UK

Revealed: how Sunak dropped smoking ban amid lobbying from tobacco firms


Rob Davies and Matthew Chapman

THE GUARDIAN
Fri, 28 June 2024

Rishi Sunak at Haughton academy in Darlington, England, in January, where he outlined plans to ban single-use vapes.Photograph: Ian Forsyth/AP

Rishi Sunak abandoned his “legacy” policy to ban smoking for future generations amid a backlash from the tobacco industry in the form of legal threats, lobbying and a charm offensive aimed at Conservative MPs, an investigation reveals.

The UK had been on course to become the first country to ban smoking for future generations, via the tobacco and vaping bill, which Downing Street hoped would help define Sunak’s place in British political history.

An investigation by the Guardian and the Examination, a non-profit newsroom that investigates global health threats, has uncovered how the UK’s largest cigarette companies fought against the policy, which would have raised the smoking age by one year every year.


After months of fierce opposition from the industry – and intervention from MPs and thinktanks with ties to tobacco firms – the proposal was excluded from the “wash-up” process, when outgoing governments choose which policies to fast-track and which to drop.

The policy, which in effect banned smoking for anyone born after 2009, was left out despite MPs having voted in favour of it.

Documents and freedom of information requests reveal how four of the world’s largest tobacco firms – the UK’s Imperial Brands and British American Tobacco (BAT), Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and US-headquartered Philip Morris International (PMI) – put ministers on notice of a legal backlash.

Imperial and BAT wrote to the health secretary, Victoria Atkins, in February, to claim the consultation process preceding legislation was “unlawful” because industry views had not been considered.

The Department of Health and Social Care has said it did not need to consider industry views, pointing to guidance included in a World Health Organization global treaty, signed by the UK, that says governments should form smoking policy without influence from cigarette companies.

The Marlboro-owner PMI and JTI, which makes Camel and Benson & Hedges, said the treaty permitted interactions with cigarette firms if they were “necessary”.

Imperial, which owns Lambert & Butler and Gauloises, followed up its warning with a legal letter threatening a “judicial review” challenging the consultation process.

Government lawyers responded by saying legal action might “derail” a bill that ministers believed could save tens of thousands of lives and billions of pounds in NHS costs.

BAT, JTI and PMI were named as interested parties in Imperial’s letter, giving them the right to join as co-claimants if a judicial review went ahead.

Imperial, which sells half of all of the cigarettes smoked in the UK, has not filed court proceedings but a spokesperson said the company was “keeping the situation under review as we monitor legislative developments”.

The legal threats came after the industry opposed the legislation in its submissions to the consultation, despite claiming publicly that they wanted to phase out cigarettes.

PMI’s chief executive, Jacek Olczak, indicated in 2021 interviews that it could stop selling cigarettes in the UK within 10 years.

However, the company’s UK subsidiary told the consultation it “did not support the age of sale ban as outlined”, arguing instead for “further restrictions” on “combustible tobacco” – ie cigarettes – instead of an outright ban.

PMI told the Guardian the bill risked “confusing” consumers because it included restrictions on some smoke-free products such as vapes, adding that it “firmly believes in phasing out cigarettes, to the benefit of the 6.4 million adult smokers in the UK”.

BAT, which has previously advocated for a “smokeless” future, proposed raising the age of sale to 21 instead.

As the government pressed ahead with its plans despite opposition, tobacco firms courted rightwing and libertarian Tory MPs. In January, three months after Sunak announced his policy on smoking, the then Clacton MP, Giles Watling, attended a “business lunch” with officials from JTI. Two months later, he went to the company’s annual party at the British Museum in London.

In May, he proposed an amendment that would have replaced Sunak’s proposals with a new minimum age of 21.

“We are strongly of the opinion that engagement results in better and more informed policy and is therefore in the best interests of all relevant parties,” JTI said. Watling did not return requests for comment.

Other MPs targeted by the tobacco industry included the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch. The Imported Tobacco Products Advisory Council wrote to her in March complaining about the “open dismissal of industry views in the decision making process”.

Its secretary general, Tatiana Camacho, accused the health department of “taking a position that seems to go against the spirit of collaboration and inclusiveness”.

