Corporate Corruption Media Articles

Excerpts of Key Corporate Corruption Media Articles in Major Media

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Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former director of Global Public Policy for Facebook and author of the recently released tell-all book "Careless People," told U.S. senators ... that Meta actively targeted teens with advertisements based on their emotional state. In response to a question from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Wynn-Williams admitted that Meta (which was then known as Facebook) had targeted 13- to 17-year-olds with ads when they were feeling down or depressed. "It could identify when they were feeling worthless or helpless or like a failure, and [Meta] would take that information and share it with advertisers," Wynn-Williams told the senators on the subcommittee for crime and terrorism. "Advertisers understand that when people don't feel good about themselves, it's often a good time to pitch a product – people are more likely to buy something." She said the company was letting advertisers know when the teens were depressed so they could be served an ad at the best time. As an example, she suggested that if a teen girl deleted a selfie, advertisers might see that as a good time to sell her a beauty product as she may not be feeling great about her appearance. They also targeted teens with ads for weight loss when young girls had concerns around body confidence. If Meta was willing to target teens based on their emotional states, it stands to reason they'd do the same to adults. One document displayed during the hearing showed an example of just that.

Note: Facebook hid its own internal research for years showing that Instagram worsened body image issues, revealing that 13% of British teenage girls reported more frequent suicidal thoughts after using the app. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and mental health.

Outer space is no longer just for global superpowers and large multinational corporations. Developing countries, start-ups, universities, and even high schools can now gain access to space. In 2024, a record 2,849 objects were launched into space. The commercial satellite industry saw global revenue rise to $285 billion in 2023, driven largely by the growth of SpaceX's Starlink constellation. While the democratization of space is a positive development, it has introduced ... an ethical quandary that I call the "double dual-use dilemma." The double dual-use dilemma refers to how private space companies themselves–not just their technologies–can become militarized and integrated into national security while operating commercially. Space companies fluidly shift between civilian and military roles. Their expertise in launch systems, satellites, and surveillance infrastructure allows them to serve both markets, often without clear regulatory oversight. Companies like Walchandnagar Industries in India, SpaceX in the United States, and the private Chinese firms that operate under a national strategy of the Chinese Communist Party called Military-Civil Fusion exemplify this trend, maintaining commercial identities while actively supporting defense programs. This blurring of roles, including the possibility that private space companies may develop their own weapons, raises concerns over unchecked militarization and calls for stronger oversight.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in the military and in the corporate world.

Ever thought of having your genome sequenced? 23andMe ... describes itself as a "genetics-led consumer healthcare and biotechnology company empowering a healthier future". Its share price had fallen precipitately following a data breach in October 2023 that harvested the profile and ethnicity data of 6.9 million users – including name, profile photo, birth year, location, family surnames, grandparents' birthplaces, ethnicity estimates and mitochondrial DNA. So on 24 March it filed for so-called Chapter 11 proceedings in a US bankruptcy court. At which point the proverbial ordure hit the fan because the bankruptcy proceedings involve 23andMe seeking authorisation from the court to commence "a process to sell substantially all of its assets". And those assets are ... the genetic data of the company's 15 million users. These assets are very attractive to many potential purchasers. The really important thing is that genetic data is permanent, unique and immutable. If your credit card is hacked, you can always get a new replacement. But you can't get a new genome. When 23andMe's data assets come up for sale the queue of likely buyers is going to be long, with health insurance and pharmaceutical giants at the front, followed by hedge-funds, private equity vultures and advertisers, with marketers bringing up the rear. Since these outfits are not charitable ventures, it's a racing certainty that they have plans for exploiting those data assets.

Note: Watch our new video on the risks and promises of emerging technologies. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.

