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What You Care About · Dependency ReportBeta

cancer prevention

Written September 22, 2026 by claude-opus-5 · method 1.4

Pivotal

Owners voting their values can deliver most of this outcome.

For 7 of 8 obstacles, shareholder democracy is necessary or pivotal.

Most of what causes cancer is made, sold or handled by a company. The World Health Organization counts nearly 10 million cancer deaths in 2024 and says about 38% of cancers can be prevented with what is already known. In the United States, the American Cancer Society's own estimate puts 40.0% of cancer cases and 44.0% of cancer deaths in adults over 30 down to risk factors that can be changed, and the three largest of those, in order, are cigarette smoking, excess body weight and alcohol. Two of the three are products with an owner, a board and an annual meeting.

That is why the shareholder question reaches so far into this subject. A vote does not reach a virus or the sun. It does reach the decision to keep making a product that has no safe level of exposure, the decision to fight a warning label, the decision to keep a carcinogen in a factory when a substitute exists, and the decision about what a company spends in a legislature. Eight obstacles are ranked below in the order the attributable-risk literature ranks them, and each one is rated on how far removing it depends on owners.

Three obstacles are rated Pivotal: smoking, alcohol and occupational exposure to carcinogens. In each of them the harm is not a by-product of corporate conduct, it is corporate conduct. Four are rated Necessary: excess body weight, carcinogenic infections, diet composition and outdoor air pollution. Owners can remove something in each that nothing else removes, and governments, clinicians and households still have to move as well. One, ultraviolet radiation, is rated Helpful, since sun exposure is arranged by households and climate and the companies a vote reaches sit at the margin of it.

The advocacy record is thinner than the dependency. Faith-based investors have carried nearly all of it. The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia and Trinity Health took proposals to Altria in 2021, Trinity Health and five co-filers asked Philip Morris International in 2022 to begin phasing out its health-hazardous products, and the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother asked PepsiCo in 2024 to assess the health risks of non-sugar sweeteners. All were defeated. The largest cancer charities in the world, whose supporters hold shares through pensions and funds, do not appear in the record at all.

No person has reviewed this report. Every claim was checked against the page it cites. If we got something wrong, tell us. How we score dependency.

What owners can do

Ask whoever holds your pension or your fund whether it owns Altria Group, Philip Morris International or PepsiCo, and how it voted on the proposals recorded here.
Vote your shares alongside an organization that publishes how it votes, so your holding backs a position you can read before it is cast.
Ask a cancer charity you support whether it holds shares in tobacco, alcohol or food companies, and how those shares are voted.
Read the proposals themselves. Every one recorded here sits in a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and is public.
Where an obstacle is rated Helpful or above, a vote is a lever on it. Where it is not, supporting the organizations that do the work reaches further than a vote can.

Where this sits on our maps

Organizations to know

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (shareholder advocacy on record) A coalition of faith- and values-based investors that uses shareholder engagement, and the network most of the filings on this subject come through.☆ Follow
Trinity Health (shareholder advocacy on record) Filed the 2021 lobbying disclosure proposal at Altria Group and the 2022 phase-out proposal at Philip Morris International.☆ Follow
The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia (shareholder advocacy on record) Filed the 2021 proposal at Altria Group on underage tobacco prevention and marketing, and co-filed at Philip Morris International in 2022.☆ Follow
The Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother International Finance, Inc. (shareholder advocacy on record) Filed the 2024 proposal at PepsiCo asking for a third-party assessment of non-sugar sweetener risks.
Altria Group, Inc. (publicly listed) A publicly traded tobacco company whose owners have voted twice on the questions in this report.☆ Follow
Philip Morris International Inc. (publicly listed) A publicly traded tobacco company whose owners voted in 2014 on lobbying disclosure and in 2022 on phasing out its health-hazardous products.☆ Follow
PepsiCo, Inc. (publicly listed) A publicly traded food and beverage company whose owners voted in 2024 on assessing the health risks of non-sugar sweeteners.☆ Follow
American Cancer Society (shareholder advocacy on record) Produces the attributable-risk estimate this report's ranking follows and states a mission that covers prevention.☆ Follow
American Lung Association (shareholder advocacy on record) Works on lung health and a tobacco-free future through research, education and advocacy.☆ Follow