A month later Badenoch voted against the smoking ban at its second reading in the Commons, posting on X at the time: “The principle of equality under the law is a fundamental one … We should not treat legally competent adults differently in this way, where people born a day apart will have permanently different rights.”

Two Conservative MPs, including Badenoch’s closest political aide, also attended a lunch and drinks reception hosted by the smoking lobby group Forest, days before the tobacco bill was in effect shelved.

The Beat the Ban event, at Boisdale restaurant in Belgravia, London, featured beermats depicting Sunak as a nanny, an allusion to the ban being a “nanny state” measure.

Badenoch’s parliamentary private secretary, Alexander Stafford, attended alongside fellow Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell. Tobacco lobbyists present included Camacho and Richard Cleary, who left Badenoch’s department to join Imperial in January.

Stafford has said he does not smoke but opposed the ban as a “lover of freedom, a lover of choice and a lover of information”.

He and Rosindell did not return a request for comment.

The Forest director Simon Clark said the organisation did not seek to persuade MPs who attended to oppose the bill becoming law but did outline the group’s position in a speech.

The government also came under pressure from rightwing thinktanks funded by the tobacco industry during the consultation process.

In total, there were 307 responses in which the respondent disclosed ties to the tobacco industry, including from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and Adam Smith Institute. Both have received funding from JTI, while the IEA has also received money from Imperial and BAT.

BAT, the owner of Lucky Strike and Rothmans, said: “We are clear that combustible cigarettes pose serious health risks, and the only way to avoid these risks is not to start smoking or to quit.

“However, we do not believe that a generational sales ban will have the desired impact given the serious unintended consequences that are likely to follow, such as age verification being difficult to manage, and an increase in illicit trading.”

The Conservative party did not return requests for comment.

Tories 'highly alarmed' by network of pro-Russian Facebook pages interfering in UK election

ABC Investigations / By Michael Workman and Kevin Nguyen

abc.net.au

UK Reform leader Nigel Farage was criticised after claiming the West provoked Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

(Reuters: Jeff Overs/BBC)

Revelations of foreign interference in the UK election, uncovered by the ABC, have been described as "highly alarming" by the Conservative Party, which will be writing to the Cabinet Office seeking urgent advice about how to combat it.

Ahead of the UK elections, the ABC has been monitoring five coordinated Facebook pages which have been spreading Kremlin talking points, with some posting in support of Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK party — a key challenger to the Conservatives in the July 4 poll.

The five pages identified by ABC Investigations as being part of a coordinated network appear to have little in common. One page presents itself as a pro-refugee left-wing group, while others reference white supremacist conspiracy theories and use AI-generated images of asylum seekers to stoke anti-immigration fears.

The ABC has been able to link these seemingly disparate pages by examining the location data attached to the pages' administrators, tracking paid ads, and by analysing the pages' similar or shared content.

Reform UK is a rival to the UK Conservative party, which is projected to be wiped out in the July 4 election.

( Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images)

The ABC shared its findings with disinformation experts, who said the network's activity had the hallmarks of a Russian influence operation.

"For me, it's Russian," said AI Forensics head of research Salvatore Romano.

AI Forensics is a European non-profit research organisation that published research in April about a covert influence operation called "Doppelganger", and found that Facebook ads with pro-Russian messages were targeting EU voters. These ads, which reached more than 38 million users, were linked to EU-sanctioned Russian businessmen.

"Now if you ask Putin, Putin may say 'no, it's not us'," Mr Romano said.

"What is the smoking gun? Do you need to see these people behind their desks with the Russian flag?"

Examples of AI-generated anti-immigration images posted by the pro-Russian far-right Facebook pages. "Fake Image" label added by the ABC.(Supplied: Facebook)

The ABC also shared its findings with the UK's main political parties.

"This is highly alarming," a Conservative Party spokesperson told the ABC.

"We have seen this kind of activity from hostile states before and will be writing to the Cabinet Office to see what can be done about it".
Accounts run from Nigeria

Despite Meta, the parent company of Facebook, promising to take steps to address foreign interference and hate speech during the UK elections, these pages have been able to operate unchecked.

The network identified by ABC Investigations consists of five Facebook pages with a combined 190,000 followers. The pages have repeatedly shared the same images, text posts, and talking points and often post around the same time.

