http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2004/122004/mokhiber.html
The Ten Worst Corporations of 2004
Multinational Monitor
December 2004 - VOLUME 25 - NUMBER 12
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Mon, 24 Jan 2005
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2004
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
When the Multinational Monitor judges gather to pick the 10 worst
corporations of the year, one of their instructions is: name no
companies that appeared on the previous year's list (barring
extraordinary circumstances).
For the 2004 list, that means no Bayer (even though in 2004 the
company pushed for import of genetically modified rice into the
European Union, polluted water in a South African town with the
carcinogen hexavalent chromium, and was hit with evidence that its
pain medication Aleve (naproxen) increases the risk of heart attack,
among other egregious acts), no Boeing (despite new evidence that
the tanker plane scandal costing U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of
dollars is even worse than it appeared), no Clear Channel (even
though the radio behemoth in 2004 stooped to new lows with a "Breast
Christmas Ever" contest that promised to pay for breast implants for
a dozen contest "winners"), and no Halliburton (embroiled in a whole
new set of contracting fraud and bribery charges in 2004).
But at least the no-repeat rule helps limit the field a bit.
And there remained plenty of worthy candidates.
Of the remaining pool of price gougers, polluters, union-busters,
dictator-coddlers, fraudsters, poisoners, deceivers and general
miscreants, we chose the following -- presented in alphabetical order
-- as the 10 Worst Corporations of 2004 [full text available at
www.multinationalmonitor.org]:
Abbott Laboratories: Abbott makes the list for raising the price of
Norvir, an important AIDS drug, developed with a major infusion of
U.S. government funds, by 400 percent. The price increase doesn't
apply if Norvir is purchased in conjunction with another Abbott drug,
giving Abbott an unfair advantage over competitors and tilting
consumers to use the Abbott products on the basis of price.
AIG: The world's largest insurer, American International Group Inc.
(AIG) was charged in October with aiding and abetting PNC Financial
Services in a fraudulent transaction to transfer $750 million in
mostly troubled loans and venture capital investments from
subsidiaries off of its books. AIG agreed to pay $126 million to
resolve the charges, but it got off light, entering into a "deferred
prosecution agreement" -- meaning the charges against the company
will be dropped in 12 months time if it abides by the terms of the
agreement.
Coca-Cola: Workers at the Coke bottling plant in Colombia have been
terrorized for years by right-wing paramilitary forces. A
fact-finding mission headed by a New York City Council member found,
among other abuses, "there have been a total of 179 major human
rights violations of Coca-Cola's workers, including nine murders.
Family members of union activists have been abducted and tortured."
Coke says it opposes the anti-union violence and in any case that it
hasn't had control of the bottling plant (though it does now, after
purchasing the Colombian bottling company). Coke's former general
counsel, and the former assistant U.S. attorney general, Deval
Patrick, resigned in 2004, reportedly in part because Coke refused to
support an independent investigation into the Colombia allegations.
Dow Chemical: The world's largest plastic maker, Dow purchased Union
Carbide in 1999. At midnight on December 2, 1984, 27 tons of lethal
gases leaked from Union Carbide's pesticide factory in Bhopal, India,
immediately killing an estimated 8,000 people and poisoning thousands
of others. Today in Bhopal, at least 150,000 people, including
children born to parents who survived the disaster, are suffering
from exposure-related health effects such as cancer, neurological
damage, chaotic menstrual cycles and mental illness. Dow refuses to
take any responsibility. In a statement, the company says, "Although
Dow never owned nor operated the plant, we -- along with the rest of
industry -- have learned from this tragic event, and we have tried to
do all we can to assure that similar incidents never happen again."
GlaxoSmithKline: Following revelations and regulatory action in the
UK in 2003 and 2004, the story of the severe side effects from
Glaxo's Paxil (as well as other drugs in the same family) -- notably
that they are addictive and lead to increased suicidality in youth --
finally broke in the United States in 2004. In June, New York
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed suit against Glaxo, charging the
giant drug maker with suppressing evidence of Paxil's harm to
children, and misleading physicians. Glaxo denied the charges, but
agreed to a new system whereby it would make public results all of
its clinical trials. In October, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration ordered Glaxo and makers of drugs in Paxil's class to
include a "black box" warning -- the agency's strongest -- with their
pills.
