Title: Corporations and Public Health: Profits Before People
1Corporations and Public HealthProfits Before
People
2Am 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
3Corporations Dominate the Global Economy
- Almost 6 million corporations
- 90 of transnational corporations headquartered
in Northern Hemisphere - 500 companies control 70 of world trade
4Corporations 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
5The 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)
6Corporations
- Internalize profits
- 2 trillion (2012)
- Externalize health and environmental costs
7Corporate 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
8Corporate 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) 17 for corporations with
assets over 10 million
9Reasons for Inadequate Corporate Taxation
- Corporate tax breaks/loopholes
- Corporate welfare
- Cheating and under-payment common
10Offshore tax havens shelter capital
- Up to 32 trillion estimated (1/3 of all global
wealth) - 11.5 trillion in individual wealth
- U.S. GDP 16 trillion
- Cayman Islands
- Population 150,000
- Home to 92,000 corporations
11Ugland House, Cayman Islands18,000 Corporations
Registered Here
12Job Creators?
13Corporate 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
14Exorbitant CEO Pay
- CEO salaries up 759 since 1978
- Average worker pay up 6
- Performance pay loophole allows corporations to
skirt 30 billion/yr in taxes
15Exorbitant CEO Pay
- The average CEO makes 250-400X the salary of the
average U.S. worker (1960 - 41X) - Mexico 451
- Britain 251
- Japan 101
- US Military 201 (top rank lowest rank)
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17Corporate 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
18Corporate 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
19Greenwash
- Public relations / ad campaigns
- BP invests 100 million annually in clean energy
amt. it spends annually to market itself as
moving Beyond Petroleum
20Sponsored 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
21Academics/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
22Academics/Professional Organizations Affected
- Dramatic decrease in tenured faculty, rise in
administrators - Gagging of researchers at federal agencies
demoralizing, can affect recruitment of quality
scientists
23The Media
- 5 corporations control majority of US media (down
from 50 in 1983) - Extensive corporate-media links
- American Council on Science and Health
24Global 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)
25Lobbying
- Approximately 40,000 lobbyists (12,600 full-time)
- Estimates of return on lobbying range from 28 to
100 for every 1 spent
26Lobbying
- 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)
27Top-Spending Industries, 2011(Low Estimates)
- Pharmaceutical industry - 236 million
- Insurance industry - 158 million
- Oil and gas industry - 146 million
- Electric utilities - 144 million
28Campaign Cash and Lobbying
- Citizens United
- Lobbying promotes international
non-cooperation/isolationism
29- The alliance between GE Medical Systems and
NY-Presbyterian Hospital
30General Electric
- Ranked by Forbes as worlds largest company
(based on equal weighting of sales, profits,
assets, and market value) - 2013 revenues of 147 billion
- Close to the GDP of more than 2/3 of U.N. member
states - 2013 net after-tax profits of 13.6 billion
- Just over 1/3 from U.S. operations
31General Electric
- Makes household appliances, lighting, and medical
equipment - Plastics division, which produced bisphenol A,
spun off in 2008 - Produces jet engines and military hardware
32General Electric
- Charles Wilson (CEO of GE pre- and post-WW II
helped oversee U.S. military production during WW
II) - The revulsion against warwill 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.
33General 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 GEs US reactors found to be defective
34General Electric
- Operates coal-burning power plants
- Major releasers of toxic mercury
- Produces nearly 40 technologies used in fracking
- Increasing investments in fracking
35General Electric
- Operates a large financial services group
- Responsible for over 50 of companys 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
36GEs 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
37GEs Record
- Sued radiologist who brought to light dangers of
GEs 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 BDs Isovue
38GEs Record
- Americas largest corporate polluter
- 116 Superfund sites nationwide
- Approximately 13 in NY
39GEs Record
- Between 1947 and 1977, two of its capacitor
manufacturing plants dumped at least 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
40GEs Record
- Eliminated 34,000 US jobs between 2000 and 2010
- Added 25,000 overseas jobs over same period
- One of nations top out-sourcers of jobs
41GEs 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
42GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt
- 2013 total compensation 25.8 million
- Named Worlds Best CEO in 3 separate Barrons
polls - 2006 - 2011 - On Board of NY Federal Reserve Bank
43GE 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)
44GE 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!