An example of the Facebook pages' coordination. The same caption and photo are posted at similar times.(Supplied: Facebook)

The five pages all feature criticism of several UK parties including the Conservatives and Labour. Some of these pages have supported Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, with two calling him "the people's champion".

Mr Farage came to prominence after spearheading the UK's Brexit movement. His party is standing Reform candidates in some historically Conservative seats and could intensify the electoral wipe-out the incumbent party is expected to receive on July 4.

Facebook pages for local Reform UK branches have shared some of the AI-generated anti-immigration content from these pages but there is no evidence of direct involvement by the party.

Reform UK did not respond to ABC questions.

Names of Facebook pages in pro-Russian network identified by the ABC:UK Patriots
British Patriots
Common Sense Britain
BritBlend
BeyondBorders UK

ABC's analysis of the five pages found that while they claim to be based in the UK, most of the administrators for each page are based in Nigeria, with a small number being listed as based in the UK.

All the pages have run paid ads on Facebook. "Patriotic UK" has also run political ads, with one in 2022 criticising western support of Ukraine and another this week supporting Mr Farage to win the UK election.

Ad library data showed it targeted the ads to British men who were older than 65 years old and were paid for using Nigerian currency (NGN).

The Nigerian connection is significant because previous online Russian propaganda networks were found to have been operating from Africa.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, in 2020 exposed Russia as being behind troll networks from Ghana and Nigeria, which was targeting US voters with disinformation.

Earlier this month, an ITV and Cardiff University investigation also traced a batch of suspicious accounts on TikTok that were pushing pro-Reform UK messages after a leader's debate to Nigeria.

Beyond the Nigerian connection, the five pages all promote Kremlin narratives — particularly those criticising Ukraine.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin walks to a car upon his arrival in Vietnam in Hanoi this month. (AFP: Nhac Nguyen)

The "Common Sense Britain" page shared screenshots of anti-immigrant headlines from Russia Today (RT), a Kremlin-controlled media outlet.

"Patriotic UK" shared conspiracy theories about an unfounded claim that the Jihadist terrorist attack in Moscow's Crocus City Hall in March was orchestrated by the West; around the same time the left-wing page "BritBlend" claimed Ukranian citizens had celebrated the mass murder.

The "British Patriots" page has shared a fake headline from a pro-Russian website about Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy being asked by the CIA to not embezzle money. The "BritBlend" page in a post also copy-and-pasted a video caption from "British Patriots" criticising a British parliamentarian, without sharing the video or any further context.

"BritBlend" and "BeyondBorders UK" have also criticised Ukraine, painting it as a bloodthirsty state, with the former posting "there's only one side that celebrates the death of civilians and that is Ukraine". Both pages have argued that the UK's support of Ukraine was a waste of money.

The UK election is Labour's to lose

Even loyal Conservative voices are predicting a Tory wipeout, but with Nigel Farage on the scene it won't be smooth sailing for Labour.

Britain is one of Ukraine's most steadfast supporters, both in military aid and public opinion polling. Mr Farage was criticised last week for claiming the West had provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin into invading Ukraine.

He later clarified he disliked President Putin and opposed the invasion of Ukraine, but urged President Zelenskyy to seek a peace deal.
'Division and chaos'

Disinformation expert and political communications professor at the UK's Loughborough University Andrew Chatwick said the content being pushed by the network identified by the ABC were about "sowing division and chaos".

"These kinds of campaigns can generally undermine trust in the media environment and the electoral process," he said.

"If they [these pages] are coordinated… this fits with previous patterns we have seen, for example the activities of the Russian Internet Research Agency in the United States."

Right-wing political leader Nigel Farage is shaking up UK politics ahead of the election

AI Forensics's Salvatore Romano said the ultimate benefactor of the division wrought by these networks was the Kremlin.

"We are in a critical moment where there is an escalation of international conflicts and digital warfare is basically in the middle between diplomacy and actual war," he said.

"This type of interference will intensify. It's a serious concern … it's a deliberate attack to freedom of information and a deliberate attack to democracy."

Lessons from Poland in countering Russia's disinformation campaign

Poland's response to the human tide from Ukraine is already a case study in effective crisis management. But dealing with Russian disinformation – now morphing into subversion and outright sabotage – has been a consistent problem.