Hardee's: The fast-food maker is bragging about how unhealthy is its
latest culinary invention, the Monster Thickburger: "First there were
burgers. Then there were Thickburgers. Now Hardee's is introducing
the mother of all burgers -- the Monster Thickburger. Weighing in at
two-thirds of a pound, this 100 percent Angus beef burger is a
monument to decadence." The Monster Thickburger is a 1,420-calorie
sandwich. Eating one Thickburger is like eating two Big Macs or five
McDonald's hamburgers. Add 600 calories worth of Hardee's fries and
you get more than the 2,000 calories that many people should eat in a
whole day, according to Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in
the Public Interest, which calls the Thickburger "food porn."
Merck: Dr. David Graham, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug
safety official, calls it "maybe the single greatest drug-safety
catastrophe in the history of this country." Testifying before a
Senate committee in November, Dr. David Graham put the number in the
United States who had suffered heart attacks or stroke as result of
taking the arthritis drug Vioxx in the range of 88,000 to 139,000. As
many as 40 percent of these people, or about 35,000-55,000, died as a
result, Graham said. The unacceptable cardiovascular risks of Vioxx
were evident as early as 2000 -- a full four years before the drug
was finally withdrawn from the market by its manufacturer, Merck,
according to a study released by The Lancet, the British medical
journal. Merck says it disclosed all relevant evidence on Vioxx
safety as soon as it acquired it, and pulled the drug as soon as it
saw conclusive evidence of the drug's dangers.
McWane: McWane Inc. is a large, privately held Alabama-based sewer
and water pipe manufacturer. In a devastating series, the New York
Times revealed the company's egregious safety record, and the utter
failure of regulatory agencies to control the company's workplace
violence. Nine McWane employees have lost their lives in workplace
accidents since 1995 -- and three of the deaths were the result of
deliberate company violations of safety standards. More than 4,600
injuries were recorded among the company's 5,000 employees. According
to the Times, McWane pulled the wool over the eyes of investigators
by stalling them at the factory gates, and then hiding defective
equipment. Accident sites were altered before investigators could
inspect them, in violation of federal rules. When government
enforcement officials did find serious violations, the Times
reported, "the punishment meted out by the federal government was so
minimal that McWane could treat it as simply a cost of doing
business."
Riggs Bank: An explosive report from the U.S. Senate Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental
Affairs, issued in July, revealed that the Washington, D.C.-based
Riggs Bank illegally operated bank accounts for former Chilean
dictator Augusto Pinochet, and routinely ignored evidence of corrupt
practices in managing more than 60 accounts for the government of
Equatorial Guinea. Although these and other activities seem to
violate U.S. banking rules, the Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency (OCC) did not take enforcement action against the bank after
it learned of these matters in 2002. That presumably was not
unrelated to the fact that the OCC examiner at Riggs soon thereafter
went to work for Riggs. In May 2004, the bank paid $25 million in
fines in connection with money-laundering violations related to the
Equatorial Guinea and Saudi Arabian governments, and it is the
subject of ongoing federal criminal investigations.
Wal-Mart: While Wal-Mart is presently on a bit of a public relations
defensive, the company remains the colossus of U.S. -- and
increasingly global -- retailing. It registers more than a quarter
trillion dollars in sales. Its revenues account for 2 percent of U.S.
Gross Domestic Product. For two years running, Fortune has named
Wal-Mart the most admired company in America. It is arguably the
defining company of the present era. A key component -- arguably the
key component -- of the company's business model is undercompensating
employees and externalizing costs on to society. A February 2004
report issued by Representative George Miller, D-California,
tabulated some of those costs. The report estimated that one
200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a cost to federal taxpayers
of $420,750 per year -- about $2,103 per employee. These public costs
include free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart
families, Section 8 housing assistance, federal tax credits and
deductions for low-income families, and federal contributions to
health insurance programs for low-income children.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate
Crime Reporter, <http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com>. Robert
Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational
Monitor, <http://www.multinationalmonitor.org>, and counsel for
Essential Inventions, a nonprofit involved in the pricing dispute
discussed in the Abbott profile. Mokhiber and Weissman are co-authors
of On the Rampage: Corporate Predators and the Destruction of
Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).
(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
This article is posted at:
<http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2005/000193.html>
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