Sources

Cancer (World Health Organization)
Tobacco and nicotine (World Health Organization)
Alcohol (World Health Organization)
Obesity and overweight (World Health Organization)
Cervical cancer (World Health Organization)
Hepatitis B (World Health Organization)
Ambient (outdoor) air pollution (World Health Organization)
Asbestos (World Health Organization)
Radon (World Health Organization)
Ultraviolet radiation (World Health Organization)
PubMed abstracts: Islami proportion and number of cancer cases and deaths attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors in the United States (National Library of Medicine)
PubMed abstracts: The global burden of cancer attributable to risk factors 2010-19 systematic analysis Global Burden of Disease Study (National Library of Medicine)
PubMed abstracts: How alcohol industry organisations mislead the public about alcohol and cancer (National Library of Medicine)
PubMed abstracts: tobacco industry interference political activity undermining tobacco control policy (National Library of Medicine)
PubMed abstracts: Fiolet ultra-processed food intake and risk of cancer NutriNet-Sante prospective cohort (National Library of Medicine)
Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) (CIK 0001413329) 8-K 2014-05-08 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) (CIK 0001413329) 8-K 2022-05-06 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
CONSTELLATION BRANDS, INC. (STZ) (CIK 0000016918) 8-K 2021-07-23 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
PEPSICO INC (PEP) (CIK 0000077476) 8-K 2024-05-03 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
Altria Group, Inc. DEF 14A, 8 April 2021 (shareholder proposal section) [characters 257743 to 290743 of 337159, verbatim] (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
Altria Group, Inc. 8-K, 24 May 2021, 2021 Annual Meeting voting results (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
PepsiCo, Inc. DEF 14A, 22 March 2024 (shareholder proposal section) [characters 373303 to 403303 of 579183, verbatim] (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
Philip Morris International Inc. DEF 14A, 24 March 2022 (shareholder proposal section) [characters 252726 to 269726 of 350284, verbatim] (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
Merck & Co., Inc. DEF 14A, 5 April 2021 (shareholder proposal section) [characters 245579 to 259579 of 294668, verbatim] (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
About ICCR - Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility)
About Us | What Is The American Cancer Society | American Cancer Society (American Cancer Society)
About Us | American Lung Association (American Lung Association)
Aspartame hazard and risk assessment results released – IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer)

About this report

The rating answers two questions: how far the outcome depends on companies changing what they make, how they make it and what they sell, and how far it depends on companies dropping their political influence against it. The higher answer sets the rating: Independent, Helpful, Necessary or Pivotal.

This is the quick report, written in one pass against pages held as they were read. Our code, not a model, then checked every marked sentence against the document it named: each figure, and at least one name, had to be found there, or the sentence was cut, as was any factual sentence carrying no marker. Every advocacy entry had to point at a filing, a ballot row, or the page it was read on. The check changes no rating and writes no sentence. The ratings are analytical judgments under our method, not findings of any organization named here.

63 marked sentences were checked against the document each named: 63 held and 0 did not.

What we read. 28 documents were held for this report and every quotation was checked against them: 19 pages the research cited, fetched by us, 9 fetcher. 10 addresses would not open when we tried to read them, so nothing was written on them. That is a fact about our reading, not about the sources.

Every claim, and what became of it (63)