Meta earlier this month launched a UK-specific "Elections Operation Center" to "identify potential threats and put mitigations in place in real time".

Meta's UK Public Policy director Rebecca Stimson said one of the company's pillars of focus would be countering covert influence operations and identifying and stopping coordinated unauthentic behaviour.

"We applied new and stronger enforcement to Russian state-controlled media, including blocking them in the EU and the UK and globally demoting their posts."

Meta was reached for comment and was provided with the ABC's findings about the five pages and at time of publication the pages were still active.

UK Labour was contacted for comment.

None of the identified pages in the pro-Russian network responded to ABC questions.

Aer Lingus pilots stage eight-hour work stoppage

PA Media
Pilots held banners as they marched at Dublin Airport on Saturday morning

BBC

Hundreds of striking Aer Lingus pilots have marched at Dublin Airport as part of an ongoing dispute with the airline over pay.

The eight-hour strike began at 05:00 local time and ended at 13:00.

The pilots, in full uniform, passed the airline’s head office before setting up a picket line at the entrance to the airport.

Aer Lingus has cancelled 120 flights on Saturday with up to 17,000 passengers affected.

The Irish Airline Pilots' Association (Ialpa) previously called for a 24% pay rise for members, and pilots began a work-to-rule on Wednesday.

Ialpa president Captain Mark Tighe said the strike action demonstrated "that they mean business".

"Our passengers are extremely important to us and unlike managers we meet them every day.

"This is not what we want, but we are left in a situation created by management whereby we are just exercising the same rights as everybody else in this country has," he told Irish broadcaster RTÉ.

Hundreds of Aer Lingus pilots march at Dublin Airport amid eight-hour strike
Union and company are due to return to Labour Court on Monday with almost 400 flights already canceled

Barry O'Halloran
Sat Jun 29 2024 - 

Some 500 Aer Lingus pilots marched in the rain around Dublin Airport on Saturday as their trade union president warned the company to accept that their pay demands were reasonable ahead of Labour Court hearings on their dispute.

Most members of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa) at the company gathered in full uniform at the Aer Lingus head office shortly after beginning an eight-hour strike at 5am to march around both Dublin Airport’s terminals to a picket line.

Pilots halted work on Saturday morning, stepping an ongoing industrial action that began this week in pursuit of a long-running pay claim. Aer Lingus has cancelled hundreds of flights in response “to protect as many services as possible”.

Saturday’s turnout hit 500 from around the Republic, out of a full pilot crew of 766, according to union estimates. Those who were not there were out of the State or unable to show up for reasons including rules requiring pilots to rest between flying.

Aer Lingus cancelled flights: Full list of 270 services disrupted due to industrial action

Hundreds of Aer Lingus pilots march at Dublin Airport amid eight-hour strike



Ryanair rejects claims of price hikes as Aer Lingus customers scramble for flights


Union overseeing pilots’ group tells other Aer Lingus staff to work as normal



Speaking on the picket line, Ialpa president Capt Mark Tighe declared the number “pitching up on a soft Irish summer’s morning like this” spoke volumes for pilots’ confidence in their pay claim.

[ Aer Lingus pilots are unlikely revolution leaders but wages will have to rise for social peace ]

Ialpa, part of trade union Fórsa, is seeking an increase of more than 20 per cent. Capt Tighe noted the union had moderated its stance significantly through 22 months of talks with Aer Lingus, including at negotiations that broke down on Thursday.

Pilots say their demand will cost the company less than €5 million extra a year, but Aer Lingus argues the figure is closer to €40 million.

The union and company are due at the Labour Court on Monday in a fresh bid to resolve the row, which has prompted the airline to cancel almost 400 flights, including 120 as a result of Saturday’s strike.

“We now look to the company and the Labour Court to acknowledge the reasonableness of our claim,” Capt Tighe said.

He added that the union hoped next week’s move to the court would resolve the dispute.

The striking pilots gathered before 6am for the action. Photograph: Fintan Clarke

The Labour Court invited both sides on Friday as the dispute neared a critical stage, with Ialpa preparing to step up its industrial action following the failure of Thursday’s talks.

A Fórsa dispute committee, whose approval was needed before the pilots escalated their industrial action, met on Friday but adjourned after the organisation received the Labour Court’s invitation.


