Monthly Archives: August 2010

Shortly after taking over as CEO of British Petroleum (BP), Tony Haywood said, “We have too many people [at BP] who want to save the world…we need to concentrate on our primary goal: creating value for our shareholders.” Similarly, a well known anti-tobacco advert features an actor playing a tobacco company executive saying to its customers: “We’re not in business for your health.” Tobacco and oil companies are easy targets, the first causing completely preventable disease and death, the latter consistently befouling the environment and killing endangered species as an integral cost of doing business. Public health, by contrast, is in business “for your health” and in the context of global health, “to save the world”. Are these two enterprises totally incompatible, as editor William Wiist suggests in the title to this collection, or is it possible that the energy of corporations can be directed and managed in ways that can protect and promote the health of the public in a meaningful way?