1 / 89

Corporate Control of Public Health: Case Studies and Call to Action

Corporate Control of Public Health: Case Studies and Call to Action. Martin Donohoe. Am I Stoned?. A 1999 Utah anti-drug pamphlet warns: “Danger signs that your child may be smoking marijuana include excessive preoccupation with social causes, race relations, and environmental issues”.

alarice
Download Presentation

Corporate Control of Public Health: Case Studies and Call to Action

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Corporate Control of Public Health:Case Studies and Call to Action Martin Donohoe

  2. Am I Stoned? A 1999 Utah anti-drug pamphlet warns: “Danger signs that your child may be smoking marijuana include excessive preoccupation with social causes, race relations, and environmental issues”

  3. Corporations Dominate the Global Economy • Almost 6 million corporations • 90% of transnational corporations headquartered in Northern Hemisphere • 500 companies control 70% of world trade

  4. Corporations Dominate the Global Economy • 53 of the world’s 100 largest economies are private corporations; 47 are countries • Wal-Mart is larger than Israel and Greece

  5. The Stock Market • The top 1% of Americans owns 51% of all stocks, bonds, and mutual fund assets • Consequences of Differential Stock Ownership • Corporations are answerable to their shareholders • Governments are answerable (at least in theory) to their citizens (either through elections or revolutions)

  6. Corporations • Internalize profits • Externalize health and environmental costs

  7. Corporate Taxation • Corporations shouldered over 30% of the nation’s tax burden in 1950 vs. 8% today • Nearly 1/3 of all large U.S. corporations pay no annual tax

  8. Corporate Taxation • Big business claims that U.S. corporations pay the highest corporate taxes in the world (35%) • FALSE: The rate actually paid, after foreign governments get their cuts, money sent to foreign subsidiaries, loopholes, etc. = 2.3% (U.S. Treasury Department)

  9. Corporate Taxation • 2004: Bush administration offered temporary tax holiday on foreign earnings • $300 billion in profit repatriated • 92% went to dividend payouts, stock buybacks, and corporate coffers • Only 8% went to R and D, new factories, and hiring

  10. Reasons for Inadequate Corporate Taxation • Corporate tax breaks/loopholes • Corporate welfare • Cheating and under-payment common • Offshore tax havens shelter capital

  11. Ugland House, Cayman Islands18,000 Corporations Registered Here

  12. Job Creators?

  13. Exorbitant CEO Pay • CEO salaries up 759% since 1978 • Average worker pay up 6% • The average CEO makes 350-400X the salary of the average U.S. worker (1960 - 41X) • Mexico 45:1 • Britain 25:1 • Japan 10:1 • US Military: 15-20:1 (top rank : lowest rank)

  14. CEO Personality Characterisitics • Some data suggest certain traits common among psychopaths are also commonly found in CEOs (and politicians, world leaders, and serial killers): • Grandiose sense of self worth • Persuasiveness • Superficial charm • Ruthlessness • Lack of remorse • Manipulation of others

  15. The Mega-Rich • Worried / Investing in personal security • Bodyguards • Armored cars • Bullet-proof windows; machine gun proof doors • Home security fogs • Panic rooms • Fully-stocked home medical suites • Yachts with escape submarines • Islands

  16. Corporate PR Tactics • Advertising • Astroturf - artificially-created grassroots coalitions • Corporate front groups • Invoke poor people as beneficiaries

  17. Corporate PR tactics • Characterize opposition as “technophobic,” anti-science,” and “against progress” • Portray their products as environmentally beneficial despite evidence to the contrary • Corporate espionage: spying, bribes

  18. Greenwash • Public relations / ad campaigns • BP invests $100 million annually in clean energy = amt. it spends annually to market itself as moving “Beyond Petroleum”

  19. Sponsored Environmental Education Materials (Examples) • International Paper -“Clearcutting promotes growth of trees that require full sunlight and allows efficient site preparation for the next crop” • Exxon’s “Energy Cube” -“Gasoline is simply solar power hidden in decayed matter” -“Offshore drilling creates reefs for fish”

  20. Academics/Professional Organizations Affected • Increasing corporatization of academia • ↑Private commercial funding of university research • Secrecy/Gag Clauses • For-profit colleges growing, marked by corruption, high interest rates on loans to the un- and under-qualified

  21. Academics/Professional Organizations Affected • For-profit colleges growing, marked by corruption, high interest rates on loans to the un- and under-qualified • Benefit largely from taxpayer money • Dramatic decrease in tenured faculty, rise in administrators

  22. Academics/Professional Organizations Affected • Gagging of researchers at federal agencies demoralizing, can affect recruitment of quality scientists • 2001 – 2011: Number of published papers increased by 44%; number of retracted articles increased 15-fold (3/4 for errors, ¼ for fraud)

