Corporate Corruption Media Articles

Excerpts of Key Corporate Corruption Media Articles in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

Corporations have poured money into universities to fund research for decades, but now, the debate over bioengineered foods has escalated into a billion-dollar food industry war. Companies like Monsanto are squaring off against major organic firms like Stonyfield Farm. Both sides have aggressively recruited academic researchers. The biotech industry has published dozens of articles, under the names of prominent academics, that in some cases were drafted by industry consultants. Monsanto and its industry partners have also passed out an undisclosed amount in special grants to scientists ... to help with “biotechnology outreach” and to travel around the country to defend genetically modified foods. The moves by Monsanto, in an alliance with the Biotechnology Industry Organization and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, are detailed in thousands of pages of emails that were at first requested by the nonprofit group U.S. Right to Know, which receives funding from the organic foods industry. The emails show how academics have shifted from researchers to actors in lobbying and corporate public relations campaigns. An inner circle of [biotech] industry consultants, lobbyists and executives ... devised strategy on how to block state efforts to mandate G.M.O. labeling. The opponents of genetically modified foods have used their own creative tactics, although their spending on lobbying and public relations amounts to a tiny fraction of that of biosciences companies.

Note: Read an article which takes it even deeper and shows what the NYT left out. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the corruption of science and the controversy surrounding GMOs.

A US government-appointed agricultural body tried to crush a Silicon Valley food startup after concluding the company represented a “major threat” and “crisis” for the $5.5bn-a-year egg industry, according to documents obtained by the Guardian. In potential conflict with rules that govern how it can spend its funds, the American Egg Board (AEB) lobbied for a concerted attack on Hampton Creek, a food company that has created a low-cost plant-based egg replacement and the maker of Just Mayo, a mayonnaise alternative. The AEB attempted to have Just Mayo blocked from Whole Foods, asking Anthony Zolezzi, a partner at private equity firm Pegasus Capital Advisors ... to use his influence with Whole Foods to drop the product. (Whole Foods still sells Just Mayo.) More than one member of the AEB made joking threats of violence against Hampton Creek’s founder, Josh Tetrick. “Can we pool our money and put a hit on him?” asked Mike Sencer, executive vice-president of AEB member organization Hidden Villa Ranch. The AEB represents egg farmers across the US and its board is selected by the secretary of agriculture. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) ... suggested [additional] ways to put pressure on Hampton Creek. In January 2014, Roger Glasshoff, then the USDA’s head of shell eggs, told [Outgoing AEB head Joanne] Ivy to contact the FDA about Just Mayo directly. Last month the FDA ruled that Just Mayo could not be called mayonnaise because it does not contain eggs.

Note: Read another news article about Hampton's inspiring success. The USDA allows foods with non-organic ingredients to be labelled "USDA organic". The FDA has no problem allowing cloned animals into the food supply. When government corruption is the standard, anything is possible. But not egg-free mayo.

In the early 1980s, DuPont, which ran a sprawling chemical plant called Washington Works in nearby Parkersburg, approached [Jim Tennants'] family about buying some acreage for a landfill. DuPont assured them it would only dispose of non-toxic material. They agreed to sell. In the mid-1990s ... the family began finding dead deer. The cattle started going blind, sprouting tumors, vomiting blood. Family members were being hospitalized for breathing problems and chemical burns. Convinced that the landfill was to blame, the Tennants tried unsuccessfully to get help from environmental agencies, [and eventually sued] DuPont [with the help of attorney] Rob Bilott. In August 2000, Bilott came across a single paper that mentioned ... C8, [which] is found in thousands of household products. The judge in the Tennant case eventually forced DuPont to turn over thousands of documents on C8. And that’s when the picture finally snapped into focus. The documents revealed that DuPont had used the landfill near the Tennants’ farm as part of an increasingly elaborate cover-up. After discovering C8 in [the nearby town] Lubeck’s water supply in the early 1980s, DuPont had dredged up 14 million pounds of C8-laced sludge from the unlined pits near the town wells and dumped it into the Dry Run landfill. But the C8 levels in Lubeck’s water kept climbing. To hide this ... DuPont devised a testing method that grossly underestimated C8 levels.

Note: DuPont wove a complex web of lies over a period of decades to cover up C-8's massive harms. The link above tells this story as a comprehensive multimedia presentation. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing corporate corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.

