THE 10 WORST CORPORATIONS OF 2004
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Multinational Monitor
Today
I have borrowed an extremely important article to provide you with
information with which to make good ENVIRONMENTAL DECISIONS.
The
no-repeat rule [from the previous year] helps limit the field a
bit. 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.
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.
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.
Hardee's:
The fast-food maker is bragging about how unhealthy is its latest
culinary invention, the Monster Thickburger: Weighing in at two-thirds
of a pound, this 100 percent Angus beef burger is a monument to
decadence. [It’s] a 1,420-calorie sandwich.
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.
(Click here to read the complete article.)
Please once again I suggest you check what you can do in your personal
life to become less dependent on large corporations.
SUSTAINABILITY or using only what you need is a tough space to put
yourself into. But if we don't all strive for it, we may all
someday be suddenly forced into it.
Don't forget CPR: CONSERVE/PARTICIPATE/RECYCLE
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