The US Food and Drug Administration has moved to address a US cancer treatment drug shortage. Not only will it permit one drug to be imported, it's also fast-tracking the approval process for another.
Both measures are intended to ensure US cancer patients have access to the drugs they need after data showed that supply issues hampered the distribution of a good 200 drugs last year.
According to doctors and other health officials, the situation has forced suppliers into putting off cancer treatment programmes or drawing on other, less-effective or more expensive drugs to plug the gap.
The imported cancer drug is Lipodox, which is used in ovarian cancer and multiple myeloma treatment when other medications have been ineffective. It shares an ingredient, doxorubicin, with Johnson & Johnson's Doxil, supplies of which are now scarce.
FDA Cancer Drug Approval
Meanwhile, the FDA has also acted against the US drug shortage by approving APP Pharmaceuticals' production of methotrexate - a cancer drug used alongside other treatments to fight childhood leukaemia.
"A drug shortage can be a frightening prospect for patients and President Obama made it clear that preventing these shortages from happening is a top priority of his administration", Doctor Margaret Hamburg - administration commissioner - confirmed in a statement. She added: "Through the collaborative work of FDA, industry and other stakeholders, patients and families waiting for these products or anxious about their availability should now be able to get the medication they need.
"We are making progress. There were 195 drug shortages prevented in 2011 and 114 drug shortages prevented since October 2011 when we made the call for early notification."
US Drug Shortages
The US drug shortages have been attributed to multiple causes including manufacturing plant closures.
Lipodox is produced by Sun Pharma Global FZE which, in a statement, described the unusual circumstances under which it had been contracted. ‘[The] temporary importation of unapproved foreign drugs is considered only in rare cases when there is a shortage of an approved drug that is critical to patients and the shortage cannot be resolved in a timely fashion with FDA-approved drugs', it wrote.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is a strain of Staph that's resistant to methicillin - the drug most commonly used to treat Staph infections.
Using a detailed DNA mapping technique, researchers at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen in Arizona were able to trace one of these superbugs - MRSA CC398 - to its origins, discovering that the human strain of this bacteria developed its drug resistance in animals rather than in people.
Often referred to as "pig-MRSA" or "livestock-associated MRSA," the strain is known to affect humans who have been exposed to live animals, such as farmers or veterinarians. But this study found that CC398 was originally a human bacteria, susceptible to antibiotics, before it spread to animals and then back to people. By the time it returned to humans it had picked up two souvenirs: resistance to methicillin and resistance to tetracycline - a drug often used to treat Staph infections in patients allergic to the penicillin class of antibiotics, which includes methicillin.
Because both tetracycline and penicillins are commonly administered to food animals, the study finds that it is likely that the use of these drugs in livestock gave this Staph bacteria the exposure it needed to develop resistance to these drugs.
In 2010, Tetracycline - used to promote growth and prevent the spread of disease - comprised over 42 percent of all
antibiotics administered to food-producing animals in the United States. That year 12,328,520 pounds of the drug were given to animals, while just over 100,000 pounds of the drug are sold for human use. And while over 1.9 million pounds of penicillin were sold for animal use in 2010, approximately 1.5 million pounds are distributed for
human use.
Both of these drugs are crucial for treating human Staph infections, says Dr. Lance Price, lead author of the study and Director of TGen's Center for Food Microbiology and Environmental Health.
"Methacyline's a really good antibiotic for treating these kinds of infections," he told Food Safety News in an interview. "But a substantial portion of the population is allergic to penicillin and they need alternative drugs like tetracycline. But 69% of the staph we see is resistant to tetracycline."
Price says that animal feeding operation provide the perfect setting for the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, MRSA is easily transmitted in settings where factors it calls the "5 Cs" are present: crowding, frequent skin-to-skin contact, compromised skin (cuts or abrasions , contamination or lack of cleanliness.
"A CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation is the place where these 5 Cs are most prevalent," says Price. "And the single worst thing you could do is add antibiotics to that environment. It's the cocktail for creating superbugs."
Once these superbugs are created, there's no telling where they can go, Price says. While most cases of CC398 come from direct contact with livestock, some human cases cannot be traced to live animals, raising the question of where they came from. Other humans? Contaminated meat?
Several studies have shown MRSA to be prevalent on our meat and poultry. A study published in the
Journal of Food Protection in October of last year found Staph bacteria in 29 percent of grocery store ground meats. And a study led by Price released earlier that year discovered Staph on almost one half of grocery store meats and poultry after putting samples in a bacteria enrichment broth to make Staph more detectable. Half of these contaminated meats were carrying a multi-drug resistant strain of Staph.