The world’s largest defense contractor has agreed to pay $4.7 million to settle charges that it illegally used government money. Top executives for Lockheed Martin — who were being paid by the federal government to run Sandia National Laboratories — ran a fierce campaign to lobby [government] officials for a seven-year extension of their contract, [and] urged them to close the bidding to competition. To clinch the contract extension, Sandia labs officials hired high-priced consultants — including Heather A. Wilson, the former New Mexico congresswoman, who allegedly was paid $226,000. Wilson was not just on Lockheed’s payroll. From 2009 through 2011, she had consulting jobs for Lockheed and three other contractors managing the Energy Department’s national lab, charging taxpayers a total of $450,000. But the contractors could not document her work, said [Energy Department Inspector General Gregory] Friedman, whose staff found that the justification for the billing did “not meet even minimum standards” for federal payments.” Wilson ... left Congress in 2009. Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, called the deal a “slap on the wrist for the world’s biggest defense contractor to pay,” [and] wrote on the NuclearWatch blog Lockheed “engaged in deep and systemic corruption, including paying Congresswoman Heather Wilson $10,000 a month starting the day after she left office for so-called consulting services that had no written work requirements.”

Note: Lockheed Martin runs a breathtakingly big part of the United States. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and in the corporate world.

Pediatrician Carla Nelson ... waited for the ambulance plane to take the infant from Waimea, on the island of Kauai, to the main children’s hospital in Honolulu. It was the fourth [severe heart malformation] she had seen in three years. There have been at least nine in five years, she says, shaking her head. That’s more than 10 times the national rate. Corn that’s been genetically modified to resist pesticides [is] a major cash crop on four of [Hawaii's] six main islands. In Kauai, chemical companies Dow, BASF, Syngenta and DuPont spray 17 times more pesticide per acre than on ordinary cornfields in the US mainland. About a fourth of the total are called Restricted Use Pesticides because of their harmfulness. Just in Kauai, 18 tons – mostly atrazine, paraquat (both banned in Europe) and chlorpyrifos – were applied in 2012. The World Health Organization this year announced that glyphosate, sold as Roundup, the most common of the non-restricted herbicides, is “probably carcinogenic in humans”. When the spraying is underway ... residents complain of stinging eyes, headaches and vomiting. At these times, many crowd the waiting rooms of the town’s main hospital, which was run until recently by Dow AgroSciences’ former chief lobbyist in Honolulu. The chemical companies that grow the corn ... refuse to disclose with any precision which chemicals they use, where and in what amounts, but they insist the pesticides are safe. Today, about 90% of industrial GMO corn grown in the US was originally developed in Hawaii.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing GMO news articles from reliable major media sources.

Peer review is supposed to be the pride of the rigorous academic publishing process. But increasingly journals are finding out that those supposedly authoritative checks are being rigged. In the latest episode of the fake peer review phenomenon, one of the world’s largest academic publishers, Springer, has retracted 64 articles from 10 of its journals after discovering that their reviews were linked to fake e-mail addresses. The announcement comes nine months after 43 studies were retracted by BioMed Central (one of Springer’s imprints) for the same reason. Retraction Watch co-founder Ivan Oransky ... said he didn’t know of any instances of retractions for faked peer reviews before 2012. In a report for the journal Nature last fall, Oransky and his colleagues told the story of a ... researcher who wrote peer reviews for 28 of his own papers. Investigations ... have also uncovered a number of services selling names and contact information for made-up experts guaranteed to give an expedited, positive review. In a statement on its Web site in February, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) detailed these agencies’ “systematic, inappropriate attempts” to manipulate the process. COPE’s chair Ginny Barbour wrote in December, “The uncovering of companies systematically manipulating publications, by the use of fake reviewers and more, offers an alarming glimpse into what can happen if reward systems are implemented with no thought or oversight.”

Note: The editor of a top medical journal recently suggested that half all of scientific literature may simply be untrue. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in science.

