In the 12 months that ended in March 2010, the Freedom Group, a new company created by the private investment group Cerberus Capital Management, sold 1.2 million long guns and 2.6 billion rounds of ammunition. Its rapid growth makes it a major player in the international arms market. In an in-depth report, the New York Times profiles the creation and growth of this new weapons behemoth. Stephen Feinberg, the founder and CEO of Cerberus, specializes in buying companies cheap, restructuring them and selling at a profit. In the first nine months of 2011, gun sales at the Freedom Group were up 5.6 percent.
Pharma Pays Up
It’s been a bad time in court and in the media for Big Pharma. Last week, according to the Wall Street Journal, Merck agreed to pay $950 million and plead guilty to a criminal misdemeanor charge to resolve allegations that the company promoted its now-defunct pain drug Vioxx for rheumatoid arthritis before the FDA approved it for that use. USA Today reports that in the last year the drug company Johnson and Johnson has been found liable or reached settlements totaling $751 million in taxpayer health care fraud claims and paid $70 million to settle foreign bribery charges. And in Montana, the Billings Gazette reports that Montana doctors, pharmacists and other health care professionals received $692,983 in payments and perks from drug companies between 2009 and early 2011, a practice that is legal but troubling to most patients and to medical ethicists.
The 2011 Top Ten Worst Pollution Problems Worldwide
Cross-posted from Green Cross Switzerland.
Earlier this month, Green Cross Switzerland and the US-based Blacksmith Institute released a report that presented the top ten list of the world’s worst pollution problems. Using data collected over the past three years from more than 2,000 toxic hotspots, the Environmental Report 2011 identifies the top ten sources of pollution and calculates their health impacts.
“Toxic exposure associated with mining and industrial processes all over the world is a major health risk for the affected population,” says David Hanrahan, Head of Global Program at the Blacksmith Institute.
“Despite the fact that at least as many people suffer from pollution-related illnesses as from malaria or tuberculosis, the international community does not support aid initiatives in most countries,” emphasizes Nathalie Gysi, Executive Director, Green Cross Switzerland.
Toxic chemicals are among the worst health risks
The 2011 Pollution Report calculates for the first time the impact of pollution based both on years of life lost and years spent in poor health, whereas much of the current research in environmental health focuses on the number of deaths a problem causes. Because toxic pollution often leads to crippling disability that does not always result in death, many victims are often left uncounted. This report calculates that, on average, a person impacted by the types of pollution in the top ten list could lose 12.7 years to death or disability. This measurement is called Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) and represents the sum of life years lost and years lived with disability.
Globally, The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that toxic chemical exposure was responsible for 4.9 million deaths and 86 million DALYs in 2004. The large difference between deaths and DALYs illustrates that a substantial amount of people are living with disabilities caused by exposure to chemicals. This report goes a step further and pinpoints the cause and effect by calculating DALYs for one specific community plagued by one economic activity and the toxic pollutant it releases. This allowed to more accurately and directly isolate and identify the most severe and widespread pollution problems. These surveys will serve as a tool to help prioritize future resource allocation and cleanup efforts. “The world community is called upon to provide the needed resources and commitment to eliminate the pollution sources and to address the most severe problems immediately,” says Dr. Stephan Robinson, Unit Manager (Disarmament, Water) at Green Cross Switzerland.
The 2011 Top Ten Worst Toxic Pollution Problems Worldwide:
(Ranked according to population at risk)
- Mining and ore processing; estimated population at risk: 7,02 million
- Metal smelting; estimated population at risk: 4.95 million
- Chemical production; estimated population at risk: 4.78 million
- Artisanal mining; estimated population at risk: 4.23 million
- Industrial estates; estimated population at risk: 3.86 million
- Agricultural production; estimated population at risk: 3.27 million
- Landfills with industrial and household waste; estimated population at risk: 3.21 million
- Heavy industry (casting, milling, stamping); estimated population at risk: 2.77 million
- Petrochemical industry; estimated population at risk: 1.91 million
- Tannery operations; estimated population at risk: 1.89 million
The 2011 Environmental Report is based on the estimated number of people affected by the pollutants and the number of sites identified globally where pollutants exist in concentrations above health standards. Its focus is specifically on pollutants considered “toxic” by the Blacksmith Institute Technical Advisory Board. Unlike the 2008 report, it excludes problems like indoor air pollution, which might contain nontoxic elements. It also focuses on sites with a clear, fixed source of toxic pollution that can be targeted for remediation efforts. This scope excludes pollution problems where the source is unclear or distributed – such as automobile emissions, general urban air pollution, non-point source water pollution from urban storm runoff, general household or commercial waste disposal, and oil or chemical spills from transport and distribution activities.