Price says the transmission of MRSA from meat to humans is an area that needs more research.
"There is definitely drug-resistant Staph in our food supply and probably in high concentrations. We still don't know whether it's a good route of exposure for people," he explains. "I think that's something we've really got to dedicate some research to."
For now though, Price says the upshot of his research is that antibiotics should be saved for treatment, not growth or prevention.
"We should be using antibiotics prudently, both in human antibiotics and animal production," he notes. "We should only be using them to treat infections - and it should be a last resort - because we're heading towards a time when our antibiotics won't work anymore, and we have to do everything we can to preserve the ones we have."
That Friday recall and others raised questions about whether the timing of recall notices could potentially leave consumers uninformed about unsafe food over a weekend.
That
preliminary look did not show any significant differences in the daily publication of recall notices, but with the close of 2011, I decided to take a longer look.
This more comprehensive look included recalls going back to 2005 for USDA and Food and Drug Administration (FDA monitored foods. The USDA data also detailed whether there was a specific pathogen found in the foods (or epidemiologically linked to an outbreak , if any illnesses were associated with the recalled item, and the class of the recall as designated by the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS . The FDA does not specify classes in its recall notices, so only the first two categories could be assessed.
The conclusions of this more detailed analysis show a different story from the earlier one.
USDA-FSIS Recalls
On the USDA front; from 2005-2011 there were more recalls announced on Fridays than would be expected by random chance (p
<.001 . Indeed, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011 all had significantly higher numbers of recalls on Fridays (p<.05 .
The total number of Class I recalls on Fridays were also higher from 2005-2011 (p=.003 . Class I recalls, by definition, are for dangerous or defective products that could cause serious health problems or deaths.
While on a per year basis, only 2006 and 2011 have significantly higher number of Class I recalls on Fridays than expected, 2007 and 2009 are very nearly significantly higher (p=.055 and p=.062, respectively .
The red line indicates the expected number of recalls if equally distributed throughout the week. A proportion significantly higher than expected of p
<.01 indicated by *.
In addition, if weekend recall dates are excluded, the pattern holds for total recalls with a greater number on Fridays than other weekdays (p=.002 . For Class I recalls, there was no significant difference in the number of Friday recalls compared with the number expected for weekdays, but there were still more alerts published on that day than any other day of the week (p=.086 .
The red line indicates the expected number of recalls if equally distributed throughout the week. A proportion significantly higher than expected of p
<.01 indicated by *.
There was no trend in any day of the week having more pathogen or illness related recalls than any other day in the seven years analyzed. This was true when only weekdays were analyzed, as well. This indicates that recall notices related to outbreaks of foodborne illness and due to specific pathogens found in food have been evenly spaced throughout the week.
While this is the case, when taken as a whole there were more Class I and Class II recalls on Fridays than would be expected. The significance of this difference for Class I recalls was eliminated when analyzing only weekdays, but held true for Class II notices, perhaps showing a propensity for putting out more urgent recalls on Fridays.
One particularly interesting finding was an observable pattern in an increasing number of Class II and Class III recalls during the time period studied, while Class I recall numbers remained relatively static. There was a significant difference in the number of Class II recalls starting in 2008 the percentage that Class II recalls make of the total number of recalls has continued to increase (P
<.05 . Class III recalls remain rare and, as such, there is little statistical power in any observations made.
The increasing number of Class II and slightly Class III with the stagnant number of Class I led to an overall increase in the number of recalls per year by the USDA from 56 in 2005 to 108 in 2011.
FDA Recalls
The previous article on this topic did not evaluate FDA recalls. This oversight has been amended this time around, and the findings are similar to those for FSIS recalls.
A glance at the total recalls per day chart shows that between 2005 and 2011 a significantly higher number of recalls were issued on Fridays than would be expected (P
<.01 .
The red line indicates the expected number of recalls if equally distributed throughout the week. A proportion significantly higher than expected of p
<.01 indicated by *.
This holds when excluding the weekends that had so few recalls.
The red line indicates the expected number of recalls if equally distributed throughout the week. A proportion significantly higher than expected of p
<.01 indicated by *.
The FDA data again points to a bias toward publishing recall notices on Fridays over other days of the week and, if anything, the tendency is more pronounced with this agency than with the FSIS. Indeed, recall announcements related to foods testing positive for pathogens and those associated with illnesses were also more common on Fridays, compared to the whole week or just the work week, a trend not seen in FSIS recalls.