If you were freaked out by the news in June that an anesthesiologist had talked trash about her patient while he was unconscious on the table in front of her, you'd better brace yourself. There's more and it's ... much worse. In an anonymous essay published in the Annals of Internal Medicine this week, one physician describes — in graphic detail — what happened to two women when they were asleep in operating rooms. The stories are horrifying. "I bet she's enjoying this," one doctor reportedly said while prepping a woman for a vaginal hysterectomy. In another case, an obstetrician performed an obscene dance after saving the life of a woman who was bleeding out after having a baby. In a letter accompanying the essay, the editorial team agonized over whether to publish the piece. Everyone agreed that [it] was "disgusting and scandalous" and could damage the profession's reputation. But some argued that this was why they shouldn't publish it while others felt that was why they should publish it. In the end they said they decided to do so in order to "expose medicine's dark underbelly." They said the first incident "reeked of misogyny and disrespect — the second reeked of all that plus heavy overtones of sexual assault and racism." The journal's editors ... hope that medical educators and others will use the essay as a "jumping-off point for discussions that explore the reasons why physicians sometimes behave badly. If the essay squelches such behavior even once, then it was well worth publishing," they wrote.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing medical industry news articles from reliable major media sources.

The National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T. The N.S.A.’s top-secret budget in 2013 for the AT&T partnership was more than twice that of the next-largest such program, [and] the company installed surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its Internet hubs on American soil, far more than its similarly sized competitor, Verizon. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, AT&T ... began turning over emails and phone calls “within days” after the warrantless surveillance began in October 2001. In 2011, AT&T began handing over 1.1 billion domestic cellphone calling records a day to the N.S.A. after “a push to get this flow operational prior to the 10th anniversary of 9/11,” according to an internal agency newsletter. In a 2006 lawsuit, a retired AT&T technician named Mark Klein claimed that ... he had seen a secret room in a company building in San Francisco where the N.S.A. had installed equipment. Mr. Klein claimed that AT&T was providing the N.S.A. with access to Internet traffic that AT&T transmits for other telecom companies. Such cooperative arrangements, known in the industry as “peering,” mean that communications from customers of other companies could end up on AT&T’s network.

Note: The story of Klein's lawsuit was initially suppressed by the NSA and major media including the L.A. Times. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about questionable intelligence agency practices and the erosion of privacy.

Since HPV vaccines were introduced seven years ago, it has been assumed that they would prevent cervical cancer. But the vaccines have never been shown to prevent any cancer. It has also been assumed for seven years that the vaccine is safe. Yet there have been thousands of adverse event reports. The CDC itself admits there are three times as many adverse events for the HPV vaccine Gardasil as there are for all other vaccines combined. Compared to all other vaccines in the U.S. schedule, Gardasil alone is associated with 61 percent of all serious adverse events, including 63.8 percent of all deaths and 81.2 percent of all permanent disabilities in females under 30 years of age. Japan, India and France have removed HPV vaccines from their recommended list due to safety and efficacy concerns. The Health, Welfare and Labor Ministry of Japan also conducted a national investigation regarding post HPV vaccine injuries, [which] concluded that the harm experienced by women taking the vaccine is overwhelmingly greater than any expected benefits. Prompted by medical reports of post-HPV vaccination arrhythmia and motor neuron disabilities in children in Denmark, the European Medicines Agency is conducting an investigation of HPV injection adverse events. Lawsuits for HPV injuries and deaths have also been filed in Spain, France and Columbia.

Note: Read an article showing that several countries have filed lawsuits claiming damage from the HPV vaccine. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing vaccine controversy news articles from reliable major media sources.

One of the biggest corruption scandals to hit America's juvenile justice system began unfolding in 2007, when parents in a central Pennsylvania county began to complain that their children had been tossed into for-profit youth centers without a lawyer to represent them. The kickback scheme, known as "kids for cash," has resulted in prison terms for two Luzerne County judges and two businessmen. Convictions of thousands of juveniles have been tossed out. Now the case is entering its final chapter: a few remaining class action lawsuits. One of those claims drew to a close ... when a federal judge signed off on a settlement in which one of the businessmen, Robert Powell, would pay $4.75 million. Powell, who co-owned two private juvenile justice facilities, served an 18-month prison term after admitting to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to former ... Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. and his boss, Judge Michael Conahan. In return, Ciavarella routinely found children guilty and sent them to Powell's facilities. Ciavarella was convicted in 2011 of racketeering and other charges, and sentenced to 28 years in prison. Conahan, a friend of Powell's who oversaw the scam, pleaded guilty to racketeering and was sentenced to more than 17 years behind bars. A fourth conspirator ... pleaded guilty for his part in the plot and was sentenced to a year in prison.