Confirmed · Cancer killed nearly 10 million people in 2024, about one death in six worldwide.
Confirmed · The World Health Organization attributes nearly a quarter of cancer deaths to tobacco, alcohol, high body mass index, low fruit and vegetable intake and inactivity.
Confirmed · About 38% of cancers can be prevented with methods already available.
Confirmed · About 10% of cancers diagnosed globally in 2022 were attributed to carcinogenic infections, among them Helicobacter pylori, HPV and hepatitis B and C.
Confirmed · In the United States in 2019, 40.0% of cancer cases and 44.0% of cancer deaths in adults aged 30 and over were attributable to modifiable risk factors.
Confirmed · Cigarette smoking led the American ranking at 19.3% of cases and 28.5% of deaths, followed by excess body weight at 7.6% and 7.3%, and alcohol at 5.4% and 4.1%.
Confirmed · The Global Burden of Disease analysis for 2019 put smoking first among risk factors for cancer deaths worldwide, then alcohol use, then high body mass index.
Confirmed · Tobacco kills more than 7 million people a year, including over 1.6 million non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke.
Confirmed · Tobacco use is a major risk factor for more than 20 types or subtypes of cancer.
Confirmed · The World Health Organization states that the conflict between the tobacco industry's interests and public health interests is fundamental and irreconcilable.
Confirmed · There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco, and all forms of tobacco use are harmful.
Confirmed · Second-hand smoke causes lung cancer and kills more than 1.6 million people prematurely each year.
Confirmed · A 2026 comparative study in Tobacco Control describes the tobacco industry as a globalised enterprise whose interference activities undermine tobacco control policies and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Confirmed · Alcohol is an established carcinogen and raises the risk of breast, liver, head and neck, oesophageal and colorectal cancers.
Confirmed · In 2019, 4.4% of cancers diagnosed globally and 401 000 cancer deaths were attributed to alcohol.
Confirmed · Countries report continued interference from the alcohol industry in the development of alcohol policy.
Confirmed · The World Health Organization asks economic operators to refrain from activities that prevent, delay or stop high-impact alcohol policies.
Confirmed · A 2025 review in Future Healthcare Journal finds the alcohol industry shapes policy and public perception through misinformation, lobbying and self-regulation.
Confirmed · Higher-than-optimal body mass index caused an estimated 3.7 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases including cancers in 2021.
Confirmed · In the NutriNet-Sante cohort, a 10% increase in the share of ultra-processed food in the diet was associated with an increase of more than 10% in overall and breast cancer risk.
Confirmed · The International Agency for Research on Cancer classified the sweetener aspartame as possibly carcinogenic to humans in 2023, while the joint expert committee kept the acceptable daily intake at 40 mg per kilogram of body weight.
Confirmed · All forms of asbestos, chrysotile included, are carcinogenic to humans.
Confirmed · More than 200 000 deaths a year are estimated to be caused by occupational exposure to asbestos.
Confirmed · The most efficient way to prevent asbestos-related disease is to stop using all forms of asbestos and to use low hazard materials instead.
Confirmed · Lung cancer accounted for 4% of premature deaths related to outdoor air pollution in 2019.
Confirmed · Cervical cancer is largely preventable through HPV vaccination and regular screening.
Confirmed · The global elimination targets ask that 90% of girls be fully vaccinated against HPV by age 15, that 70% of women be screened by ages 35 and 45, and that 90% of women with pre-cancer or invasive cancer be treated.
Confirmed · Hepatitis B caused an estimated 1.1 million deaths in 2024, mostly from cirrhosis and primary liver cancer.
Confirmed · Hepatitis B can be prevented by vaccines that are safe, available and effective.
Confirmed · Skin cancers are caused primarily by ultraviolet radiation, from the sun or from artificial sources such as sunbeds.
Confirmed · More than 1.5 million skin cancers were diagnosed worldwide in 2020 and over 120 000 deaths from skin cancer were reported.
Confirmed · Radon is estimated to cause between 3% and 14% of lung cancers in a country, depending on radon levels and smoking prevalence.
Confirmed · The World Health Organization's own prevention list begins with not using tobacco, keeping a healthy body weight, eating fruit and vegetables, physical activity and reducing alcohol.
Confirmed · The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility describes itself as a coalition of faith- and values-based investors that uses shareholder engagement.
Confirmed · The American Lung Association, founded 120 years ago, works on lung health and lung disease prevention through research, education and advocacy.
Confirmed · The American Cancer Society states its mission as improving the lives of people with cancer through advocacy, research and patient support so everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat and survive cancer.