Fridays have consistently seen significantly more than an expected number of recall notices for both the whole week and weekdays only for the entire seven years examined. However, due to the low number of recalls related to illnesses in all the years, statistical tests cannot be performed on a per year basis. This is also true of pathogen-related recalls prior to 2009.
There was again a pattern of certain types of recalls increasing over the years, as well as the overall number of FDA recalls increasing. The total number of recalls in 2005 was 145 and this reached a max of more than 800 because of multiple peanut butter-related recalls in 2009. Excluding that outlier, there was still a steady increase in the number of FDA recalls from 2005 to the end of 2011.
Why Fridays?
This tendency toward releasing recall statements on Fridays, more than on other days of the week, is likely not intentional but could be problematic, because people who do not consume media over the weekend might be less likely to be informed in a timely manner and, as a result, could eat recalled food. On the other hand, Friday recall notices may be the result of a sense of urgency to get make the information public before the work week ends.
Indeed, processes within the regulatory agencies may be causing an inordinate number of recall notices to be issued on Fridays. Such factors could include laboratory procedures to find contamination in samples, communication delays between the lab, regulators and the companies voluntarily recalling their products, and the general timeline of work in the offices. These, along with other processes, including political pressures, could lead to significantly more recalls on Fridays.
Importantly, recalls are initiated by private companies once the potential for hazard is found. The company distributing or producing the food recalls the products in coordination with the regulatory agency, but the company is ultimately responsible for when the recall is initiated.
It could take days before information regarding potential hazards makes it from a lab or other area of initial discovery, through the regulatory agency to the producer, and then for a recall alert to be issued. Thus, the high number of Friday recalls could be seen as an attempt to get the information out before the weekend, while people are still likely to be tuned into the news.
While the causes leading to the high number of Friday recalls cannot be determined with this small look into the past few years, what can be seen is a potential for lack of communication between the consumer and the food regulators. Easy access to information regarding potentially dangerous foods should be an issue of primary importance for both the USDA and FDA, and these agencies can work to ensure that the information is not going out when people are less likely to get it.
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KWAME HOLMAN: The U.S. Supreme Court will revisit the issue of affirmative action in college admissions in arguments this fall. The court agreed today to hear a case filed by a white student who was denied entry at the University of Texas in 2008.
She contends the school's race-conscious policy is unconstitutional. The high court last ruled on the issue in 2003, when it upheld the use of race in admissions at the University of Michigan Law School.
Federal regulators moved today to ease critical shortages of two cancer drugs. The Food and Drug Administration announced it's allowing temporary imports of a replacement drug for Doxil, used to treat ovarian cancer. The agency also approved new suppliers of methotrexate, a drug to treat children with leukemia.
An official at the American Cancer Society said patients need the relief.
DR. LEONARD LICHTENFELD, American Cancer Society: The current drug shortage has become a daily nightmare for cancer patients, their families, and those who treat them, with no clear understanding of when drugs currently in shortage will become available and an uncertainty of when additional drugs may go into shortage.
KWAME HOLMAN: FDA officials said there currently are 283 prescription drugs in scarce supply or simply unavailable in the U.S.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average broke 13000 for the first time since May of 2008, but it could not hold. Instead, the Dow ended with a gain of just 15 points to close at 12,965. The Nasdaq fell three points to close at 2,948.
A team from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency held new talks in Iran today on the country's nuclear program. The group is supposed to gauge whether Iran is getting closer to developing a nuclear weapon, but the Foreign Ministry said the U.N. team will not be visiting any nuclear facilities.
RAMIN MEHMANPARAST, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman (through translator : The titles of the members of the visiting delegation are not inspectors. This is an expert delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency, led by the vice president of the director general of IAEA. The purpose of the visit is not inspection. The goal is negotiation and talks on cooperation between Iran and IAEA to create a framework for further talks and cooperation.
KWAME HOLMAN: Also today, the head -- the deputy head of Iran's armed forces warned the regime could launch a preemptive strike if it feels threatened. He did not name a target.
In Syria, opposition groups claimed up to 100 people were killed in fighting across the country. Many of the deaths, they said, were in the opposition stronghold of Homs. There, the neighborhood of Baba Amr came under a heavy new artillery barrage by the Syrian military. Rebel sources said shells rained down at a rate of 10 per minute, but activists said President Bashar Assad's troops had been stymied in efforts to launch a ground attack.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland appeared to open the door slightly to arming the opposition.
