This came in over the transom today from a wellness executive.  I am shocked, shocked, to find that conflicts of interest are going on in here!

Hi, Al! I’ve been a big fan of yours for some time. As I am a senior executive in the “Corporate Wellness” market, I unfortunately cannot reveal myself publicly for fear of ostracism, but have agreed almost completely with the arguments you’ve made about our industry shenanigans for years.

Unfortunately the shenanigans have gotten worse. Don’t know if you noticed this, but the Art & Science of Health Promotion Conference recently appointed Dr. David Katz as their new program chair, replacing Michael O’Donnell. The community had been voicing concerns to Michael for years about ASHPC’s not-so-veiled bias for certain vendors and consultants without disclosure of their financial relationships. Now, seems the conference is willing to blatantly flaunt its conflict-of-interest as Katz has announced Dr. Rajeev Kumar of Virgin Pulse would be the keynote speaker at the next conference. Unsurprisingly, Katz is on the “scientific advisory board” of Virgin Pulse. Links: https://www.virginpulse.com/blog-post/saboard-members/david-l-katz, https://www.healthpromotionconference.com/keynote/how-do-we-adapt-to-the-emerging-growth-and-evolution-of-health-promotion.

I see the same conflict-of-interest at HERO and other conferences. It’s truly sad that our profession has allowed these snake oil salesmen and their proxies to run these events under the guise of “impartiality”.