Bringing Bad Things to Life - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Bringing Bad Things to Life

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10-year, $500 million agreement requires NYP to purchase ... media disinformation campaigns in an attempt to weaken health and environmental regulations ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: 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
  • Worlds largest company by market share
  • 2007 revenues of 168 billion
  • Greater than the GDP of more than 2/3 of U.N.
    member states
  • 2008 net after-tax profits of 17 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
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
  • May have contributed to increased thyroid cancer
    risk in Downwinders

8
GEs Record
  • Americas largest corporate polluter
  • 75 Superfund sites nationwide
  • 13 in NY

9
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

10
GEs 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
GEs 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 Foundations Board of Directors

12
GEs Record
  • Dean Gotto stated Cornell publicly disclosed the
    Vector Groups role in funding the Foundation
  • However, searches via google and Cornells own
    search engine turn up no such disclosure, and
    Cornells 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
GEs Record
  • Vector Group/Liggetts 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/upl
    oads/2008/05/elcap-vector-cornell-coi-bioethics-li
    stserv-posts-4-08.doc

14
GEs Record
  • Tremendous influence of environmental, energy,
    and health policy
  • Spent over 19 million on lobbying in 2008
  • Many members of board of directors have
    government ties

15
GEs 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 nations top out-sourcers of jobs

16
GEs 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
GEs Record
  • Cited by Human Rights Watch for systematic
    workers rights violations in the U.S. and
    abroad
  • 858 OSHA workplace citations from 1990-2001
  • Investments include for-profit prison enterprises

18
GEs Record
  • Topped 2002 Project on Government Oversights
    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
  • Under investigation for tax evasion in Brazil

20
GEs Record
  • In 1990s, Pentagons 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
GEs Record
  • The Patient Channel
  • Shown in hospital rooms throughout country
  • Advertising vehicle for drug companies
  • Criticized by JCAHO for manipulative marketing
    practices

22
GEs Record
  • Produces an electronic medical record, Centricity
    EMR
  • Is hoping to receive some of the 19 billion
    earmarked for health care information technology
    in the current economic stimulus package.

23
Concerns About the Agreement
  • Provides GE with financial incentives to promote
    high technology purchases
  • Hospital prohibited from purchasing more
    effective equipment from other companies

24
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

25
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

26
Concerns About the Agreement
  • Academic medical centers becoming increasingly
    corporatized
  • Research exclusivity contracts
  • Secrecy
  • gag clauses
  • skewing of research agenda

27
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

28
  • A macabre twist on cradle to grave care

29
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

30
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)4131-3 (abridged version complete
    version available on website)

31
Contact Information
  • Public Health and Social Justice Website
  • http//www.phsj.org
  • martindonohoe_at_phsj.org
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