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Corporate Control of Public Health:Case 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 world’s 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 nation’s 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 45:1–Britain 25:1–Japan 10:1
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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”
Exxon’s “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 2004;306:1686-7(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 world’s 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 Japan’s 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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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
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GE’s Record
• Sued radiologist who brought to light dangers of GE’s contrast agent, Omniscan–Causes nephrogenic systemic fibrosis
(FDA black box warning)• Fined for making misleading statements
re other contrast agent
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GE’s Record
• America’s largest corporate polluter
• 116 Superfund sites nationwide
• Approximately 13 in NY
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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
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GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt
• 2009 compensation = $5.5 million
• Named “World’s Best CEO” in 3 separate Barron’s 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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GE’s Record
• Has eliminated 150,000 jobs in last 15 years• One of nation’s 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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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
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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 GE’s pollution diagnosed with GE scanners and treated with GE-manufactured therapeutic devices, increasing GE’s 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 lowWealthy vote at almost twice rate of
poorWhites > Blacks > HispanicsOld > YoungProperty owners > RentersPhysicians < 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 nature’s 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://[email protected]