1 / 73

Corporations and Public Health: Profits Before People

Corporations and Public Health: Profits Before People. 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”.

herman
Download Presentation

Corporations and Public Health: Profits Before People

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. Corporations and Public Health:Profits Before People 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. Reasons for Inadequate Corporate Taxation • Corporate tax breaks/loopholes • Corporate welfare • Cheating and under-payment common • Offshore tax havens shelter capital

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

  11. Job Creators?

  12. 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

  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: 20:1 (top rank : lowest rank)

  14. Corporate PR Tactics • Advertising • “The art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.“ (Will Rogers) • Astroturf - artificially-created grassroots coalitions • Corporate front groups • Invoke poor people as beneficiaries

  15. 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

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

  17. 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”

  18. 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

  19. Academics/Professional Organizations Affected • Dramatic decrease in tenured faculty, rise in administrators • Gagging of researchers at federal agencies demoralizing, can affect recruitment of quality scientists

  20. The Media • 5 corporations control majority of US media (down from 50 in 1983) • Extensive corporate-media links • American Council on Science and Health

  21. 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)

  22. Lobbying • Approximately 40,000 lobbyists (12,600 full-time) • Estimates of return on lobbying range from $28 to $100 for every $1 spent

  23. Lobbying • Corporate federal lobbying groups spent 3.5 billion in 2010 (3.3 billion in 2011) • All single issue ideological groups combined (e.g., pro-choice, anti-abortion, feminist and consumer organizations, senior citizens, etc.) = $76 million (2010)

  24. Top-Spending Industries, 2011(Low Estimates) • Pharmaceutical industry - $236 million • Insurance industry - $158 million • Oil and gas industry - $146 million • Electric utilities - $144 million

  25. Campaign Cash and Lobbying • Citizens United • Lobbying promotes international non-cooperation/isolationism

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

  27. General Electric • Ranked by Forbes as world’s largest company (based on equal weighting of sales, profits, assets, and market value) • 2012 revenues of $145 billion • Close to the GDP of more than 2/3 of U.N. member states • 2012 net after-tax profits of $15 billion • Just over 1/3 from U.S. operations

  28. General Electric • Makes household appliances, lighting, and medical equipment • Plastics division, which produced bisphenol A, spun off in 2008 • Produces jet engines and military hardware

  29. 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.”

  30. General Electric • Has built 91 nuclear power plants in 11 countries (including the troubled Fukushima Daishi plants in Japan) • Including 23 plants at 11 sites in U.S. • e.g., Hanford • ¼ of GE’s US reactors found to be defective

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

  32. General Electric • Operates a large financial services group • Responsible for over 50% of company’s profits in recent years • Until recently, owned 49% of a multi-billion dollar media empire • Including NBC, Telemundo, and Universal Studios • Comcast owned 51%; bought out GE in 2013

  33. 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

  34. 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

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

  36. 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

  37. 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

  38. 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

  39. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt • 2012 total compensation = $25.8 million • Named “World’s Best CEO” in 3 separate Barron’s polls • 2006 - 2011 - On Board of NY Federal Reserve Bank

  40. 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)

  41. 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”!

  42. 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

  43. 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

  44. 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

  45. 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

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

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

  48. Health Insurance Industry • Dubious practices: • Delisting • Cherry picking • Pre-existing conditions • Often lower quality of care • High administrative costs • 15-30% (vs. 2-3% for Medicare and Medicaid)

  49. Health Insurance Industry • Large profit margins • Loyalty: shareholders (not patients) • Corruption

More Related