Note: More than 5,000 kids were exposed to a court that jailed them for profit in this conspiracy involving just a handful of corrupt officials. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and civil liberties.

DuPont: “one of the most successful and sustained industrial enterprises in the world,” as its corporate website puts it. Perhaps no product is as responsible for its dominance as Teflon. For more than 60 years C8 was an essential ingredient of Teflon. As part of a 2005 settlement over contamination around a West Virginia plant, a team of three scientists ... were charged with determining if and how the chemical affects people. The science panel found that C8 was “more likely than not” linked to ulcerative colitis - as well as to high cholesterol; pregnancy-induced hypertension; thyroid disease; testicular cancer; and kidney cancer. The scientists’ findings, published in more than three dozen peer-reviewed articles, were striking, because the chemical’s effects were so widespread throughout the body and because even very low exposure levels were associated with health effects. DuPont scientists had closely studied the chemical for decades and through their own research knew about some of the dangers it posed. Yet rather than inform workers, people living near the plant, the general public, or government agencies responsible for regulating chemicals, DuPont repeatedly kept its knowledge secret. Another revelation about C8 makes all of this more disturbing: This deadly chemical that DuPont continued to use well after it knew it was linked to health problems is now practically everywhere. A man-made compound that didn’t exist a century ago, C8 is in the blood of 99.7 percent of Americans.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing corporate corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.

A safe that tallies the cash that is placed in it. A sniper rifle equipped with advanced computer technology for improved accuracy. A car that lets you stream music from the Internet. All of these innovations sound great, until you learn the risks that this type of connectivity carries. Recently, two security researchers, sitting on a couch and armed only with laptops, remotely took over a Chrysler Jeep Cherokee speeding along the highway ... while a Wired reporter was driving. A hacked car is a high-profile example of what can go wrong with the coming Internet of Things — objects equipped with software and connected to digital networks. The selling point ... is added convenience and better safety. In reality, it is a ... train wreck in privacy and security. That smart safe? Hackers can empty it with a single USB stick while erasing all [evidence] of their crime. That high-tech rifle? Researchers managed to remotely manipulate its target selection without the shooter’s knowing. The Internet of Things is also a privacy nightmare. Databases that already have too much information about us will now be bursting with data on the places we’ve driven, the food we’ve purchased and more. Last week, at Def Con, the annual information security conference, researchers set up an Internet of Things Village to show how they could hack everyday objects like baby monitors, thermostats and security cameras. Connecting everyday objects introduces new risks if done at mass scale. Once a hacker is in - she's in everywhere.

Note: Read how a hacked vehicle may have resulted in journalist Michael Hastings' death in 2013. The networked computerization of everyday objects means that these objects can spy on you, accelerating the disappearance of privacy in the name of convenience. What will happen when the "internet of things" expands to include microchip implants in people?

The Securities and Exchange Commission just ruled that large publicly held corporations must disclose the ratios of the pay of their top CEOs to the pay of their median workers. About time. In 1965, CEOs of America's largest corporations were paid, on average, 20 times the pay of average workers. Now, the ratio is over 300 to 1. It turns out the higher the CEO pay, the worse the firm does. Professor Michael J. Cooper of the University of Utah [and colleagues] recently found that companies with the highest-paid CEOs returned about 10 percent less to their shareholders than do their industry peers. So why aren't shareholders hollering about CEO pay? Because corporate law in the United States gives shareholders at most an advisory role. They can holler all they want, but CEOs don't have to listen. Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, received a pay package in 2013 valued at $78.4 million, a sum so stunning that Oracle shareholders rejected it. That made no difference because Ellison controlled the board. In Australia, by contrast, shareholders have the right to force an entire corporate board to stand for re-election if 25 percent or more of a company's shareholders vote against a CEO pay plan two years in a row. Which is why Australian CEOs are paid an average of only 70 times the pay of the typical Australian worker. The new SEC rule requiring disclosure of pay ratios ... isn't perfect. Some corporations could try to game it. But the rule marks an important start.

Note: The above article was written by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.