The report also reveals that, contrary to popular belief, many of the worst pollution problems are not caused by multi-national companies but by poorly regulated small-scale operations like artisanal mining, small-scale metal recycling, and abandoned factories. However, high-income countries are indirectly contributing to the problem in a significant way, as demand for commodities and consumer goods is largely driven by the economies of high-income countries. They thus support many of these smaller industries, adding to the severity of pollution problems in low-income countries.
Unlike the 2008 report, which included input from external experts and sources, the 2011 report is based entirely on site assessment data that Blacksmith with support from Green Cross Switzerland has collected directly at the locations with toxic pollution problems. Over the last three years, information on over 2,000 polluted sites has been catalogued, including data about concentrations of key pollutants, industrial sources, GPS coordinates, observed health effects, exposure pathways, photos, maps, and information about the potentially exposed population.
Yearly pollution reports
Since 2006, Blacksmith Institute’s yearly reports have been instrumental in increasing public understanding of the health impacts caused by the world’s worst polluted places, and in some cases, have even compelled cleanup work at these sites. Previous reports have identified the worst toxic threats and the worst pollution problems. Blacksmith reports have been issued jointly with Green Cross Switzerland since 2007.
About Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland
Blacksmith Institute is an international non-profit organization dedicated to solving life-threatening pollution issues in the developing world. It addresses a critical need to identify and clean up the world’s worst polluted places. Blacksmith focuses on places where human health, especially that of women and children, is most at risk. Based in New York, Blacksmith works cooperatively in partnerships that include governments, the international community, NGOs and local agencies to design and implement innovative, low-cost solutions to save lives. Since 1999, Blacksmith has completed over 50 projects; Blacksmith is currently engaged in over 40 projects in 20 countries.
Green Cross Switzerland facilitates overcoming consequential damages caused by industrial and military disasters and the clean-up of contaminated sites from the period of the Cold War. Central issues are the improvement of the living quality of people affected by chemical, radioactive and other types of contamination, as well as the promotion of a sustainable development in the spirit of co-operation instead of confrontation. This includes the involvement of all stakeholder groups affected by a problem. Green Cross International with headquarters in Geneva was founded in 1993 by Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union. The organization consists of a worldwide network of 32 subsidiaries committed to important issues such as peace, security, the fight against poverty and protection of the environment.
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Green Cross Switzerland
Extractive Industries, Intellectual Property and the Health of Indigenous Peoples
Because the corporate goal is to obtain the highest profit possible, not social welfare, public health or environmental sustainability, business interests often give little or no consideration to the effects of corporate practices on indigenous peoples. Thus, the estimated 257 to 370 million indigenous peoples in about 5,000 communities in 70 countries, speaking 5,000 of the 6,000 existing languages, often experience severe detrimental consequences from commercial activity. The effects of extractive industries such as mining, agricultural crops and timber, and the theft of intellectual property rights illustrate some of those consequences.
Extractive industries
In many parts of the world, indigenous people inhabit areas that have been identified as areas with abundant resources that are in demand as profitable ventures for global industries:
Forests for the logging industry; oil and gas for exploration and drilling industries; gold and other minerals for mining companies and agriculture; use of the land for mono crop farming such as tobacco, palm oil, coffee, rubber; dams on indigenous land to create lakes or use of rivers to produce electrical energy; and nature reserves established in areas where they displace the indigenous peoples living there.
