Bringing Bad Things to Life

1. Bringing Bad Things to Life The alliance between GE Medical Systems and NY-Presbyterian Hospital Martin Donohoe

2. The Partners • NY-Presbyterian Hospital • one of the largest academic health care institutions in the U.S. • GE Medical Systems • Subsidiary of General Electric • $9 billion annual revenues

3. The Agreement • 10-year, $500 million agreement requires NYP to purchase products and services from GEMS in exchange for purported discounts on medical supplies and the promise of enhanced technological standardization and simplification

4. General Electric • World’s largest company by market share • 2007 revenues of $168 billion • Greater than the GDP of more than 2/3 of U.N. member states • 2007 net after-tax profits of $21 billion

5. General Electric • Makes household appliances, plastics, lighting, and medical equipment • Plastics division, which produced bisphenol A, spun off in 2008 • Produces jet engines and military hardware • Has built 91 nuclear power plants in 11 countries

6. General Electric • Operates coal-burning power plants • Major releasers of toxic mercury • Operates a financial services group • Owns a $43 billion media empire • Including NBC, Telemundo, and Universal Studios

7. 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 • May have contributed to increased thyroid cancer risk in “Downwinders”

8. GE’s Record • America’s largest corporate polluter • 75 Superfund sites nationwide • 13 in NY

9. 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

10. GE’s Record • Has spent millions to avoid Hudson cleanup and to weaken or eliminate Superfund Law • Contributes to corporate front groups • Promulgate an anti-scientific and pseudo-scientific agenda • Conduct media disinformation campaigns in an attempt to weaken health and environmental regulations

11. GE’s Record • Signed licensing agreement with Cornell Medical School in 2001 re CT scan technologies to screen for lung cancer • Cornell Research Foundation funding primarily from the Vector Group (parent company = Liggett = tobacco company) • Antonio Gotto (Cornell Medical School Dean) and Arthur Mahon (Vice Chairman of Colleg Board of Overseers) on Foundation’s Board of Directors

12. GE’s Record • Dean Gotto stated Cornell publicly disclosed the Vector Group’s role in funding the Foundation • However, searches via google and Cornell’s own search engine turn up no such disclosure, and Cornell’s press office did not respond to inquiry re the original disclosure • Foundation funded EL-CAP study (NEJM), which concluded that screening asymptomatic smokers for lung cancer can detect curable tumors • Controversial finding, contradicted by other studies

13. GE’s Record • Vector Group/Liggett’s role as funding source not mentioned in original article, in violation of conflict of interest disclosure policy • Patents and royalties from GE technology not noted either • Large profit potentials for GE (increased screening) and Liggett (reassured smokers less likely to quit) • For references, see http://phsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/elcap-vector-cornell-coi-bioethics-listserv-posts-4-08.doc

14. GE’s Record • Tremendous influence of environmental, energy, and health policy • Spent $31 million lobbying Congress, federal agencies, and Executive Office of the President in 2001 and 2002 • Many member’s of board of directors have government ties

15. GE’s Record • Has eliminated 150,000 jobs in last 15 years • While receiving billions in federal contracts and millions in state and local subsidies • One of nation’s top out-sourcers of jobs

16. GE’s Record • Continues to under-fund employee pension plan, despite very generous compensation packages for executives • Continues to shift health care costs onto workers, despite growing profits

17. GE’s Record • Cited by Human Rights Watch for “systematic workers’ rights violations” in the U.S. and abroad • 858 OSHA workplace citations from 1990-2001

18. GE’s Record • Topped 2002 Project on Government Oversight’s list of repeat offenders for defrauding U.S. taxpayers • Paid more than $982 million in fines, judgments, and out-of-court settlements between 1990 and 2002 • Financial services division fined $100 million for unfair debt collection practices and bankruptcy court malfeasance

19. GE and Corporate Taxes • GE topped the list of corporate tax break recipients from 2001-2003: • $9.5 billion in tax breaks

20. GE’s Record • In 1990s, Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency created special investigations office specifically for GE • Nevertheless, company has been awarded increasingly costly reconstruction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan

21. GE’s Record • The Patient Channel • Shown in hospital rooms throughout country • Advertising vehicle for drug companies • Criticized by JCAHO for manipulative marketing practices

22. Concerns About the Agreement • Provides GE with financial incentives to promote high technology purchases • Hospital prohibited from purchasing more effective equipment from other companies

23. 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

24. Concerns About the Agreement • Occurs at time 45 million Americans uninsured • Academic medical centers promoting luxury primary care clinics and seeking wealthy overseas patients while cutting back on services to the un- and under-insured

25. Concerns About the Agreement • Academic medical centers becoming increasingly corporatized • Research exclusivity contracts • Secrecy • gag clauses • skewing of research agenda

26. 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

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

28. 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

29. Reference • Donohoe MT. GE – Bringing Bad Things to Life: Cradle to Grave Health Care and the Alliance between General Electric Medical Systems and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Synthesis/Regeneration 2006(Fall);41:31-3 (abridged version – complete version available on website)

30. Contact Information Public Health and Social Justice Website http://www.phsj.org martindonohoe@phsj.org