Skydio, with more than $740m in venture capital funding and a valuation of about $2.5bn, makes drones for the military along with civilian organisations such as police forces and utility companies. The company moved away from the consumer market in 2020 and is now the largest US drone maker. Military uses touted on its website include gaining situational awareness on the battlefield and autonomously patrolling bases. Skydio is one of a number of new military technology unicorns – venture capital-backed startups valued at more than $1bn – many led by young men aiming to transform the US and its allies' military capabilities with advanced technology, be it straight-up software or software-imbued hardware. The rise of startups doing defence tech is a "big trend", says Cynthia Cook, a defence expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based-thinktank. She likens it to a contagion – and the bug is going around. According to financial data company PitchBook, investors funnelled nearly $155bn globally into defence tech startups between 2021 and 2024, up from $58bn over the previous four years. The US has more than 1,000 venture capital-backed companies working on "smarter, faster and cheaper" defence, says Dale Swartz from consultancy McKinsey. The types of technologies the defence upstarts are working on are many and varied, though autonomy and AI feature heavily.

Note: For more, watch our 9-min video on the militarization of Big Tech.

In July 2012, a renegade American businessman, Russ George, took a ship off the coast of British Columbia and dumped 100 tons of iron sulfate dust into the Pacific Ocean. He had unilaterally, and some suggest illegally, decided to trigger an algae bloom to absorb some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere–an attempt at geoengineering. Now a startup called Stardust seeks something more ambitious: developing proprietary geoengineering technology that would help block sun rays from reaching the planet. Stardust formed in 2023 and is based in Israel but incorporated in the United States. Geoengineering projects, even those led by climate scientists at major universities, have previously drawn the ire of environmentalists and other groups. Such a deliberate transformation of the atmosphere has never been done, and many uncertainties remain. If a geoengineering project went awry, for example, it could contribute to air pollution and ozone loss, or have dramatic effects on weather patterns, such as disrupting monsoons in populous South and East Asia. Stardust ... has not publicly released details about its technology, its business model, or exactly who works at its company. But the company appears to be positioning itself to develop and sell a proprietary geoengineering technology to governments that are considering making modifications to the global climate–acting like a kind of defense contractor for climate alteration.

Note: Regenerative farming is far safer and more promising than geoengineering for stabilizing the climate. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on geoengineering and science corruption.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday launched an online searchable database listing contaminant levels in human foods, reflecting Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s ongoing efforts to reduce chemicals in food since taking office. The FDA said if a food product has contaminants exceeding established levels, the agency may find the food to be unsafe. However, it added these levels do not represent "permissible levels of contamination". The Health Secretary has often stressed reducing chemicals in food and, in the previous week, directed the FDA to revise safety rules to help eliminate a provision allowing companies to self-affirm food ingredient safety. RFK Jr. also told food companies ... that the Trump administration wanted artificial dyes out of the food supply. The FDA said it is establishing an online database called "Chemical Contaminants Transparency Tool" to provide a list of contaminant levels called "tolerances, action levels and guidance levels" to evaluate the potential health risks of these contaminants in human foods. "Ideally there would be no contaminants in our food supply, but chemical contaminants may occur in food when they are present in the growing, storage or processing environments," said Acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner. The online database also provides information such as the contaminant name, commodity and contaminant level type.

Note: Read more about the growing list of toxic chemicals banned in other countries but not the US. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on food system corruption and toxic chemicals.

Last April, in a move generating scant media attention, the Air Force announced that it had chosen two little-known drone manufacturers – Anduril Industries of Costa Mesa, California, and General Atomics of San Diego – to build prototype versions of its proposed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), a future unmanned plane intended to accompany piloted aircraft on high-risk combat missions. The lack of coverage was surprising, given that the Air Force expects to acquire at least 1,000 CCAs over the coming decade at around $30 million each, making this one of the Pentagon's costliest new projects. But consider that the least of what the media failed to note. In winning the CCA contract, Anduril and General Atomics beat out three of the country's largest and most powerful defense contractors – Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman – posing a severe threat to the continued dominance of the existing military-industrial complex, or MIC. The very notion of a "military-industrial complex" linking giant defense contractors to powerful figures in Congress and the military was introduced on January 17, 1961, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address. In 2024, just five companies – Lockheed Martin (with $64.7 billion in defense revenues), RTX (formerly Raytheon, with $40.6 billion), Northrop Grumman ($35.2 billion), General Dynamics ($33.7 billion), and Boeing ($32.7 billion) – claimed the vast bulk of Pentagon contracts.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and military corruption.