  23. The Media • 5 corporations control majority of US media (down from 50 in 1983) • Extensive corporate-media links

  24. Global Warming: Controversial? • Of 928 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, none were in doubt as to the existence or cause of global warming • Of 636 articles in the popular press (NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, WSJ), 53% expressed doubt as to the existence (and primary cause) of global warming Science 2004;306:1686-7 (Study covers 1993-2003)

  25. Lobbying • 42,000 lobbyists (15,000 full time) • Estimates of return on lobbying range from $28 to $100 for every $1 spent

  26. Lobbying • Lobbying groups spent 3.5 billion in 2010 (federal lobbying, a record) • All single issue ideological groups combined (e.g., pro-choice, anti-abortion, feminist and consumer organizations, senior citizens, etc.) = $76 million • Lobbying promotes international non-cooperation/isolationism

  27. Case Studies

  28. The alliance between GE Medical Systems and NY-Presbyterian Hospital

  29. General Electric • Ranked by Forbes as world’s largest company (based on equal weighting of sales, profits, assets, and market value) • 2011 revenues of $148 billion • Close to the GDP of more than 2/3 of U.N. member states • 2011 net after-tax profits of $14 billion • Just over 1/3 from U.S. operations

  30. General Electric • Makes household appliances, lighting, and medical equipment • Has built 91 nuclear power plants in 11 countries (including Japan’s troubled Fukushima Daishii reactors) • Produces jet engines and military hardware

  31. General Electric • Charles Wilson (CEO of GE pre- and post-WW II; helped oversee U.S. military production during WW II): • “The revulsion against war…will be an almost insuperable obstacle for us to overcome. For that reason, I am convinced that we must begin now to set the machinery in motion for a permanent wartime economy.”

  32. General Electric • Operates coal-burning power plants • Major releasers of toxic mercury • Produces nearly 40 technologies used in fracking

  33. General Electric • Operates a large financial services group • Lending accounts for > 30% of revenue, vs. < 6% of revenue from consumer appliances • Responsible for over 50% of company’s profits in recent years • Owns a multi-billion dollar media empire • Including NBC (49%, Comcast – 51%), Telemundo, and Universal Studios

  34. GE’s History • Conducted unethical human subject experiments on prisoners, involving testicular irradiation, from 1940s to 1960s • Intentionally-released excessive radiation from its Hanford, WA nuclear reactor in the 1980s, to determine how far it would travel

  35. GE’s Record • Sued radiologist who brought to light dangers of GE’s contrast agent, Omniscan • Causes nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (FDA black box warning) • Ordered to pay $11.4 million to Bracco Diagnositcs for falsely/misleadingly claiming that its x-ray contrast agent Visipaque was superior to BD’s Isovue

  36. GE’s Record • America’s largest corporate polluter • 116 Superfund sites nationwide • Approximately 13 in NY

  37. GE’s Record • Between 1947 and 1977, two of its capacitor manufacturing plants dumped 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson River • Probable human carcinogens with adverse effects on liver, kidney, nervous system, and reproductive organs (EPA) • 200 mi of Hudson = Superfund site

  38. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt • 2011 total compensation = $21.6 million • Named “World’s Best CEO” in 3 separate Barron’s polls • 2006 - 2011 - On Board of NY Federal Reserve Bank

  39. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt • 2008 – Named one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” by TIME Magazine • 2009 - Appointed by President Obama to his Economic Recovery Board • GE then became eligible, via a loophole, for ¼ of the $340 billion Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (debt support)

  40. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt • 2011 - Appointed by Obama as Chair of his outside panel of Economic Advisors and of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness • On the board of directors of “The Robin Hood Foundation”!

  41. GE’s Record • Eliminated 34,000 US jobs between 2000 and 2010 • Added 25,000 overseas jobs over same period • One of nation’s top out-sourcers of jobs

  42. GE’s Record • Cited by Human Rights Watch for “systematic workers’ rights violations” in the U.S. and abroad • Extensive record of tax violations, military procurement fraud

  43. GE’s Record • Named “America’s Most Admired Company” by Forbes • Named one of the “World’s Most Respected Companies” in polls conducted by Barron’s and The Financial Times

  44. Concerns About the Agreement between GE Medical Systems and NY-Presbyterian Hospital (2003) • Provides GE with financial incentives to promote high technology purchases • Hospital prohibited from purchasing more effective equipment from other companies

  45. Concerns About the Agreement • Augments trend in academic medical centers to promote the use of expensive, high-technology care at expense of preventive care and public health measures • Highly reimbursable • Services may be redundant in certain locations

  46. Concerns About the Agreement • Patients with developmental anomalies and cancers caused by GE’s pollution diagnosed with GE scanners and treated with GE-manufactured therapeutic devices, increasing GE’s profit

  47. A macabre twist on “cradle to grave care”

  48. Solutions • NY-P should cancel agreement • Health care providers and organizations should condemn this unholy alliance • Medical and ethical organizations should develop standards regarding future agreements

More Related