Union members have been on a strict work to rule since Wednesday, severely curtailing flexibility and limiting Aer Lingus’s ability to fly its full holiday schedule.

That measure and Saturday’s stoppage forced the airline to cancel 392 flights up to Sunday, July 7th, hitting an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 passengers.

Monday will be the third time the dispute has gone to the Labour Court. Most recently, Aer Lingus and Ialpa met the court separately on Tuesday, but that intervention failed to resolve the row.

Aer Lingus accused Ialpa of damaging the airline’s finances and reputation and apologised to passengers hit by Saturday’s strike.

The company welcomed the Labour Court’s intervention, adding it hoped that “Monday’s engagement in the court can result in an outcome that will bring normality back to the travelling public”.

Airline pilots are really silage contractors of the sky

In the olden days, the pilot was worshipped - just like the farmer. One was a hero of the sky, the other a god on the ground, writes Farming columnist Denis Lehane in this week's Lighten Up

.

SAT, 29 JUN, 2024 - 
DENIS LEHANE

IRISH EXAMINER


Flying a plane is no joke. Granted it isn't as hard as catching a ram, flipping him over and tending to his feet for foot rot. But it's tough enough too.

A good friend of mine, a pilot for many years, recently gave up the job to take up a role with the AI world.

He told me over a pint that he is much happier now when he's serving a cow than flying a jet plane to Timbuctoo.

"With the cow and AI straw, you know where you stand. With a plane load of anxious people, it's really all up in the air," he said.

My friend had flown planes all over the world, over a long and illustrious career.

Rarely did he crash, and more seldom was he late for work.

To my mind, he was one of the best.

He is known to one and all as Murty.

"But surely Murty, you miss the rumble of the engine and the screeching of the brakes?" I asked.

"Not a bit of it!" he roared back.

"They should never have gotten rid of the hot air balloon. The hot air balloon got everyone everywhere without half the fuss. The plane was a step in the wrong direction if you ask me," he said.

"The problem with flying nowadays is that everyone expects to get to their destination in one piece.

"Safety has become a priority," he moaned. "It's P.C. gone mad."

He was talking sense, of course. It's a pity there aren't more like him.

But safety aside, I wondered if flying was a handy number.

Murty wouldn't hear of it. Murty maintains that pilots nowadays are no better off than teenagers working for a silage contractor over the summer months.

"At least the teenager can take his girlfriend along for a spin, a pilot can do no such thing.

"Romance at high altitude is frowned upon.

"'Tis no wonder pilots go on strike and 'tis no wonder I'm still single," he spluttered.

Murty believes there is too much red tape in flying nowadays.

"Piloting a plane is almost as bad as farming, with the height of cross-checks needed," he said.

"However, at least a pilot won't get shot down suddenly with a letter from the department stating that the Single Farm Payment will be delayed."

And fair play to Murty; he got that one right.

"With silage contacting," he went on, "Even at peak season, once the dew comes down, the stopper is pulled, and everyone can go for a pint.

"When piloting a plane, the dew fall has little bearing on proceedings. Indeed, sometimes it can only add to the confusion."

And as for going for a pint? Well, Murty had to laugh. "It's usually a case of being too late to get a jar after you land and too early to go for one before you depart again.

"It's a catch-22," he stated. "You are damned if you do, and damned if you don't."

But it wasn't always this bad, as Murty recalls.

"I remember a time when flying a plane was like steering a cattle truck into an empty mart yard. "You could back in wherever you damn well pleased and offload to your heart's content.

"Out would come the cigarettes," he recalled, "and nobody would chastise you for smoking too near the fuselage.

"Nowadays,'" he said. "Flying a plane into a busy airport is like dropping a sheep into a dipping tank. Your time is limited. You know the next one is up your behind.

"I remember," says he, "In the olden days, the pilot was worshipped - just like the farmer. One was a hero of the sky, the other a god on the ground.

"Both were respected for the tremendous work they did and admired for the courage they displayed.

"Nowadays, the world is full of cynics, with everyone believing they know more about the job than the professional themselves.