Juliet Gray never thought her makeup could harm her. But after years of regularly applying powders, eye shadow, and blush, Gray was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma, an aggressive, incurable form of cancer. The cancer's primary cause is long-term exposure to asbestos – a common contaminant in talc, one of the main ingredients in well-known cosmetic brands. Like thousands of others, Gray is suing Whittaker, Clark, & Daniels, a longtime talc supplier for cosmetic companies like Revlon, Maybelline, and L'OrĂ©al, alleging it exposed her to harmful levels of asbestos without her knowledge. In 2007, three years after Whittaker, Clark, & Daniels ceased talc operations amid mounting health concerns, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary purchased the company's equity. But in 2023, as the "deluge" of asbestos lawsuits continued to climb, the former talc supplier filed for bankruptcy – a legal maneuver known as the Texas Two-Step in which giant corporations use bankruptcy courts to shield themselves from legal liabilities. Over the years, Berkshire Hathaway has faced dozens of lawsuits alleging that "Berkshire-owned companies wrongfully delay or deny compensation to cancer victims and others to boost Berkshire's profits," according to a 2013 investigation. But by 2011, the company found itself facing an increasing number of lawsuits alleging tainted cosmetic talc had caused mesothelioma, eventually racking up $300 million in claim bills.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corporate corruption and toxic chemicals.

The for-profit prison company GEO Group has surged in value under President Donald Trump. Its stock price doubled after Election Day. But despite its soaring fortunes, the $4 billion company continues to resist having to pay detainees more than $1 a day for cleaning facilities where the government has forced them to live. At the 1,575-bed detention center GEO runs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tacoma, Washington, detainees once prepared meals, washed laundry and scrubbed toilets, doing jobs that would otherwise require 85 full-time employees, the company estimated. The state's minimum wage at the time was $11 an hour. (It's now $16.66.) In 2017, Washington sued GEO to enforce it, and in October 2021 a federal jury ruled unanimously in the state's favor. This year, GEO and Washington are back in court – for a third time – as the company tries to reverse the earlier decision that sided with the state. Mike Faulk, a spokesperson for the Washington state attorney general's office, said testimony in the minimum-wage issue highlights the problem with housing detainees in private prisons: profit motive. Not only did GEO pay $1 a day for cleaning in Tacoma, it budgeted less than $1 per meal that each detainee ate, one kitchen worker testified. "So the grade of food is abysmal," Faulk said of the detainee's testimony. "He routinely picked out grasshoppers/insects from the food." Conditions in Tacoma are worsening as the number of detainees rises.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corporate corruption and immigration enforcement corruption.

Da Ying "David" Sze walked out of a four-story concrete warehouse in Queens, New York, carrying several bags full of money. Federal agents had been surveilling him for months. They suspected him of leading a gang of money launderers whose clients included Chinese fentanyl dealers. Most of that business had been conducted at one institution: TD Bank. When investigators looked closer at the bank, they realized Sze wasn't the only criminal who'd made TD their depository of choice. There was the group from Manhattan's Diamond District using bogus gold sales to launder money. The Colombian drug traffickers using TD debit cards to bring their US profits back home. And the human trafficking ring that claimed to be an HVAC company when it opened an account. The more investigators looked at TD, the more money laundering they found. Last year, TD's American subsidiary became the first US bank ever to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. The company agreed to pay $3.1 billion in fines to various parts of the federal government, a sum that included the biggest penalty ever levied by the Department of Justice under the Bank Secrecy Act, the main US anti-money-laundering law. More than two dozen people, including three bank employees, have already been charged. US authorities have also imposed an asset cap on TD's American retail operations, limiting their size indefinitely. This is among the most feared punishments in banking.

Note: Read our Substack on the dark truth about the war on drugs. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on financial industry corruption and the war on drugs.

