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

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

10. Reasons for Inadequate Corporate Taxation • Corporate tax breaks/loopholes • Corporate welfare • Cheating and under-payment common • Offshore tax havens shelter capital

11. Ugland House, Cayman Islands18,000 Corporations Registered Here

12. 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

13. 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

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

15. 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

16. 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”

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

18. 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)

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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. Case Study The alliance between GE Medical Systems and NY-Presbyterian Hospital

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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

29. GE’s Record • America’s largest corporate polluter • 116 Superfund sites nationwide • Approximately 13 in NY

30. 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

31. 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

32. 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)

33. 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”!

34. 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

35. 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

36. 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

37. 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

38. 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

39. A macabre twist on “cradle to grave care”

40. 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

41. 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.”

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

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

44. Solutions: Vote • US voter turnout low • Wealthy vote at almost twice rate of poor • Whites > Blacks > Hispanics • Old > Young • Property owners > Renters • Physicians < general population

45. 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

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

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

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

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

50. 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