Coca-Cola, the world’s largest producer of sugary beverages, is backing a new “science-based” solution to the obesity crisis: To maintain a healthy weight, get more exercise and worry less about cutting calories. Health experts say this message is misleading and part of an effort by Coke to deflect criticism about the role sugary drinks have played in the spread of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, [and] convince the public that physical activity can offset a bad diet despite evidence that exercise has only minimal impact on weight compared with what people consume. “Coca-Cola’s sales are slipping, and there’s this huge political and public backlash against soda, with every major city trying to do something to curb consumption,” said Michele Simon, a public health lawyer. “This is a direct response.” Coke’s [campaign] is not the only example of corporate-funded research and advocacy to come under fire lately. The American Society for Nutrition and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics have been criticized by public health advocates for forming partnerships with companies such as Kraft Foods, McDonald’s, PepsiCo and Hershey’s. Dietitians have also faced criticism for taking payments from Coke to present the company’s soda as a healthy snack. A recent analysis of beverage studies ... found that those funded by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, the American Beverage Association and the sugar industry were five times more likely to find no link between sugary drinks and weight gain than studies whose authors reported no financial conflicts.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the corruption of science and the manipulation of public perception.

Former City trader Tom Hayes has been found guilty at a London court of rigging global Libor interest rates. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud. The 35-year old is the first individual to face a jury trial for manipulating the rate, which is used as a benchmark for trillions of pounds of global borrowing and lending. Many of the world's leading banks have paid heavy financial penalties for tampering with the key benchmark. The case was brought by the Serious Fraud Office, which said Hayes set up a network of brokers and traders spanning 10 financial institutions and cajoled or bribed them to help rig Libor rates for profit. During the trial, jurors were told that Hayes promised to pay a broker up to $100,000 to keep the Libor rate "as low as possible". Defence barrister Neil Hawes asked the judge to take into account the prevalence of Libor manipulation at the time, and also that ... managers and senior managers at Hayes' bank knew of, and in some cases condoned, Libor manipulation. Hayes ... rigged the Libor rates daily for nearly four years while working in Tokyo for UBS, then Citigroup, from 2006 until 2010. Rigging even minor movements in the rate can result in bumper profits for a trader manipulating the rates, or the rate can be moved simply to make a bank look more creditworthy.

Note: Why aren't we hearing about the many other high-level bankers who rigged the Libor rate? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the systemically corrupt financial industry.

When police officers shoot people under questionable circumstances, Dr. Lewinski is often there to defend their actions. He has testified in or consulted in nearly 200 cases over the last decade. His conclusions are consistent: The officer acted appropriately, even when shooting an unarmed person. Even when shooting someone in the back. Even when witness testimony, forensic evidence or video footage contradicts the officer’s story. He has appeared as an expert witness in criminal trials, civil cases and disciplinary hearings, and before grand juries. In addition, his company, the Force Science Institute, has trained tens of thousands of police officers. His research has been roundly criticized by experts. An editor for The American Journal of Psychology called his work “pseudoscience.” The Justice Department denounced his findings as “lacking in both foundation and reliability.” Civil rights lawyers say he is selling dangerous ideas. In the protests that have followed police shootings, demonstrators have often asked why officers are so rarely punished for shootings that seem unwarranted. Dr. Lewinski is part of the answer. In testimony on the stand, for which he charges nearly $1,000 an hour, he ... sprinkles scientific explanations with sports analogies. Dr. Lewinski and his company have provided training for dozens of departments. His messages often conflict, in both substance and tone, with the training now recommended by the Justice Department and police organizations.

Note: An article in the UK's Guardian newspaper, titled The Uncounted, describes why the U.S. government claims it is unable to keep track of killings by police, but does not mention that police shootings rise as crime falls. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.