 

Philip Morris International has secretly funded Japanese academics

Leaked documents show the tobacco giant attempting to influence science and public health policy in Japan by covertly funding research and expert networks

UNIVERSITY OF BATH

New revelations, published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, reveal the recent activities of Philip Morris International (PMI) and its Japanese affiliate, Philip Morris Japan (PMJ). An analysis of leaked documents by the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) at The University of Bath, shows that PMI, the largest transnational tobacco company in the world, and its subsidiary PMJ, secretly funded Kyoto University academics to carry out research on smoking cessation. There is also evidence that PMJ funded a life sciences consultancy, run by a Japanese professor at Tokyo University, to build a network of experts to influence public health policy.

TCRG examined 24 leaked documents dating from 2012 – 2020 made available in the University of California San Francisco’s Truth Tobacco Archive.

Key findings from the TCRG research:

• PMJ contracted a third-party external research organisation, CMIC, to secretly fund a study on smoking cessation conducted by Kyoto University academics. No public record of PMJ’s funding or involvement in this study was found.
• PMJ paid life sciences consultancy, FTI-Innovations, ¥3,000,000 (approx. £20,000) a month between 2014 and 2019 to conduct various science-related tasks, such as networking with scientists and promoting PMI’s science and products at academic events. This arrangement was kept secret both within and outside the company. FTI-Innovations is run by a professor at Tokyo University.

Dr. Sophie Braznell, author of the paper, said:

Despite claiming to conduct transparent science PMI has been covertly funding research and attempting to influence science and policy to create a favourable environment for its products. This contradicts PMI’s supposed transformation efforts and raises serious concerns about the company’s research ethics. We must urgently reform the ways tobacco research is funded and governed to protect science from vested corporate interests, and ensure the public and policymakers have the truly transparent and independent science they need.

Louis Laurence, author of the paper, said:

"The tobacco industry's tactics still endanger our health, showing we urgently need to clean up science from their unhealthy grip. We must find ways to fund research that's honest and open, keeping tobacco's influence far away from the truth of science."

PMI has a track record of scientific misconduct and misinformation

• The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) claims to be independent but TCRG research found it is solely funded by PMI and published by PMI-favourable research.
• Journalist investigations and academic reviews of PMI’s science have raised serious concerns over the quality and ethical standing of PMI’s clinical research.
• In 2022, a review by TCRG found PMI’s clinical trials on its heated tobacco products were at high risk of bias and poor quality.
• A 2020 TCRG report on PMI detailed the company’s “relentless lobbying, PR campaigns and multifaceted approaches to influencing science and public health in order to manage the future direction of tobacco control.”

Dr Sophie Braznell said:

PMI continues to prioritise maximising profits rather than improving public health. The manipulation of science for profit harms us all, especially policymakers and consumers trying to make potentially life-changing decisions. It slows down and undermines public health policies, while encouraging the widespread use of harmful products.

The study also builds on TCRG’s previous research on the manipulation of science for profit. To analyse the documents, the researcher’s used the Science for Profit Model. This was developed by TCRG researcher Dr. Tess Legg who said:

We cannot ignore the alarming implications of these revelations. The tobacco industry's influence on science undermines the credibility of research and threatens public health. It is imperative that we take decisive action to protect the integrity of scientific inquiry from vested interests.

In addition to the paper, the research has contributed to work by STOP, a global tobacco industry watchdog.

 

 

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JOURNAL

Nicotine & Tobacco Research

ARTICLE TITLE

“Keep it a secret”: leaked documents suggest Philip Morris International, and its Japanese affiliate, continue to exploit science for profit

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Jun-2024

 

Prenatal exposure to ethylene oxide associated with lower birth weight and head circumference in newborns

The study involving 1,106 newborns from five countries examined the impact of ethylene oxide exposure during the last three months of pregnancy on foetal development and birth outcomes

BARCELONA INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL HEALTH (ISGLOBAL)

A study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, provides new evidence on the adverse effects of prenatal exposure to ethylene oxide (EO) on foetal development. The results, published in Epidemiology, show that increased EO exposure in utero is associated with a reduction in birth weight and head circumference in newborns.

Ethylene oxide is a chemical used in various industrial processes and in hospitals, is known for its mutagenic and carcinogenic properties. Human exposure to EO is mainly through inhalation of tobacco smoke and air pollution produced from various household products, including cleaning and personal care products. Workers in the healthcare and chemical industries are particularly exposed to this substance, which is commonly used in sterilisation processes. Previous studies have found that women exposed to higher levels of EO at work during pregnancy had a higher risk of miscarriage and premature birth than those with lower exposure.