These extractions are reminiscent of early European appropriation of the Americas under the concept of “terra nulius” that is, land not belonging to anyone, and therefore available for the taking, even though millions of indigenous peoples had inhabited an area for thousands of years prior to European explorations.
The various extractive industries have several effects in common relative to indigenous peoples: [1]
- The industrial operations displace indigenous people from their ancestral homes and land which have been integral to their spiritual, physical, mental and emotional life, requiring indigenous people to move to other remote but unfamiliar areas, or to migrate to the unsanitary, unhealthful fringes of urban areas with unlikely means of earning a decent livelihood. As a result the indigenous people experience social disorganization in their relationships to each other, and disruption of their relations with other indigenous group. They are forced to interact in new and unfamiliar settings with unfamiliar types of people, practices and ways of behavior.
- This displacement, dispersion and migration leads to loss of their language and culture.
- Their ancestral land may be confiscated with no or little financial remuneration for the land or for the extracted substance.
- With loss of land, they lose their traditional livelihood, subsistence farming or place for gathering food and traditional medicinal plants.
- Their sacred land or water be polluted by the extractive operations.
- Contacts with extractive industry workers may expose the indigenous peoples to new diseases that they then transmit to their families, neighbors and other groups of indigenous peoples.
The Case of the Nahua and Nati Peoples in Peru
Napolitano described a 20 year history of an indigenous peoples’ contact with extractive industries within a territorial reserve the government established for four groups of indigenous people in an isolated area of the Amazon River. [2] Logging of mahogany and cedar, and oil operations in or near the area during the 1970s and 1980s led to some violence against the industry operations, some displacement of one indigenous group, and interethnic clashes between groups. In about 2001, work began on a gas field concession granted by the Peruvian government, 75 percent of which was within the territorial reserve.
Loggers working in an area of the Amazon encountered members of the Nahua indigenous group. Some of the Nahua went down river and interacted with the loggers. Upon their return up river, epidemics, including pneumonia, complicated by parasites and malaria, began among the Nahua. The people were too sick to hunt, fish or harvest. There were too many dead to bury and the bodies were left on the ground. The indigenous people became dependent upon the loggers and missionaries for sustenance. Logging expanded and virtually took over the area of the indigenous people. Many of the indigenous people moved to a town but later became dissatisfied and returned to their communities. Some also worked in the logging industry. In the area occupied by another group, the Nati, a mission and a school were established where respiratory and gastrointestinal infections were brought from down river, leading to many deaths.
Epidemics of respiratory and diarrheal disease also began in company work camps where some indigenous workers also lived. Indigenous peoples’ movements between camps and their home communities facilitated the spread of disease, including scabies outbreaks from donations of clothing from worker camps to the indigenous peoples.
After extractive industries entered the area, infant mortality was high and there were fewer pregnancies, due in part to changes in traditional gender roles of food gathering and cultivation and the growth of industry jobs that led to malnutrition and thereby comprised resistance.
Intellectual Property
Pharmaceutical and agricultural corporations have an interest in commercialization of medicinal plants that indigenous peoples have developed and used over thousands of years. Collectors and researchers (that is, “bioprospectors”) travel into indigenous peoples’ territories and obtain information from them about their traditional medicinal plants, the preparation and use, and they collect and take specimens with them. They return to their labs, test the plants, develop products from the active ingredients, patent and sell them with no credit or compensation to the indigenous people. This is one aspect of what indigenous communities call “biopiracy.” [3]
A similar process sometimes occurs with indigenous food crop seeds that indigenous people have produced through selective genetic breeding research over centuries. The corporation sells those patented seeds to farmers and prohibits the farmers from saving seeds from their own crops for the next year, and requires them to buy company seeds. In some areas of India where this has occurred, the suicides of many farmers has been attributed to the poverty that resulted from this process.
There is commercial interest in mapping the genomes of indigenous peoples in order to develop new medications and other treatments. Indigenous people have had their blood specimens taken and used for this purpose without their permission, and without any compensation for the products developed from the research on their tissue.
