Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D.

Family therapist, author

The Connection Between

Big Pharma and Our Kids

Pharmaceutical companies and other corporations are pursuing their own best interests to the detriment of the children to whom their products are aimed. This is the theme of Joel Bakan's new book, a href="http://www.amazon.com/Childhood-Under-Siege-Business-Children/dp/1439121206/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1316885957&sr=8-3" target="_hplink">"Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children." Bakan is a professor of law at the University of British Columbia and the author of a previous best seller, "The Corporation."

Marilyn Wedge: What inspired you to write "Childhood Under Siege?"

Joel Bakan: A number of things conspired. In my earlier work, a book and film called "The Corporation," I looked at issues around children and childhood and when I was on the road with that project I found that these were the issues people were really passionately concerned about, worried about. So that got me thinking about doing a fuller treatment of the issues. Around the same time, my two kids were entering the tween years and I was noticing how much they were consuming and thinking about commercial media -- not just television anymore, but games, virtual worlds and, a bit later, social networks. I felt like I was really losing touch with them, that there was a third force between me and them. That third force was big business, and it wasn't at all benevolent. Finally, I have always thought that how we treat children as a society is a window into what kind of society we are. As Nelson Mandela has said, there is no keener revelation of the soul of a society than the way it treats its children. read the rest.