The use of GMOs is controversial. There is debate in the scientific community as to whether the consumption of GMO foods hurts people directly. But there is no denying that GMOs result in vastly more herbicide (such as Roundup, a top weed killer) being dumped on food crops, and that glyphosphate (the active ingredient in Roundup) probably causes cancer in the quantities used. Other Roundup ingredients are suspect as well. Those who oppose GMOs don't have the upper hand in Congress and so they ... seek to establish a uniform labeling system so that food producers clearly identify whether their products have GMOs or not. Labeling is very popular among American consumers: In multiple polls conducted over the years by many different firms, about 90 percent of Americans consistently support mandatory labeling. Mandatory labeling initiatives are in play in many states, and have passed in three (Maine, Vermont and Connecticut). But Big Ag is spending heavily to block these efforts. The House and Senate are listening to Big Ag rather than to American consumers. The House recently passed a bill that gives the appearance of supporting GMO disclosure while doing the opposite. The bill, H.R. 1599, carries a brilliantly deceptive name that would make George Orwell proud. Called the "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014" the bill would reinforce the current voluntary disclosure system but would prohibit individual states and counties from enacting more stringent legislation. The detractors have branded this bill the "DARK Act" as in "Deny Americans the Right to Know"."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing GMO news articles from reliable major media sources.

The United Nations has spent half a billion dollars on contracts with a Russian aviation company since discovering one of its helicopter crews in the Democratic Republic of the Congo drugged and raped a teenage girl in a sexual attack. The girl was dumped naked and unconscious inside the helicopter base. Internal UN documents, marked “strictly confidential” and leaked to the Guardian, reveal how the UN’s internal complaints unit uncovered evidence the woman was abused ... by the manager in charge of UTair’s base in Kalemie, eastern DRC. The main investigative report, from March 2011, warned of a possible “culture of sexual exploitation and abuse” at UTair. Copies of that report were circulated among top officials at the UN. The company was permitted to continue doing business with the UN on the condition it introduce a new training regime overseen by a monitor. The disclosures come at a critical moment for the UN secretary general, who has struggled to contain the fallout from recent revelations concerning the sexual abuse of children by French and other peacekeeping troops in the neighbouring Central African Republic. “It wasn’t just one or two bad apples,” said a senior UN official familiar with the report and its fallout. “It was clear the problems of sexual exploitation were wider.” In total, the company ... has been granted contracts worth $543.3m for services provided in 11 countries since the UN became aware it had a problem with sexual exploitation.

Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.

As complaints grow about exorbitant drug prices, pharmaceutical companies are coming under pressure to disclose the development costs and profits of those medicines and the rationale for charging what they do. So-called pharmaceutical cost transparency bills have been introduced in at least six state legislatures in the last year, aiming to make drug companies justify their prices, which are often attributed to high research and development costs. “If a prescription drug demands an outrageous price tag, the public, insurers and federal, state and local governments should have access to the information that supposedly justifies the cost,” says the preamble of a bill introduced in the New York State Senate in May. In an article being published Thursday, more than 100 prominent oncologists called for support of a grass-roots movement to stem the rapid increases of prices of cancer drugs, including by letting Medicare negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies and letting patients import less expensive medicines from Canada. “There is no relief in sight because drug companies keep challenging the market with even higher prices,” the doctors wrote in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Pressure is mounting from elsewhere as well. The top Republican and Democrat on the United States Senate Finance Committee last year demanded detailed cost data from Gilead Sciences, whose hepatitis C drugs, which cost $1,000 a pill or more, have strained the budgets of state and federal health programs.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about big pharma profiteering from reliable major media sources.

There are constitutional requirements for providing adequate health care to our incarcerated populations. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Estelle v. Gamble that “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the ‘unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain’ ... proscribed by the Eighth Amendment.” In 1993, in Helling v. McKinney, the court decided that prison officials cannot expose inmates to environments that “pose an unreasonable risk of serious damage” to their future health. Since then, however, frequent reports and lawsuits ... strongly suggest that many U.S. prisons and jails have ignored these rulings. Allegations of subpar care in Arizona provide a good example of how correctional health care dysfunction puts cancer patients at extreme risk. In March 2012, the ACLU and allied prisoners’ rights groups filed a lawsuit against the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) and several state officials [that] points to several cases of what it describes as poorly treated, or untreated, cancer. The American Friends Service Committee-Arizona released a report in October 2013 [which] found that some 105 prisoners died in custody from March 2012 to June 2013. The AFSC studied 14 deaths in depth. Six involved metastatic cancers. “This clearly indicates that the conditions were long-standing and suggests that these deaths might have been preventable had the individuals received more timely care,” the report charges.

Note: In 2013, the ADC terminated its contract with prison health contractor Wexford. A billion dollar company named Corizon then got the lucrative contract. According to the New York Times, inmate deaths increase at Corizon-serviced facilities. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the corrupt prison industry.

Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.