Some indigenous cultures have beliefs about extracting bodily parts, contact with human tissue and specific practices for discarding tissue that may not be respected by those who collect the specimens.
The symbols and designs of indigenous peoples have been used in commercial products without their permission and without financial compensation. Without a history of private ownership, patents and copyright of art is a new concept to indigenous peoples, requiring them to learn about and develop new procedures and practices.
Protection of Indigenous Rights
United Nations
Within the United Nations, progress has been made toward protecting indigenous peoples’ rights:
1. In 2000 the Permanent Forum on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was established,
2. In 2001 the Office of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people was established,
3. In 2007 the “Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” was passed (but not by all countries).
There are several specific articles in the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that are particularly relevant:
Article 24 is the right to conserve their medicinal plants, animals and minerals;
Article 26 is the right to lands, territories and resources they traditionally owned, occupied, used or acquired;
Article 28 is the right to compensation for their lands, territories and resources that have been confiscated, taken, occupied, used or damaged;
Article 29 is the right to control, develop and protect their sciences, technologies and cultural manifestations.
Declarations
The 2009 Declaration of the International Conference on Extractive Industries and Indigenous Peoples specifically asks the extractive industry to abide by certain safeguards and precautions:
- Respect international standards on the right to lands, territories and resources and attendant rights;
- Submit to independent and credible monitoring;
- Be accountable for the environmental disasters, destruction and human rights violations as a result of their operations;
- Employ proven technology and adhere to the precautionary principle at all levels and in each project;
- Recognize the specific vulnerability of indigenous women to the negative impacts involved with extractive industries;
- Ensure full transparency in all aspects of their operations, and especially to ensure affected communities have full access to information in forms and languages they can understand; and
- Conduct and implement environmental, social, cultural, and human rights impact assessments to the highest international standards ensuring independent review and participation of indigenous peoples.
A Role for Public Health
The public health profession can take a variety of actions to address the effects of commerce on the health of indigenous peoples.
- Strive continuously to make the issues of indigenous people visible in discussions about commerce and health, and to bear witness to injustices resulting from business;
- Engage indigenous organizations and individuals in health professions organizations, and collaborate with them;
- Ensure that there are public health programs to address personal health and environmental health issues wherever commerce intersects with indigenous peoples;
- Create specific official organizational policies to support indigenous rights and health in policy processes and commercial agreements.
References
1. Mander, J. & Tauli-Corpuz, V. Paradigm wars: Indigenous peoples’ resistance to globalization. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2006.
2. Napolitano, D.A. Towards understanding the health vulnerability of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in the Amazon rainforest: Experiences from the Kugapakori Nahua reserve, Peru. EcoHealth 2007; 4, 515-531.
3. Gheorghiu, V.A. Sailing The seas of treaties: Biopiracy in the wake of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Fourth World Journal, 2007; 7 (2), 1-39.
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Kraft to Introduce New Energy Drink Despite Health Concerns
Kraft Foods Inc. will enter the energy drink market by launching trial caffeinated versions of its popular MiO drink starting around the new year, reports the International Business Times. Kraft spokeswoman Bridget MacConnell said it’s a near-$6 billion market annually. “We think it’s a terrific product,” MacConnell told the Times. “Consumers have told us this is something they’re looking for. We’re very positive.” A recent review of the scientific literature on energy drinks in the medical journal Pediatrics concluded that, “energy drinks have no therapeutic benefit, and many ingredients are understudied and not regulated. The known and unknown pharmacology of agents included in such drinks, combined with reports of toxicity, raises concern for potentially serious adverse effects in association with energy-drink use.”
New Website Helps Marketers Target African-Americans
The Cabletelevsion Advertising Bureau, a trade organization, has launched a new website to help advertisers reach African-American markets. Reachingblackconsumers.com, says Cynthia Perkins-Roberts, VP of Multicultural Marketing & Sales Development for the Bureau, is a “groundbreaking new website” that “synthesizes all the expert data on today’s Black consumer, in one convenient place.”