Confirmed · The 2024 proposal at PepsiCo cited the Access to Nutrition Initiative Global Index 2022, which ranked PepsiCo's product profile seventh of eleven food and beverage companies with a healthy score of 2.2 out of 5.
Confirmed · The 2022 proposal at Philip Morris International quoted the company's own 2016 commitment to deliver a smoke-free future.
Confirmed · The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, with four co-proponents, filed the 2021 shareholder proposal at Altria Group asking for a report on underage tobacco prevention policies and marketing practices.
Confirmed · The 2021 Altria proposal asked the board to commission a third-party report on the company's adherence to its policies against underage nicotine use and on its marketing to communities of color and low-income populations.
Confirmed · The underage tobacco prevention proposal at Altria's 2021 annual meeting was defeated, with 424,970,881 shares voted for and 753,288,544 against.
Confirmed · Trinity Health, with two co-proponents, filed the 2021 shareholder proposal at Altria Group asking for annual disclosure of the company's lobbying policies, payments and trade association memberships.
Confirmed · The lobbying disclosure proposal at Altria's 2021 annual meeting was defeated, with 394,167,940 shares voted for and 788,623,913 against.
Confirmed · Trinity Health filed the 2022 proposal at Philip Morris International with five co-filers: Common Spirit Health, Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet and The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia.
Confirmed · The 2022 proposal at Philip Morris International asked the board to begin phasing out all production of the company's health-hazardous and addictive products by 2025.
Confirmed · The phase-out proposal at Philip Morris International's 2022 annual meeting was defeated, with 15,491,549 shares voted for and 1,043,750,950 against.
Confirmed · A lobbying proposal at Philip Morris International's 2014 annual meeting was defeated, with 350,401,726 shares voted for and 708,269,142 against.
Confirmed · The Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother International Finance, Inc., with other co-filers, filed the 2024 proposal at PepsiCo on non-sugar sweetener risks.
Confirmed · The 2024 PepsiCo proposal asked the board for a third-party assessment of the company's efforts to assess and mitigate health harms associated with non-sugar sweeteners.
Confirmed · The non-sugar sweetener proposal at PepsiCo's 2024 annual meeting was defeated, with 112,324,772 shares voted for and 868,039,261 against.
Confirmed · The shareholder proposal at Merck's 2021 annual meeting concerned access to COVID-19 products rather than to cancer-preventing vaccines.
Confirmed · A cigarette is not a side effect of a company's operations; it is the company's product, so a change in what tobacco companies make and sell does not merely move the outcome, it constitutes it.
Confirmed · Owners of tobacco companies are the only people entitled to instruct the board, which places the decision to keep selling a product with no safe level of exposure inside the reach of a shareholder vote.
Confirmed · The same reasoning reaches alcohol: the carcinogen is the product, and its strength, price, labelling and marketing are decided inside listed companies.
Confirmed · Excess body weight is decided by households as well as companies, so the obstacle needs both to move, which is what separates it from tobacco and alcohol on this scale.
Confirmed · Workplace exposure to a carcinogen is set by the employer, which chooses the material, the process and the controls, so the conduct of listed employers and their suppliers decides most of the occupational share.
Confirmed · Vaccination coverage depends on governments and donors as well as on the companies that make, price and license the vaccines, so conduct must change alongside public programmes rather than instead of them.
Confirmed · Outdoor air pollution comes from energy, transport, industry, waste and household fuels at once, and no single listed sector is close to sufficient on its own.
Confirmed · Sun exposure is arranged by households and by climate, and the companies a vote reaches sit at the margin of it, in sunscreen and shade rather than in the exposure itself.
Confirmed · A vote that loses is still a fact about the state of a campaign rather than about the shape of the dependency, so the defeats recorded here do not lower any rating.
Confirmed · Radon and sunlight are the clearest reminders that some of this burden sits outside the reach of any shareholder, and a report that claimed otherwise would be easy to disprove.
Confirmed · Food and drink companies decide recipes, portion sizes, pricing and promotion, and a shopper can only choose among what has been put on the shelf.
Confirmed · The one shareholder proposal put to Constellation Brands' 2021 annual meeting concerned board and top management diversity, not the health harms of its products.

First drafted September 19, 2026, reviewed and republished September 22, 2026. Scoring method revision 1.4.

Which passes have run, and what ran them

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The deep run · September 22, 2026 · Read 51 documents and wrote 63 claims, each with an excerpt from one of them.local runner · claude-opus-5

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