VICTORIA NULAND, State Department spokeswoman: We don't believe that it makes sense to contribute now to the further militarization of Syria. What we don't want to see is the spiral of violence increase. That said, if we can't get Assad to yield to the pressure that we are all bringing to bear, we may have to consider additional measures.
KWAME HOLMAN: U.S. officials also supported a call by the International Red Cross for a daily cease-fire to allow deliveries of humanitarian aid.
Protests erupted in Afghanistan today after Korans inadvertently were burned last night at a U.S. military base. More than 2,000 Afghans demonstrated outside the facility. Some in the crowd shouted "Die, foreigners" as they set tires ablaze and threw stones at the main gate.
A Western military official said the Muslim holy books were removed from a nearby jail because detainees wrote extremist messages in them.
The NATO commander in Afghanistan said emphatically they shouldn't have been added to trash meant for incineration.
LT. GEN. JOHN ALLEN, International Security Assistance Forces: We are thoroughly investigating the incident. We are taking steps to ensure this doesn't ever happen again. I assure you, I promise you, this wasn't intentional in any way. And I offer my sincere apologies for any offense this may have caused.
KWAME HOLMAN: Afghan President Hamid Karzai denounced the burning, and he ordered a separate inquiry into the incident.
Separately, three NATO soldiers were killed today in a roadside bombing in Southern Afghanistan; 47 NATO service members have died in Afghanistan so far this year.
Those are some of the day's major stories.
And as if the old adage needed more proof that political movements always end up eating their own, Mr. Taylor's nemesis is MoveOn, the left-of-center group that got its start trying to retain President Clinton after his sexual liaison with Monica Lewinsky.
Taylor, currently deputy commissioner for foods at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA , did not get on MoveOn's bad side for anything as nefarious as that.
He did however do a 15-month stint as vice president for public policy for Monsanto, leaving the corporation that has been called one of America's ten most innovative companies, in January 2000. If Taylor's obituary were written now, it's not his short time at Monsanto that would get much attention. It would be his two longer periods of public service. At USDA during the Clinton Administration, he was the top administrator for the Food Safety and Inspection Service that first banned E. coli O157:H7 from beef.
And at FDA, he put his skills with Congress to work to get the Food Safety Modernization Act passed by Congress and he now in charge of implementation.
Still, a loose coalition of genetic engineering (GE opponents, raw milk advocates, organic farmers and the like has voiced objections to Taylor since he joined the Obama Administration. They point to other stints in
Taylor's resume where they claim he had ties to Monsanto.
A petition went up months ago, but only after MoveOn adopted Taylor's removal as a pet cause has the effort "gone viral." It has so far collected about 420,000 signatures.
Now, however, some of the nation's best known food safety and consumer advocates are trying to see if they can get MoveOn to back down.
"We acknowledge that Monsanto symbolizes a lot of things that many people (including some of us don't like about modern, industrial agriculture. But Mr. Taylor's resume is not reducible to his work at that company," the signers wrote MoveOn.
"It is far more relevant that in the Clinton Administration he headed the Food Safety and Inspection Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where he stood up to the meat industry and fought for strict controls that help keep E. coli and other pathogens out of meat and poultry. Since joining the Obama Administration, Taylor has been working extraordinarily hard to transform the FDA from a reactive agency that chases down foodborne?illness outbreaks after people fall ill, to a proactive public?health?based agency focused on preventing foods from becoming contaminated in the first place."
"We are confident that his leadership, formerly at USDA and now at FDA, has and will continue to reduce the number of Americans sickened, hospitalized, and killed by foodborne pathogens."
Signing on to the
public letter are:
-Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D., Executive Director Center for Science in the Public Interest
-Shaun Kennedy, Director, National Center for Food Protection and Defense Director, Partnerships and Programs, College of Veterinary Medicine Assistant Professor, Veterinary Population Medicine University of Minnesota
-William D. Marler, Esq. Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm
-J. Glenn Morris, M.D., Director, Emerging Pathogens Institute University of Florida
-Michael Rodemeyer, Lecturer, Department of Science, Technology and Society University of Virginia, Former Executive Director, Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology
-Donald W. Schaffner, Ph.D., Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor Director of the Center for Advanced Food Technology Rutgers University
-Deirdre Schlunegger Chief Executive Officer STOP Foodborne Illness
-Carol L. Tucker?Foreman, Distinguished Fellow, The Food Policy Institute Consumer Federation of America, Former Assistant Secretary of Agriculture
On the other side, Atlanta' s Frederick Ravid is the author of the petition calling for Taylor's removal. He posted it on
SignOn.org in August. MoveOn sent it out on Feb. 6 to its five million members, spiking sign-ups.