45GEs 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
46Concerns 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
47Concerns 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
48Concerns 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
49-
- A macabre twist on cradle to grave care
50Solutions
- NY-P should cancel agreement
- Health care providers and organizations should
condemn this alliance - Medical and ethical organizations should develop
standards regarding future agreements
51Health 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)
52Health Insurance Industry
- Large profit margins
- Loyalty shareholders (not patients)
- Corruption
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55Pharmaceutical Industry
- Influence over physicians through control of CME,
gifts, research funding - Physician Payments Sunshine Act reporting
requirements - Conduct seeding trials to alter prescribing
patterns - Secrecy, statistical torturing of data sets,
selective publication
56Pharmaceutical Industry
- Data mining of prescribing practices
- OKd by SCOTUS in Sorrell v. IMS Health
- Unethical trials in developing world
- Poor compliance with Clinical Trials Registry
rules
57Drug Company Malfeasance
- The pharmaceutical industry is the biggest
defrauder of the federal government, as
determined by payments made for violations of the
federal False Claims Act (FCA) - Accounted for 25 of all FCA payouts between 2000
and 2010 - Defense industry 11
58Pharmaceutical Industry
- 240 million dollars spent on lobbying in 2011
- 1,228 lobbyists (2.3 for every member of
Congress) - Revolving door between legislators, lobbyists,
executives and government officials
59Pharmaceutical Industry
- Effectively lobbied and threatened trade
sanctions against developing countries in order
to prevent production and importation of much
cheaper, generic versions of life-saving
anti-AIDS drugs - Patent extensions
60PPACAPatient Protection and Affordability Care
Act
- Career arc of Elizabeth Fowler (architect of
plan) - VP for Public Policy and External Affairs
(informal lobbying) at WellPoint (nations
largest insurer) - Chief health policy counsel to Senator Max Baucus
(who drafted legislation) - Head of Global Health Policy at pharmaceutical
giant Johnson and Johnson
61Solutions
- Restructure tax system
- Punish corporate scofflaws with large fines and
jail time - Increase enforcement budgets to combat corporate
crime
62Solutions
- Eliminate confidential legal settlements and
confidential business information relevant to
public health and safety - Eliminate mandatory binding arbitration clauses
63Solutions
- Living wage laws
- Work with corporations
- Healthy PR
- Shareholder activism
- Risks/benefits
64Solutions Fair, Representative Elections
- Publicly financed campaigns and campaign finance
reform - Overturn Citizens United
- Proportional representation
- Instant runoff voting
- Halt disenfranchisement, overturn voter
restriction laws - Vote
65Solutions
- Activism / Letter writing / Protesting /
Whistleblowing - Work in groups
- Lobby legislators
- Run for office
66Solutions
- Increase funding of public education
- Independent scientific review of school curricula
- Prohibit use of sponsored curricula
67Solutions
- Establish safeguards re corporate involvement in
academic research - Higher standards of journalism
- Support alternative media
68Solutions
- Augment and improve international aid package
- 0.9 of the total federal budget, 1.6 of the
discretionary budget - Charitable giving approximately 250 billion/year
(2.5 of income vs. 2.9 at height of Great
Depression) - Sign, ratify, and adhere to major international
treaties
69Solutions
- Based on Precautionary Principle
- Recognize natures net worth
- Measure prosperity based on Genuine Progress
Index or Global Happiness Index, rather than
Gross Domestic Product
70- All men are created equal
- Declaration of Independence
- Some people are more equal than others
- George Orwell
71Voltaire
- The comfort of the rich rests upon an abundance
of the poor
72Hudson River, 2009
73Primo 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.
74Günter Grass
-
- The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth
open.
75African Proverb
- 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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77Contact Information and References
- Public Health and Social Justice Website
- http//www.publichealthandsocialjustice.org
- http//www.phsj.org
- martindonohoe_at_phsj.org