Consultants assessing Covid vaccine damage claims on behalf of the NHS have been paid millions more than the victims, it has emerged. Freedom of Information requests made by The Telegraph show that US-based Crawford and Company has carried out nearly 13,000 medical assessments, but dismissed more than 98 per cent of cases. Just 203 claimants have been notified they are entitled to a one-off payment of Ł120,000 through the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) amounting to Ł24,360,000. Yet Crawford and Company has received Ł27,264,896 for its services. Prof Richard Goldberg, chairman in law at Durham University, with a special interest in vaccine liability and compensation, said: "The idea that this would be farmed out to a private company to make a determination is very odd. It's taxpayers money and money is tight at the moment. "The lack of transparency is not helpful and there is a terrible sense of secrecy about all of this. One gets the sense that their main objective is for these cases not to succeed. "There are no stats available so we don't know the details about how these claims are being decided or whether previous judgments are being taken into account." The Hart (Health Advisory and Recovery Team) group, which was set up by medical professionals and scientists during the pandemic, has warned that Crawford and Company has a "troubling reputation with numerous reports of mismanagement and claims denials across various sectors".

Note: COVID vaccine manufacturers have total immunity from liability if people die or become injured as a result of the vaccine. Our Substack dives into the complex world of COVID vaccines with nuance and balanced investigation. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on COVID vaccine problems.

The owner of a data brokerage business recently ... bragged about the degree to which his industry could collect and analyze data on the habits of billions of people. Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun said that ... his company [can] deliver "personalized messaging at scale" to some 91 percent of the internet's adult web users. To deliver that kind of "personalized messaging" (i.e., advertising), Publicis must gather an extraordinary amount of information on the people it serves ads to. Lena Cohen, a technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that data brokers like Publicis collect "as much information as they can" about web users. "The data broker industry is under-regulated, opaque, and dangerous, because as you saw in the video, brokers have detailed information on billions of people, but we know relatively little about them," Cohen said. "You don't know what information a data broker has on you, who they're selling it to, and what the people who buy your data are doing with it. There's a real power/knowledge asymmetry." Even when state-level privacy regulations are passed (such as the California Consumer Privacy Law), those cases are often not given enough focus or resources for the laws to be enforced effectively. "Most government agencies don't have the resources to enforce privacy laws at the scale that they're being broken," Cohen said. Cohen added that she felt online behavioral advertising–that is, advertising that is based on an individual web user's specific browsing activity–should be illegal. Banning behavioral ads would "fundamentally change the financial incentive for online actors to constantly surveil" web users and share their data with brokers, Cohen said.

Note: Read more about the disturbing world of online behavioral ads, where the data isn't just used to sell products. It's often accessed by governments, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and other actors–sometimes without warrants or oversight. This turns a commercial ad system into a covert surveillance network. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.

Careless People [is] a whistleblowing book by a former [Meta] senior employee, Sarah Wynn-Williams. In the 78-page document that Wynn-Williams filed to the SEC ... it was alleged that Meta had for years been making numerous efforts to get into the biggest market in the world. These efforts included: developing a censorship system for China in 2015 that would allow a "chief editor" to decide what content to remove, and the ability to shut down the entire site during "social unrest"; assembling a "China team" in 2014 for a project to develop China-compliant versions of Meta's services; considering the weakening of privacy protections for Hong Kong users; building a specialised censorship system for China with automatic detection of restricted terms; and restricting the account of Guo Wengui, a Chinese government critic. In her time at Meta, Wynn-Williams observed many of these activities at close range. Clearly, nobody in Meta has heard of the Streisand effect, "an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove or censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information". What strikes the reader is that Meta and its counterparts are merely the digital equivalents of the oil, mining and tobacco conglomerates of the analogue era.

