Overview

Neoliberals often point to improvements in public health and nutrition as examples of globalisation's success, but this book argues that the corporate food and medicine industries are destroying environments and ruining living conditions across the world. Scientist Stan Cox expertly draws out the strong link between Western big business and environmental destruction. This is a shocking account of the huge damage that drug manufacturers and large food corporations are inflicting on the health of people and crops worldwide. Companies discussed include Wal-Mart, GlaxoSmithKline, Tyson Foods and Monsanto. On issues ranging from the poisoning of water supplies in South Asia to natural gas depletion and how it threatens global food supplies, Cox shows how the demand for profits is always put above the public interest. While individual efforts to 'shop for a better world' and conserve energy are laudable, Cox explains that they need to be accompanied by an economic system that is grounded in ecological sustainability if we are to find a cure for our Sick Planet.

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9780745327419

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Reviews

Stan Cox, scientifically accomplished and politically astute, casts a sharp eye on the deadly affliction that threatens our planet, and identifies the penetration of capital into all aspects of life as the pathogen. Cox convincingly shows that only a radical attack on the roots of this disease can reverse the slide of our civilization into oblivion. -- Joel Kovel, author of The Enemy of Nature Cox's revelatory book is a Silent Spring for the 21st century. He skillfully charts the intersections between the medical industry and the chemical agriculture industry. ... There are villains aplenty in this compact book, but they are merely fangs in a rampaging global economic machine that is steadily devouring the life-forms of the earth in the pursuit of the bottom line -- Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch The book is a short, readable activists crib which ranges fluently across the environmental costs of bloated corporate health-care (and the human costs of overprescription and phoney medicalization), to the problem of industrial agriculture and better living through chemistry. -- Sam Urquhart, Guerrilla News Network Cox's revelatory book is a Silent Spring for the 21st century -- Jeffrey St. Clair, editor, CounterPunch, author, Born Under a Bad Sky A radical treatment proposal, to be sure, but the diagnosis is sobering -- The Guardian This important book brings home the systemic connections between agriculture, pharmaceutical drugs and health. Cox does not propose any easy solutions but his diagnosis is compelling and well worth reflecting on. -- The Scientific and Medical Network At the cusp of total ecological collapse, we stand in need of a corrective dose of 'radical' economics if we're to turn our ship around. ... His book ranges fluently across the environmental costs of bloated corporate healthcare ... , to the problem of industrial agriculture and 'better living through chemistry.' -- Sam Urquhart, GNN.TV Cox's discussion ... might alarm even experts in disaster, providing worthy reminders that the ecological plagues currently making headlines are just the tip of the (melting) iceberg. -- The Texas Observer Stan Cox guides us through the chicanery and lies on which modern agricultural and pharmaceutical capitalism depend, and gives us not only a stunning indictment of our modern food and drug system, but the analytical vision to move beyond it. -- Raj Patel, author, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System

'Stan Cox, scientifically accomplished and politically astute, casts a sharp eye on the deadly affliction that threatens our planet, and identifies the penetration of capital into all aspects of life as the pathogen. Cox convincingly shows that only a radical attack on the roots of this disease can reverse the slide of our civilization into oblivion.' Joel Kovel, author of The Enemy of Nature

Author Information

Stan Cox is a senior scientist at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. He worked for the US Department of Agriculture from 1984 to 1996 and has a Ph.D. in plant genetics. He is the author of Sick Planet (Pluto, 2008).

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