State-Level Ramifications of the Citizens United Decision
In January 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opinion,[1] which changed the laws that determine how corporations participate in the political process. Specifically, Citizens United overturned laws that prevented corporations from using their own funds for advertisements that support or oppose candidates running for elected office. A corporation can now spend unlimited monies to run advertisements that support candidates whose platforms it favors and to oppose candidates whose stated positions are contrary to its own interests.
On its face, the decision did not concern health, but its ramifications will likely have significant impacts for health policy, the delivery of health care, and public health initiatives.[2],[3] For example, corporations can examine incumbent legislators’ voting records on particular issues (e.g., menu-labeling requirements for restaurants) and, if candidates have voted against their interests, corporations can finance advertisements against their re-election. Similarly, corporations can now fund advertisements that support the re-election of candidates with voting records that support their interests. The potential for well-funded political advertisements may dramatically affect some legislators’ votes on important health issues, particularly if they seek to avoid a series of negative corporation-funded advertisements in the final weeks of their re-election campaigns.
In recent months, the Citizens United decision—which concerned regulatory actions taken by the federal government—has raised potential concerns in many U.S. states. Approximately half of the states have laws that entirely prohibit or partially restrict corporations’ ability to fund advertisements in advance of political elections. Several states initially considered repealing these laws, in anticipation of fallout from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United opinion.[4] The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has noted that “it is likely that states will choose not to enforce these laws [that prevent corporations from funding political advertisements], which has the potential to radically change the political landscape.”[5]
Since 2010, several states have indeed amended or repealed laws that seemed to conflict with Citizens United. For example, according to NCSL, Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia have repealed laws that prevented corporations from directly funding political advertisements. In addition, several state courts have heard challenges to their state laws that prohibit corporation-funded political advertisements.
National attention turned to Montana this September, when its Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the constitutionality of its century-long ban on political advertisements funded by corporations.[6] The case began when several corporations—Western Tradition Partnership, Inc., Champion Painting, Inc., and Montana Shooting Sports Association, Inc.—brought a lawsuit in which they alleged that the state’s Corrupt Practices Act of 1912 was unconstitutional in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. The act states, “A corporation may not make a contribution or an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political committee that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party.”[7]
The state of Montana presented several arguments in favor of the constitutionality of the Corrupt Practices Act. The state’s legal team also explained that the act had been drafted in response to “early corporate domination of state government,”[8] specifically “to limit the inordinate influence of the copper mining companies and their owners, known as the Copper Kings, over Montana politics. . .”[9] In October 2010, a lower Montana court held that the Corrupt Practices Act was unconstitutional after the Citizens United decision.
Shortly after the decision was released, Montana’s Attorney General, Steve Bullock, issued a statement in which he expressed his intention to appeal the ruling. He explained that:
“This isn’t just about our history: two former secretaries of state and other experts in the field testified that an influx of corporate spending will corrupt the political process and drown out the voices of everyday Montanans. . . While I have a great deal of respect for the district court, the people of Montana have long said that its citizens, not corporations, should decide the outcome of elections.”[10]
In briefs submitted in anticipation of the case’s appellate hearing, Bullock, representing the state of Montana, argued that under the Corrupt Practices Act, corporations are still able to participate in the state’s political processes. The brief stated that,
“No other corporations have challenged Montana’s law in one hundred years. Still, one would have to ignore the record—and Montana history and politics—to suggest. . . that corporations have been silenced for the past century. To the contrary, corporations are active participants in Montana politics through accountable means such as the political committee requirements applicable to other organizations that seek to associate for campaign purposes. It is undisputed that within this system, corporations large and small are heavily involved in Montana politics through expenditures, contributions by managers, and lobbying.”[11]
In response, the plaintiffs, led by Western Tradition Partnership, argued that the Corrupt Practices Act “expressly prohibits corporations from making independent expenditures at a critical time during our election process; i.e., the campaign for political office. Furthermore, even if [corporate] managers can make expenditures, the manager is not the corporation, just as a PAC [political action committee] is not the corporation.”[12] Numerous organizations submitted amicus (i.e., friend of the court) briefs in anticipation of this fall’s oral argument.[13] The oral argument before Montana’s Supreme Court occurred on Sept. 21, 2011, and the court will likely announce its decision within the next few months.[14]
Because states have broad powers to act to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their residents, they often serve as public health innovators. The extent to which states choose to pursue efforts to protect and promote the public’s health often depends on the composition of the state’s legislature, and the priorities of its elected members. In the period leading up to an election, the public receives information about political candidates through the media, which includes advertisements that support or oppose particular individuals. If Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act is overturned, corporations will have an expanded ability to fund these types of advertisements, which may dramatically influence who Montanans vote into office.