This new study focused on pregnant women and newborns in the general population, rather than a specific population with known high levels of EO exposure. The research team looked at the levels of EO hemoglobin (Hb) adducts in the cord blood of 1,106 newborns from 5 countries: Greece, Spain, Norway, UK and Denmark. This measurement provides valid information on the amount of EO the foetus was exposed to during the last three months of pregnancy, which may help to better understand potential adverse effects on foetal development and birth outcomes.

The study used data from the NewGeneris project, which aimed to study genotoxic exposures in the environment on children's health by measuring several biomarkers in cord blood. Information on birth weight, head circumference, sex and gestational age was obtained from maternity records.

Higher exposure, lower birth weight and smaller head circumference

The results of the study showed that median levels of EO-Hb adducts in the umbilical cord were higher in smoking mothers compared to non-smoking mothers. Higher levels of hemoglobin adducts were associated with lower birth weight. Specifically, mean birth weight decreased by 3.30 grams with each 10 pmol/g increase in hemoglobin adducts. Increasing levels of hemoglobin adducts were also associated with a decrease in head circumference.

“Reduced head circumference has been linked to delayed neurodevelopment, and reduced birth weight increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus and osteoporosis,” says Barbara Harding, ISGlobal researcher and first author of the study. 

The team found no evidence of an association between EO Hb adduct levels and the risk of being small for gestational age (SGA), a condition that can compromise a baby's short and long-term health.

"The study results highlight the importance of addressing EO exposure in both occupational and non-occupational settings. Policy changes to reduce EO exposure in vulnerable populations, such as women of childbearing age, could protect foetal health and improve birth outcomes," says Manolis Kogevinas, ISGlobal researcher and senior author of the study.

Reference 

Harding BN, Agramunt, S., Pedersen, M., Knudsen, LE., Nielsen, JKS, Wright, J, Vafeiadi, M., Merlo, DF., Stayner, L., Kelly-Reif, K., Espinosa, A., Bustamante, M., Gützkow, KB., Granum, B., von Stedingk, H., Rydberg, P., Alexander, J., Törnqvist, M., Kogevinas, M. Ethylene oxide hemoglobin adducts in cord blood and offspring’s size at birth: The NewGeneris European Cohort Study. Epidemiology. 2024. DOI: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001767

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JOURNAL

Epidemiology

DOI

10.1097/EDE.0000000000001767 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Ethylene oxide hemoglobin adducts in cord blood and offspring’s size at birth: The NewGeneris European Cohort Study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Jun-2024

 

Among cancer survivors, LGBTQ+ individuals report higher prevalence of chronic health conditions, disabilities, other limitations

Transgender or gender non-conforming cancer survivors had higher odds of most conditions compared to cisgender cancer survivors

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR CANCER RESEARCH

Bottom Line: Cancer survivors who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or anything other than straight and cisgender (LGBTQ+) experience more chronic health conditions, disabilities, and other physical and cognitive limitations than non-LGBTQ+ cancer survivors; however, the prevalence of most conditions was highest among transgender or gender non-conforming (TGNC) individuals.

Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)

Author: Austin R. Waters, MSPH, a doctoral candidate in health policy and management at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and a predoctoral fellow at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Background: Prior research shows cancer survivors are more likely to have chronic diseases such as diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, COPD, and heart disease compared to those who have never been diagnosed with cancer. Meanwhile, LGBTQ+ individuals, who represent about 7.1% of the U.S. population, have been found to face health disparities due to stigma and other social determinants of health. But few national samples that differentiate between cisgender and transgender identities have been used to study disparities among LGBTQ+ cancer survivors for chronic health conditions, according to Waters.

“Thinking about how LGBTQ+ cancer survivors’ health compares to non-LGBTQ+ cancer survivors’ is an important question because it begins to disentangle the driving forces behind inequities,” Waters said. “Notably, our analysis revealed that even when controlling for factors such as smoking status and income—factors known to be associated with poor health—LGBTQ+ cancer survivors continued to have higher odds of most chronic health conditions and other limitations.”