Taylor's supporters have pointed out that Ravid 's claims that biotech foods contribute to various types of cancers are without scientific merit.
Taylor has removed himself from making any policies having to do with GE foods.
FDA head Margaret Hamburg announces approval of new suppliers for two crucial cancer drugs, easing critical shortages in the U.S.
A mid-February show of hands, please: how many of us are still sticking with our New Year's resolutions?
Honestly, I'm not sure I made any resolutions this year. If I did, well, they were fleeting and of the altruistic, yet unquantifiable variety, such as
“Be a kinder person.”
You know, the types of resolutions that were intended to elicit similar responses from our kids:
“I'll be nicer to my brother,”
or
“I'll help Mommy more around the house.”
Yep, we're not great about sticking with resolutions here.
Of course, because I'm a woman of a certain age whose metabolism flew the coop about five years ago, I always privately resolve to eat better and exercise more. I just don't speak those words out loud, because I know that the likelihood of me hitting the gym during the insanely busy spring growing season for my business is nil.
And, frankly, I refuse to deprive myself of red wine and chocolate.
So, imagine my shock when I became—inadvertently--a vegetarian.
This is a startling development for several reasons:
I grew up in a meat and potatoes family. Truly. Dinner centered around a roast beast, potatoes, white, squishy bread rolls, and maybe a salad. The overriding focus on meat was, I believe, a generational, socioeconomic attribute. Both of my parents grew up during the Depression. Our father often told stories of his life on the family farm, where the family celebrated the demise of a ill-fated chicken crossing the road with a rare fried-chicken dinner. He also raised a pet pig.
Trust me. You don't want to know what became of his pet.
I rarely ate a vegetable during my entire childhood. There's something to be said about being the baby of the family, particularly if you're a late-in-life, surprise baby. My siblings regaled me with dinner-table horror stories: gagging down ice cold, mushy peas until 10 p.m., eating a ketchup-covered banana that someone thought would be a creative way to avoid eating her fruit...
By the time I made an appearance, my parents were tired. It was easier to cater to my picky palate than deal with dinner drama. Thus, I became the pickiest eater in the Midwest. Not only did my mother make separate meals for me, I was never force-fed broccoli. Or peas. Or squash. My childhood vegetable consumption included:
Iceburg lettuce—plain, thank you. No dressing or weird additions to my crunchy pale green leaves, please.
Corn. With lots of butter and salt.
Potatoes. Honestly, I don't think potatoes even count. And all of the GMOs in the corn probably negates any health benefits the corn theoretically provided.
Embarrassingly, my vegetable phobia continued well into my adulthood. Yes, I added a few bits of green to my repertoire—cucumbers, real lettuce, asparagus, spinach salad—but until five years ago, I didn't even eat tomatoes.
Ironically, I now own an organic, heirloom plant nursery, specializing in 160 varieties of tomatoes.
As a mother, I created my family's meals much like my mother did—meat, starch, and occasional side of quickly microwaved peas. Yes, I added more veggies, but meat took center stage at every meal. Granted—our meat was pristine, raised humanely by local farmers, some of whom are now friends. Our meat originated from happy, healthy animals living happy, healthy lives. Free-range chicken, grass-fed beef, heritage turkeys—delicious, star quality dinner showpieces.
Then, a strange twist of fate.
A raccoon attacked our own backyard flock of hens. (You can read about it
here and
here.
It was traumatic. These girls are my daughter's pets. With names. And personalities. Fortunately, the raccoon only severely injured one hen, Salt, and after extensive consultation with our wonderful veterinarian, she sadly couldn't be saved.
In those moments of holding Salt, trying to assess her wounds and comfort her, something shifted.
My perception about food changed.
I suddenly found myself unable to eat meat.
I thought my aversion was temporary. After all, our daughter, who loves her chickens as if they are her children, still relishes Zaxby's even after the demise of her pet.
But as days passed, I found myself reading Alice Waters' books, heading to Whole Foods, leaving with a cart full of stunning produce, and then trying to figure out how to cook it. And you know what?
It. Was. Good.
Fresh eggs and Swiss Chard frittata. Mushroom risotto. Ratatouille.
