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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”.

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Corporations and Public Health: Profits Before People

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  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

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