Corporate Drivers of Disease: Exploring the UCSF Industry Documents Library

Health-harming products are contributing to a global rise in chronic disease. Studies estimate that fossil fuels, chemicals, alcohol, tobacco and ultra-processed foods are now responsible for approximately one in three deaths worldwide. In the US, chronic diseases linked to these products are on the rise, including increases in diabetes, Parkinson’s, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Scientists are pointing to an “industrial epidemic” of disease.

The Industry Documents Library at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) is a digital archive of internal documents from corporations across industries that produce these health-harming products. Originally established in 2002 to house documents publicly disclosed in litigation against the tobacco industry in the 1990s, analysis using these documents has generated more than 1,000 peer-reviewed studies, reports and news stories, with their findings revealing firsthand accounts of what the industry knew and when they knew it about the health harms of tobacco.

The library now houses over 20 million documents including internal documents from the pharmaceutical, chemical, food, and fossil fuel industries. The chemical industry archive contains more than 700,00 pages (over 27,000 documents).

UCSF’s Center to End Corporate Harm was launched earlier this year to bring together scientists to more systematically study the mechanisms and strategies corporations use to delay and prevent regulation of their health harming products. The Center is using the archives to develop strategies to counter the destructive influence of polluters and thus reduce chronic disease

In this webinar, Center director Dr. Tracey Woodruff introduced the concept of “commercial determinants of health,” and outline the Center’s purpose and plans. Industry Documents Library Director Kate Tasker provided an overview of the Industry Documents Library and how to use it — the documents are fully searchable and accessible to the public. And Dr. Nicholas Chartres, lead scientific advisor to the new Center, provided examples of the mechanisms and strategies these corporations use to proliferate the sale of their products using published case studies.

CHE Director Kristin Schafer moderated the session.

0:00 - 3:10 - Introduction
3:10 - 11:42 - Dr. Tracey Woodruff
11:42 - 30:11 - Kate Tasker
30:11 - 47:41 - Dr. Nick Chartres
47:41 - 1:01:30 - Q&A
1:01:30 - 1:02:35 - Ending

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