Jennifer Pomeranz is the Director of Legal Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University. She publishes and speaks on issues related to marketing to children, regulating unhealthy products, labeling, weight bias, and the government’s role in obesity and food policy.
References
[1] Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010).
[2] Rutkow L, Vernick JS, Teret SP, The potential health effects of Citizens United, New Eng J Med 2010;362:1356-1358.
[3] Wiist WH, Citizens United, public health, and democracy: the Supreme Court ruling, its implications, and proposed action, Am J Public Health 2011;101:1172-1179.
[4] National Conference of State Legislatures, State laws affected by Citizens United, 2011, at http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=19607#laws.
[5] National Conference of State Legislatures, Life after Citizens United, 2011, at http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=19607#intro.
[6] Charles E. Johnson, Corporate political spending goes before Montana Supreme Court Wednesday, Missoulian, Sept. 19, 2011.
[7] Mont. Code Ann. § 13-35-227 (2010).
[8] Brief of Appellant at 2, Western Tradition Partnership, Inc., et al. v. Montana Attorney General et al., No. DA 11-0081 (Apr. 15, 2011).
[9] Charles E. Johnson, Judge throws out Montana’s ban on corporate campaign spending, Missoulian, Oct. 19, 2010.
[10] Office of the Montana Attorney General, Bullock releases statement on corporate electioneering case, Oct. 18, 2010.
[11] Appellant Reply and Answer to Cross Appeal at 9, Western Tradition Partnership, Inc., et al. v. Montana Attorney General et al., No. DA 11-0081 (June 10, 2011).
[12] Appellees and Cross-Appellants’ Reply Brief at 9, Western Tradition Partnership, Inc., et al. v. Montana Attorney General et al., No. DA 11-0081 (July 1, 2011).
[13] Charles E. Johnson, Corporate political spending goes before Montana Supreme Court Wednesday, Missoulian, Sept. 19, 2011.
[14] Charles E. Johnson, Montana Supreme court grills attorney general on corporate spending ban, Missoulian, Sept. 21, 2011.
Image Credits:
1. Ilaannaa via Flickr.
2. Public Citizen via Flickr
Pharmacists Fight Higher Drug Prices
A national coalition of US pharmacists and pharmacy owners has begun a public information campaign to “expose the unjustifiably high prices of prescription drugs set by pharmacy benefits managers [PBMs],” reports PharmaTimes. The coalition Pharmacists United for Truth and Transparency, which has members in 40 US states, describes PBMs as an “unregulated, multibillion-dollar industry” that controls prescription health plans for more than 200 million Americans. The coalition says it began the campaign to protect benefit plan sponsors and enrollees from overpaying for prescription drugs.
Federal Judge Blocks Graphic Warnings on Cigarette Packs
On November 7, a federal judge blocked implementation of a law that would have mandated tobacco companies to include on cigarette packages graphic pictures and messages showing the dangers of smoking. In his preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said the tobacco companies had shown a substantial likelihood of success, and that allowing the labeling requirements to proceed would cause them to “suffer irreparable harm.” He further said that the public’s “interest in the protection of its First Amendment rights against unconstitutionally compelled speech would be furthered.” According to CNN, Richard Daynard, a professor at Northeastern University Law School and head of the Tobacco Products Liability Project, said the case may not be resolved for years, and the matter is an urgent one. “Even a relatively modest percentage improvement or a percentage reduction in initiation or continued use will potentially save tens of thousands of lives per year,” he said.