Note: A former Meta insider revealed that the company's policy on banning hate groups and terrorists was quietly reshaped under political pressure, with US government agencies influencing what speech is permitted on the platform. Watch our new video on the risks and promises of emerging technologies. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and Big Tech.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is releasing new information on a financier's ties to Jeffrey Epstein's operations, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee announced. Since 2022, the committee has been investigating billionaire financier Leon Black – who co-founded and previously led asset management firm Apollo Global Management as CEO and has made payments to Epstein. Wyden is calling on the Department of Justice, the Treasury and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to "lift the veil" on financial support for Epstein. Wyden sent a letter to the federal agencies, providing the new findings from the committee's investigation, which is looking into payments of at least $158 million from Black to Epstein for "purported tax and estate planning advice." Wyden says the investigation led to new evidence through federal government records that show funds from Black to Epstein were used to finance Epstein's sex trafficking operations. The Finance Committee also obtained a 2023 settlement agreement between Black and the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Under the $62 million settlement, Black gained immunity from criminal prosecution in the USVI for financially supporting Epstein, according to Wyden, noting the settlement acknowledges "Jeffrey Epstein used the money Black paid him to partially fund his operations." A major U.S. bank waited seven years to report Black's payments to Epstein to the Treasury Department.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on financial system corruption and Jeffrey Epstein's child sex and blackmail ring.

An ex-JPMorgan Chase executive testified in London court that Jeffrey Epstein knew more about what was going on at the top levels of the bank than he did. Jes Staley – who went on to become chief executive of Barclays following his stint at JPMorgan – claimed that Epstein, the convicted child sex offender and disgraced financier who died in prison in 2019, had a "remarkable ability" to gather Wall Street intel. "Mr. Epstein was also well connected within the upper levels of JPMorgan itself," Staley said during his second day in the witness box as he appealed a proposed ban and $2.3 million fine from London's financial regulatory agency. "He seemed to be aware of things relating to the bank, that I was not aware of," Staley added. Staley – who is attempting to overturn a lifetime ban that the Financial Conduct Authority announced in 2023 – acknowledged his relationship with Epstein went beyond work. In 2000, JPMorgan's then-chief executive Douglas "Sandy" Warner told Staley he should get to know Epstein, Staley claimed in his witness statement. "Sandy Warner recommended that I should become acquainted with Mr. Epstein because he was an exceptionally well connected man who could help me, in my capacity at JPM, to form business relationships with influential and other well connected individuals," he said. Staley claimed he was not the only high-level figure at JPMorgan in touch with Epstein.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on financial system corruption and Jeffrey Epstein's child sex and blackmail ring.

In his first meeting with top executives from PepsiCo, W.K. Kellogg, General Mills and other large companies, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, bluntly told them that a top priority would be eliminating artificial dyes from the nation's food supply. Later on Monday, Mr. Kennedy issued a directive that would also affect food companies nationwide. He ordered the Food and Drug Administration to revise a longstanding policy that allowed companies – independent of any regulatory review – to decide that a new ingredient in the food supply was safe. Put in place decades ago, the policy was aimed at ingredients like vinegar or salt that are widely considered to be well-understood, and benign. But the designation, known as GRAS, or "generally recognized as safe," has since grown to include a far broader array of natural and synthetic additives. Mr. Kennedy had vowed to upend the food system as a way to address growing rates of chronic disease and other health concerns even before his appointment as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. He now oversees the F.D.A. Advocates for food safety have criticized the existing GRAS policy as a loophole that enables food companies to introduce untested ingredients that in some cases have proven hazardous. About 1,000 ingredients deemed safe have been reviewed by the F.D.A., but Mr. Kennedy targeted the ones that companies deem acceptable with no government oversight.

Note: Read our latest Substack article on how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporate cartels fueling America's health crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and food system corruption.

Patients prescribed drugs for movement disorders - including restless leg syndrome (RLS) - say doctors did not warn them about serious side effects that led them to seek out risky sexual behaviour. Twenty women have told the BBC that the drugs - given to them for RLS, which causes an irresistible urge to move - ruined their lives. A report by drugs firm GSK - seen by the BBC - shows it learned in 2003 of a link between the medicines, known as dopamine agonist drugs, and what it described as "deviant" sexual behaviour. It cited a case of a man who had sexually assaulted a child while taking the drug for Parkinson's. Some of the women who described being drawn to risky sexual behaviour told us they had no idea of what was causing it. Others said they felt compelled to gamble or shop with no history of such activities. Impulsive behaviours, including gambling and increased sex drive, have long been listed as side effects in medicine leaflets for dopamine agonist drugs - and are thought to affect between 6% to 17% of RLS patients taking them, according to health guidance body NICE. The cases of what the GSK report from 2003 described as "deviant behaviour" involved two men who were prescribed Ropinirole for Parkinson's disease. In one, a 63-year-old-man sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl, leading to a custodial sentence. In the second case, a 45-year-old man carried out "uncontrolled acts of exhibitionism and indecent behaviour".

