...percent the population believes each the following industries to be "generally honest and trustworthy:" tobacco companies (3 percent); oil companies (3 percent); managed care companies such as HMOs (5 percent); health insurance companies (7 percent); telephone companies (10 percent); life insurance companies (10 percent); online retailers (10 percent); pharmaceutical and drug companies (11 percent); car manufacturers (11 percent); airlines (11 percent); packaged food companies (12 percent); electric and gas utilities (15 percent). Only 32 percent of adults said they trusted the best-rated industry about which Harris surveyed, supermarkets.

These are remarkable numbers. It is very hard to get this degree of agreement about anything. By way of comparison, 79 percent of U.S. adults believe the earth revolves around the sun; 18 percent say it is the other way around.

The Harris results are not an aberration. The results have not varied considerably over the past five years--although overall trust levels have actually declined from the already very low threshold in 2003.

The Harris results are also in line with an array of polling data showing deep concern about concentrated corporate power.

An amazing 84 percent told Harris in a poll earlier in 2007 that big companies have too much power in Washington. By contrast, only 47 percent said that labor unions have too much power in Washington (compared to 42 percent who said labor has too little power), and 18 percent said nonprofit organizations have too much power in Washington.

These results have proven durable. At least 80 percent of the public has ranked big companies as having too much power in Washington since 1994. In 2000, Business Week and Harris asked a broader question: Has business gained too much power over too many aspects of American life? Seventy-four percent agreed.

The November 2007 poll also asked about support for measures to control corporations. These results are eye-opening as well, though perhaps not in the expected way.

Harris asked which industries "should be more regulated by government--for example for health, safety or environmental reasons--than they are now?" Only oil companies (53 percent), pharmaceutical companies (53 percent) and health insurance companies (52 percent) crossed the 50 percent threshold. Even the tobacco industry managed to escape in the survey with only 41 percent favoring greater regulation. The data trends significantly negative--against greater regulation--over the last five years.

Does this show that while people distrust Big Business, they equally distrust the government to constrain corporate power?

No.

The U.S. skepticism to regulation is only skin deep. When polls present specific regulatory proposals for consideration, U.S. public support is typically strong and often overwhelming--even when arguments against government action are presented.

For example:

* After hearing arguments for and against, 76 percent favor granting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over tobacco, with 22 percent opposed.

* After hearing arguments for and against, 75 percent favor legislation that would significantly increase energy efficiency, including auto fuel efficiency standards, and the use of renewable energy.

* Eighty-five percent favor country-of-origin labeling for meat, seafood, produce and grocery products, and three quarters favor a legislative mandate.

* Seventy-one percent say it is important that drugs remain under close review by the FDA and drug companies after they have been placed on the market.

* And, from a Harris finding a week after the poll showing skepticism about industry regulation in general, the polling agency found that those who think there is too little government regulation in the area of environmental protection outpaced those who think there is too much by a more than 2-to-1 margin (53 to 21 percent).

What the Harris findings on attitudes to regulation do show is that the business campaign against regulation as an abstract concept has been very successful.

It highlights the need for consumer, environmental, labor and other corporate accountability advocates to defend the concept of regulation, and to connect the rampant corporate abuses in society with the deregulation and non-regulatory failures of the last three decades. There's little doubt that the general public attitude toward regulation significantly affects the willingness of politicians--none too eager to offend business patrons in the first place--to take on corporate power.

With the 10 Worst Corporations of 2007, we aim to show--again--that Big Business is out of control and to connect comparable abuses to the failure of government overseers, regulators and enforcers.

The task ahead is to reassert the supremacy of the people over corporations, and for democratic government to impose controls and limits on what corporations can and cannot do.

Presented alphabetically, here are the 10 Worst Corporations of 2007:

ABBOTT: BLACKMAILING THAILAND

Imagine you are the only pharmacist in an isolated town. You impose massive mark-ups on the drugs you sell. A customer needs a life-saving medication, but can't afford your high price. So, the customer finds a pharmacy in a faraway town, which agrees to supply the medicine for a quarter of your price.