LittleSis: A Tool for Activists and Researchers
Want to learn more about who-knows-who at the heights of business and government? For those interested in knowing where a certain politician is getting his or her funding, finding out what individuals sit on which corporate boards, or learning more about the networks that connect the most powerful people in the world, the website LittleSis is a helpful tool. The site is a self-proclaimed, “‘involuntary Facebook’ of powerful people and organizations,” aiming to bring “transparency to networks of influence, tracking the key relationships between politicians, corporate executives, lobbyists, financiers, and their affiliated organizations.”
LittleSis, the name a play on “Big Brother,” was developed by the Public Accountability Initiative(PAI), founded in 2008 by Kevin Conner and Matthew Skomarovsky. According to its website, PAI is a “nonprofit, non-partisan research and educational organization focused on corporate and government accountability,” whose mission is “to facilitate and produce investigative research that empowers citizens to hold their leaders accountable.” To further its mission, PAI set up LittleSis so that citizens can better understand the relationships and financial actions of powerful people and their networks. LittleSis is a free database of who knows who in the top positions of business and government.LittleSis supports the work of journalists, watchdogs and grassroots activists by documenting where individuals in positions of power work, who they know, and who they donate to. This information is already publicly available, but the goal of LittleSis is to bring it all together in one place so that it can be a useful tool for revealing the social networks that have the greatest influence over U.S. public policy. In addition to being a searchable database, LittleSis also has a blog, called Eyes on the Ties, that helps readers keep up with the shifting networks in the database.
To explore how LittleSis can be used, I decided to see what I could find out about James Skinner, the CEO of the McDonald’s Corporation. Here’s what I learned:
James A. Skinner, who has been CEO of McDonald’s since 2004, is also on the Board of Directors of two other corporations, Illinois Toolworks and the Walgreens drug store chain. He has contributed money to the Illinois Republican Party, John McCain, the Republican National Committee, Mitt Romney, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and McDonalds Corporation Political Action Committee, among others. Skinner is also on the Board of Catalyst, a leading nonprofit membership organization that defines its mission as expanding opportunities for women and business.
Skinner sits on boards of other organizations with 229 other people, including:
- Judith Dimon, the wife of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon;
- William F. Aldinger III, who is President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Capmark Financial Group Inc., a commercial real estate finance company, and also serves on the boards of AT&T Inc., KKR Financial Corp. and The Charles Schwab Corporation;
- William M. Goodyear, Past Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bank of America,
- Barbara Paul Robinson, a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP;
- Enrique Hernandez Jr, President & CEO of Inter-Con Security Systems and a director at Wells Fargo.
Following a link to McDonald’s Corporation, we learn that McDonald’s has hired Michael Tiner as a lobbyist, paying him $390,000 between 1999 and 2008. Tiner has also served as lobbyist for the agribusiness company Amgen. We learn that James Simons, a former mathematician whose quantitative hedge fund returned 73 percent net of fees – as high as 5 percent of assets and 40 percent of profits – in 2007, owns 8,165,300 shares of McDonalds. These random factbits illustrate the world in which McDonald’s operates and show its multiple connections to the financial sector, responsible for many of the nation’s current economic woes.
Anyone can contribute to the LittleSis database by signing up on the website. Users can add to the database, fill in gaps, and correct errors. In addition to the online community of researchers, LittleSis gets its information from government filings, news articles and other sources. Because the database is so participant-driven, there is no guarantee that all of the information will be completely accurate all of the time.
“LittleSis is an experiment – an ambitious one – in the world of crowd-sourcing of transparency and accountability efforts,” says Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, one of the original funders of LittleSis. “It empowers us all to be our own best watchdogs and collectively develop an unprecedented, authoritative database of information on the powers that be.”
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LittleSis.org
Corporations and Health Watch 