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Pharma corruption.

The Trump administration's Federal Trade Commission has removed four years' worth of business guidance blogs as of Tuesday morning, including important consumer protection information related to artificial intelligence and the agency's landmark privacy lawsuits under former chair Lina Khan against companies like Amazon and Microsoft. More than 300 blogs were removed. On the FTC's website, the page hosting all of the agency's business-related blogs and guidance no longer includes any information published during former president Joe Biden's administration. These blogs contained advice from the FTC on how big tech companies could avoid violating consumer protection laws. Removing blogs raises serious compliance concerns under the Federal Records Act and the Open Government Data Act, one former FTC official tells WIRED. During the Biden administration, FTC leadership would place "warning" labels above previous administrations' public decisions it no longer agreed with, the source said, fearing that removal would violate the law. Since President Donald Trump designated Andrew Ferguson to replace Khan as FTC chair in January, the Republican regulator has vowed to leverage his authority to go after big tech companies. Unlike Khan, however, Ferguson's criticisms center around the Republican party's long-standing allegations that social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, censor conservative speech online.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and government corruption.

Feeding incarcerated people has become big business. The food behemoth Aramark (which also services colleges, hospitals, and sports stadiums), as well as smaller corporations like Summit Correctional Services and Trinity Services Group, have inked contracts in the last decade worth hundreds of millions of dollars in prisons and jails across the country. The industry was worth almost $3.2 billion in 2022. Cell phone images smuggled out of jails and prisons across the country reveal food that hardly looks edible, let alone nutritious. At a jail in Cleveland, staff warned administrators in 2023 that the meals served by Trinity were so disgusting, that they put staff in danger. A 2020 study by the criminal justice reform advocacy group Impact Justice found that 94% of incarcerated people surveyed said they did not receive enough food to feel full. More than 60% said they rarely or never had access to fresh vegetables. Meager portions have left desperate people eating toothpaste and toilet paper. Most states spend less than $3 per person per day on prison food – and some as little as $1.02. The Food and Drug Administration's "thrifty plan" estimates that feeding an adult man "a nutritious, practical, cost-effective diet" costs about $10 per day. The major private food providers also have a stake in the booming prison commissary business, where incarcerated people can buy staples like ramen, tuna and coffee. Poor food served in the chow hall drives hungry prisoners to the commissary.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in prisons and in the food system.

US taxpayers spent an estimated $6 billion researching, developing, and implementing new blockbuster weight-loss drugs. Yet Americans are now paying pharmaceutical giants – including one in Denmark – up to eleven times more for these medicines than patients in other countries, markups that are inflating consumers' insurance premiums and risk bankrupting the country's health care system. According to data shared with the Lever by researchers at Bentley University, the federal government spent $6.2 billion from 1980 to 2024 on the discovery and development of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) molecules, as well as research on how to use GLP-1 drugs to treat diabetes, obesity, and other diseases. GLP-1, a hormone that regulates blood sugar, was the foundation of the diabetes drug Ozempic, whose 2017 approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched a wave of other GLP-1-based diabetes and weight-loss medications coming to market. More than fifteen million people nationwide currently take GLP-1-related drugs like Ozempic, bringing in more than $50 billion in sales for pharmaceutical companies in 2024 – much of which went to the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. A Senate report ... found that if half of all Medicare and Medicaid patients with obesity took Wegovy and other GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, it could cost the federal health care system $166 billion per year.

Note: The makers of these weight-loss drugs could be hit with over 10,000 lawsuits over severe adverse events from these drugs. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in government and in Big Pharma.

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.