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

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Corporate Control of Public HealthCase Study
and Call to Action

• Martin Donohoe

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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 Dominate the Global Economy

• Almost 6 million corporations
• 500 companies control 70 of world trade

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Corporations Dominate the Global Economy

• 53 of the worlds 100 largest economies are
  private corporations 47 are countries
• Wal-Mart is larger than Israel and Greece

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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)

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Corporations

• Internalize profits
• Externalize health and environmental costs

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Corporate Taxation

• Corporations shouldered over 30 of the nations
  tax burden in 1950 vs. 8 today
• Nearly 1/3 of all large U.S. corporations pay no
  annual tax

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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)

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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

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Reasons for Inadequate Corporate Taxation

• Corporate tax breaks/loopholes
• Corporate welfare
• Cheating and under-payment common
• Offshore tax havens shelter capital

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Ugland House, Cayman Islands18,000 Corporations
Registered Here
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Exorbitant CEO Pay

• CEO salaries up 500 since 1980
• The average CEO makes 350-400X the salary of the
  average U.S. worker (1960 - 41X)
• Mexico 451
• Britain 251
• Japan 101

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Consequences of Corporatization

• Rise of the permatemp
• Expatriation of jobs
• Overseas factories often lack adequate
  occupational health and safety and environmental
  standards
• Increasing U.S. unemployment
• Decline in labor union membership

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Corporate PR Tactics

• Advertising
• Astroturf - artificially-created grassroots
  coalitions
• Greenwash
• Corporate front groups
• Public relations/ad campaigns

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Corporate PR tactics

• Invoke poor people as beneficiaries
• Characterize opposition as technophobic,
  anti-science, and against progress
• Portray their products as environmentally
  beneficial despite evidence to the contrary

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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
• Exxons Energy Cube
• -Gasoline is simply solar power hidden in
  decayed matter
• -Offshore drilling creates reefs for fish

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The Media

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

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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 20043061686-7
• (Study covers 1993-2003)

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Lobbying

• Over 15,000 full-time lobbyists
• Estimates of return on lobbying range from 28 to
  100 for every 1 spent

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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

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U.S. International Non-Cooperation/Isolationism

• Failure to sign or approve
• Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change
• Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination
  Against Women

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U.S. International Non-Cooperation/Isolationism

• Failure to sign or approve
• The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic
  Pollutants
• WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast
  Milk Substitutes

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Case Study

• The alliance between GE Medical Systems and
  NY-Presbyterian Hospital

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General Electric

• Ranked by Forbes as worlds largest company
  (based on equal weighting of sales, profits,
  assets, and market value)
• 2010 net after-tax profits of 14 billion

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General Electric

• Makes household appliances, lighting, and medical
  equipment
• Has built 91 nuclear power plants in 11 countries
  (including Japans troubled Fukushima Daishii
  reactors)
• Produces jet engines and military hardware

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General Electric

• Operates coal-burning power plants
• Major releasers of toxic mercury
• Operates a large, highly profitable financial
  services group
• Owns a multi-billion dollar media empire
• Including NBC (49, Comcast 51), Telemundo,
  and Universal Studios

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GEs 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

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GEs Record

• Sued radiologist who brought to light dangers of
  GEs contrast agent, Omniscan
• Causes nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (FDA black
  box warning)
• Fined for making misleading statements re other
  contrast agent

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GEs Record

• Americas largest corporate polluter
• 116 Superfund sites nationwide
• Approximately 13 in NY

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GEs 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

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GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt

• 2009 compensation 5.5 million
• Named Worlds Best CEO in 3 separate Barrons
  polls
• 2006 - 2011 - On Board of NY Federal Reserve Bank

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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)

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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!

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GEs Record

• Has eliminated 150,000 jobs in last 15 years
• One of nations top out-sourcers of jobs
• Cited by Human Rights Watch for systematic
  workers rights violations in the U.S. and
  abroad
• Extensive record of tax violations, military
  procurement fraud

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GEs Record

• Named Americas Most Admired Company by Forbes
• Named one of the Worlds Most Respected
  Companies in polls conducted by Barrons and The
  Financial Times

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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

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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

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Concerns About the Agreement

• Patients with developmental anomalies and cancers
  caused by GEs pollution diagnosed with GE
  scanners and treated with GE-manufactured
  therapeutic devices, increasing GEs profit

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• A macabre twist on cradle to grave care

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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

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Primo Levi

• A country is considered the more civilized the
  more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder
  a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful
  one too powerful.

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Solutions

• Living wage laws
• Restructure tax system
• Punish corporate scofflaws with large fines and
  jail time
• Increase enforcement budgets to combat corporate
  crime

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Solutions

• Eliminate confidential legal settlements relevant
  to public health and safety
• Work with corporations
• Healthy PR
• Shareholder activism
• Risks/benefits

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Solutions Vote

• US voter turnout low
• Wealthy vote at almost twice rate of poor
• Whites gt Blacks gt Hispanics
• Old gt Young
• Property owners gt Renters
• Physicians lt general population

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Solutions Fair, Representative Elections

• Publicly financed campaigns and campaign finance
  reform
• Open debates, free air time for candidates
• Proportional representation
• Instant runoff voting/cumulative voting/range
  (rating) voting

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Solutions

• Activism / Letter writing / Protesting /
  Whistleblowing
• Join community groups become involved in local
  as well as national issues
• Lobby legislators
• Run for office

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Solutions

• Increase funding of public education
• Independent scientific review of school curricula
• Prohibit use of sponsored curricula

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Solutions

• Establish safeguards relevant to corporate
  involvement in academic research
• Higher standards of journalism
• Support alternative media

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Solutions

• Augment and improve international aid package
• Sign, ratify, and adhere to major international
  treaties

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Solutions

• Based on Precautionary Principle
• Recognize natures net worth
• Calculate economic prosperity based on Genuine
  Progress Index or Global Happiness Index, rather
  than Gross Domestic Product

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• All men are created equal
• Declaration of Independence
• Some people are more equal than others
• George Orwell

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Hudson River, 2009
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Günter Grass

• The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth
  open.

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Anita Roddick

• "If you think you are too small to have an
  impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in your
  tent"

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Contact Information and References

• Public Health and Social Justice Website
• http//www.publichealthandsocialjustice.org
• http//www.phsj.org
• martindonohoe_at_phsj.org