Inside Climate News February 19, 2025. [2]