Who knew? (Actually, I think many people knew. It was like discovering an amazing secret club, and I'd finally earned admittance.
Even the kids ate more vegetables. Put an asparagus spear on the plate of a six year old boy, and listen to the whines ensue...until you share the “stinky pee” secret.
It was amazing how much more appealing the asparagus became after divulging that crucial bit of info.
My husband joked that I shouldn't write about my emerging vegetarianism, because he knows my carnivorous ways too well. And who knows? Will it stick? Right now, after six weeks without meat, I'm optimistic. And I feel good. I'm not vegan—I eat seafood, dairy products, and eggs, so meal planning is fairly easy. Plus, it's not like I banned chocolate and wine from my life—that would never stick. Actually, eating my veggies and forgoing meat is surprisingly simple.
Last fall, our oldest son brought his new girlfriend home for dinner. Prior to their arrival, he informed me that she was—gasp!--a vegetarian. Panic! What could I cook? If I made risotto, could I use chicken stock, or should I run to the store for vegetable broth? Would she be offended by the steak I already prepared for the family? How much salad does a vegetarian eat? I made more, just in case...
And honestly, I worried. How could this relationship work? Our son is a serious carnivore, like me. He even owns this t-shirt to taunt his vegetarian friends:
Funny thing. Our son is now on his third meat-free week...and he likes it.
Love makes college boys do some crazy things, huh?
I'm not advocating vegetarianism. It's not my place to tell anyone what or how to eat. (Although I do hope you'll support your local farmers as much as possible, please. I still eat crap occasionally. I'm—shamefully--addicted to Diet Coke. (I know, I know...it's really bad for me. I promise, I'll work on it.
But this vegetarian thing? Well. It's pretty delicious.
My parents should have made me eat my peas, after all.
Bon appetit!
~Julie
Julie is the owner of
Garden Delights, an organic heirloom plant nursery specializing in edibles. She writes about growing gardens, growing green, growing locavores, growing kids, and growing one day at a time at
Growing Days.
All vegetable image credits: Julie Thompson-Adolf.
In 2009, the FDA told Johnson & Johnson it could no longer sell an unsafe hip replacement in the United States. That didn’t stop the New Jersey health care giant from selling the device in other countries.
Now, the New Brunswick company faces up to $3 billion in legal and medical costs over the device, which J&J finally recalled in 2010 after evidence was revealed that it was leaving tiny, painful slivers of metal in many of those overseas patients.
Inside J&J, workers take pride in the corporation’s famous credo. Summarized, it says: Act ethically and responsibly, no matter the cost, and profits will follow.
J&J is proof that profits follow bad corporate behavior, too.
In 2010, the company earned a record $13 billion. At the same time, it paid roughly $750 million in government fines and settlements for a laundry list of wrongs. It was fined $70 million for overseas bribery, shut down a children’s drug factory for safety violations and was investigated for a “phantom” recall of tainted Motrin.
Defenders of the 1 percent insist corporations and their executives have every right to amass whatever fortunes they can in America’s free market.
But the headlines reveal that many big businesses are raking in billions without conscience. What we’re seeing is a grotesque shift in corporate values that undermines Corporate America’s image as the benevolent job creator.
Occupy Wall Street zeroed in on the enormous gap in pay between corporate executives and the so-called 99 percent. But not enough was said about the erosion of corporate citizenship and the lengths to which Big Banking, Big Pharma and Big Oil, just to name a few, will go to increase profits at the expense — even the victimization — of humanity. (See accompanying chart for some awful offenses.
We see deadly accidents in coal mines and on oil rigs as owners cut corners on worker and environmental protections; patients put at risk when pharmaceutical companies take already successful drugs and try to drive profits even higher by selling them for diseases the FDA never studied nor approved; taxpayers footing fraudulent bills as contractors look at government like a blank check, overcharging millions or more.
It is understandable for companies to pull back on their charitable works in tough times, or even trim the workforce. In the throes of the Great Recession, even companies with a social conscience often did that. Who could justify million-dollar gifts for charity when employees are being laid off?
But this is different. This is despicable behavior, and it’s widespread. If the same acts were committed by an individual, that person would likely find himself in prison. Corporations typically face only the loss of cash. Don’t worry, they’ll make more.
The U.S. Supreme Court is inching toward full personhood for corporations — see Citizens United vs. FEC, which granted them freedom of speech. Perhaps it’s time they were punished like people, too.
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