Then the customer comes back. She needs several other medicines that you sell, and is willing to pay your standard profiteering price. At least one of those medicines is not available at the other pharmacy, or anywhere else.

You refuse to sell the medicines, unless the customer agrees to stop buying the life-saving medicine from the other pharmacy.

If you engaged in this kind of behavior in the United States, you would be in violation of the U.S. pharmacist code of ethics, which commands that "a pharmacist promotes the good of every patient in a caring, compassionate and confidential manner." You would also be breaking the law in most, if not all, states.

Should the ethical and legal treatment be any more lenient if it's not a pharmacist refusing to serve an individual, but a pharmaceutical company--motivated solely by retaliatory animus--denying medicines to an entire country? Doesn't denying medicines on a mass scale out of animus merit harsh punishment?

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Consider the case of Abbott Laboratories in Thailand.

In January 2007, Thailand issued a compulsory license on an AIDS drug made by Abbott. A compulsory license is a lawful authorization of generic competition for a product that remains on patent. In Thailand's case, the government issued a license that would enable its public health sector to buy generic versions of lopinavir/ritonavir, sold by Abbott under the brand-name Kaletra.

Kaletra is a very important second-line AIDS drug, used for patients who have developed resistance to first-line drugs. One reason Kaletra is so important is that Abbott has endeavored to prevent other companies from combining ritonavir, which makes other AIDS drugs more effective, with products they control [see "The 10 Worst Corporations of 2004," Multinational Monitor, December 2004].

Thailand is a leader among developing countries in providing treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS. Its treatment program started early and covers most people with HIV. The natural progression of treatment is that people need to shift drugs over time, and an increasing number of Thais living with HIV now need Kaletra.

Abbott has a discount program for Kaletra for developing countries, but its discount price for middle-income countries like Thailand was $2,200 per person per year. Thailand's per capita income is under $3,000, according to the World Bank.

In a detailed white paper explaining its decision, the Thai government estimated that 50,000 Thais will need second-line treatment in the near future. The cost of providing lopinavir/ritonavir at Abbott's price to this population would be more than the entire current budget for AIDS drugs, according to the government. Within a year of the license, according to Thailand's National Health Security Office, the government had managed to triple the number of people receiving lopinavir/ritonavir, to roughly 2,500. The white paper estimated the government would be able to shift 8,000 people onto lopinavir/ritonavir based on the immediate cost savings from buying generic. That number will grow as generic costs fall over time.

Big Pharma viewed Thailand's actions as a major threat. Most worrisome to the industry was the example Thailand set. "There could be 'a spreading epidemic of disrespect for IP [intellectual property] rights,'" Billy Tauzin, head of PhRMA, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry trade association, said in May.

Although Thailand's actions were consistent with its obligations under national and international law, Big Pharma was able to employ the U.S. government (as well as the European Union) to pressure Thailand. In April 2007, the U.S. Trade Representative designated Thailand a "priority watch" country, a designation indicating it to be a serious violator of U.S. patent and copyright interests, and triggering close scrutiny from U.S. trade officials [see "Big Pharma and AIDS: Act II Patents and the Price of Second-Line Treatment," Multinational Monitor, March/April 2007].

Abbott executives also took matters into their own hands. In March, the company withdrew applications to market seven new medicines in Thailand. One of those medicines was the heat-stable formulation of lopinavir/ritonavir--meaning it does not require refrigeration, an important consideration in a tropical country like Thailand.

Public health advocates in Thailand and around the world reacted with outrage.

"What Abbott has done by withdrawing seven drugs from Thailand is using drugs as a bargaining chip," says Jon Ungphakorn, the executive secretary of the AIDS Access Foundation in Thailand. "This is unacceptable; it is a moral outrage that Abbott is doing this. It's playing games, not only with the patients in Thailand, but with patients all over the world. Abbott knows that what it's doing is intimidating the whole developing world against using the same measures--legal measures--that Thailand has used to get access."

Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer, director of Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders' Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, agreed. "What Abbott is doing is trying to protect high drug prices by actively denying an entire population access to new medicines it produces," Dr. von Schoen-Angerer said. "This is as unprecedented as it is shocking. We consider it unethical and utterly unacceptable."

Abbott declined repeated requests from Multinational Monitor to comment on the dispute.

Campaigners in Thailand called for a boycott of Abbott. In April, health advocates around the world held coordinated protests against the drug multinational.

Its hard-line approach notwithstanding, Abbott was not immune to the market pressure applied by Thailand. In demonstrating how it could reduce prices for Kaletra by 75 percent, Thailand was laying out a road map for other middle-income countries. In April, Abbott reduced its price for Kaletra for middle-income countries from $2,200 to $1,000.

The pressure campaign on Abbott also had some effect. In July, the company announced it would register its pediatric formulation for Kaletra in Thailand.

Otherwise, Abbott continues to maintain its new-drug boycott of Thailand.

Should denying medicines as a form of collective punishment be legal in a civilized world?

Actually, it's not so obvious that Abbott's actions are legal.

In April, a coalition of Thai consumer and health organizations--the Foundation for Consumers, AIDS Access Foundation, the Thai Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS and the Thai NGO Coalition on AIDS--filed a complaint with the Thai Trade Competition Commission. It called for the instigation of criminal prosecution against Abbott.

Sean Fynn, associate director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University's Washington College of Law, prepared a supporting memorandum for the health and consumer groups' complaint.

Explains Flynn, "Abbott's response to the compulsory license--withholding a new version of its Kaletra product from the Thai market--appears to directly contravene the Thai Competition Act which prohibits 'suspending, reducing or restricting services, production, purchase, distribution, deliveries or importation without justifiable reasons.' An unwillingness to comply with a legal and justifiable government order cannot be a 'justifiable reason' for suspending the supply of life-saving medicines to Thai citizens."

In December, however, the Thai Trade Competition Commission declined to pursue the complaint. It argued that Abbott does not have sufficient market share--even though it has a monopoly on its patented medicines--to trigger the terms of the country's competition law.

BLACKWATER: DEADLY COWBOYS IN IRAQ

On September 16, 2007, Blackwater private military contractors escorting a State Department convoy in Iraq fired machine guns and grenade launchers at civilians at a busy intersection. Seventeen civilians died.

The incident crystallized Iraqi fury at the unaccountable, cowboy-like actions of foreign military contractors (the polite term for mercenaries). Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the company should be ejected from Iraq. The Iraqi Minister of Interior reportedly suspended the company's right to operate outside of the Green Zone.

Blackwater said its personnel operated properly in the incident, but numerous reports and news accounts blamed the company's contractors for the slaughter.

In the wake of the incident, attention in Washington suddenly focused on the legal Twilight Zone in which U.S.-employed private contractors operate--not subject to Iraqi law, U.S. military law or U.S. civilian law.

But, in the subsequent months, attention has died down. Blackwater continues to operate in Iraq, with no more accountability than existed on September 15.

The investigations that followed the September 16 massacre did establish two things beyond any doubt. First, the September 16 incident was not exceptional. It fit a pattern of outrageous conduct by Blackwater contractors. Second, Blackwater was representative of a broader problem of reliance on private contractors.

Blackwater was founded in 1997 by Erik Prince, an ex-Navy Seal and scion of a prominent Michigan Republican family.

Its business is based almost entirely on servicing the U.S. government, though it has designs on providing military services to other countries. Prince says that 90 percent of the company's business is contracts with the U.S. government. He testified before the House Oversight Committee in October that he could not--or would not--say how much the company earned. He did testify that key contracts paid the company a 10 percent profit rate.

Blackwater obtained more than $1 billion in contracts from the U.S. government from 2001...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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