How the Study was Conducted: Waters and colleagues used data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a phone survey system managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, collected in 2020, 2021, or 2022 from 23 states that administered questionnaires about sexual orientation and gender identity as well as cancer survivorship. Of 40,990 cancer survivors, 1,715 were LGBTQ+, including 638 lesbian or gay individuals, 551 bisexuals, and 458 who identified as another non-heterosexual sexual orientation, such as queer, pansexual, or asexual. Of the 114 TGNC cancer survivors, 38 identified as transgender men, 43 as transgender women, and 33 as gender non-conforming. Overall, the LGBTQ+ cancer survivors were significantly more racially and ethnically diverse, had a lower household income, and were younger both at the time of the survey and at diagnosis of their cancer.

Participants were asked to reply “yes” or “no” if they were “ever told” they had chronic health conditions such as angina or heart disease, asthma, COPD, depressive disorder, kidney disease, stroke, or diabetes as well as disabilities and physical limitations such as hearing disability, vision disability, difficulty walking, difficulty dressing, or difficulty running errands, or cognitive limitations such as serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions due to any physical, mental, or emotional condition. Waters and colleagues compared results between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ cancer survivors. They also broke the results down by examining TGNC and cisgender lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) cancer survivors in comparison to non-LGBTQ+ cancer survivors and controlled for factors including age, race and ethnicity, smoking status, and education and household income.  

Results: When adjusted for age, race and ethnicity, smoking status, and education and household income, LGBTQ+ cancer survivors overall had higher odds ratios of reporting asthma, depressive disorder, kidney disease, stroke, diabetes, vision disabilities, cognitive limitations, difficulty walking, difficulty dressing, and difficulty running errands compared to non-LGBTQ+ cancer survivors. The odds for TGNC cancer survivors, however, were substantially higher for most outcomes compared to non-TGNC survivors, with increased odds ranging from 2.34 to 6.03. The lone exception was depressive disorder. When adjusted for age, TGNC survivors also had a higher prevalence of most health conditions compared to LGB survivors except for depressive disorder as well as cognitive limitations.

Author’s Comments: “Transgender and gender non-conforming individuals are some of the most marginalized people in the LGBTQ+ community and are known to experience barriers to healthcare discrimination, more exclusion, more violence, and other factors than LGB individuals,” Waters said. “Our study highlights the challenges TGNC cancer survivors face and the need for TGNC individuals, as well as all other LGBTQ+ cancer survivors, to be prioritized in care across the continuum.”

Waters said future studies will begin to explore how some of these outcomes, such as depression and cognitive limitations, interplay with financial well-being and the ability to work after cancer to identify ways to better support LGBTQ+ survivors throughout the care process.

“While interventions like LGBTQ+-specific prehabilitation or LGBTQ+ patient navigators may minimize some inequities, ultimately societal and policy changes such as non-discrimination laws, affordable housing, and affordable health care are needed to completely address such disparities,” he said.

Study Limitations: Limitations of this study include a smaller sample of LGBTQ+ individuals in BRFSS compared to national samples, which could indicate that participants were not comfortable disclosing information about sexual orientation or gender identity or that LGBTQ+ individuals were less likely to respond to BRFSS. Additionally, cancer survivorship and sexual and gender identity survey modules are optional for states, which means the experiences of cancer survivors in states that did not elect to include this information are not reflected. The cross-sectional design of the study could have also resulted in a cohort of healthier cancer survivors with less severe disease or treatment. Further, potential recall errors are possible due to the self-reported status of cancer and chronic conditions. The study also lacks information about cancer treatments and pack-years for smokers, which may have further explained the findings.

Funding & Disclosures: Funding for the study was provided by the Cancer Care Quality Training Program at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute. Waters declares no conflicts of interest.

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JOURNAL

Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention

DOI

10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-24-0166 

ARTICLE TITLE

Chronic Health Conditions, Disability, and Physical and Cognitive Limitations Among LGBTQ+ Cancer Survivors

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Jun-2024

COI STATEMENT

Funding for the study was provided by the Cancer Care Quality Training Program at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute. Waters declares no conflicts of interest.

 

Surge in fatal opioid overdoses in Ontario shelters, report finds

INSTITUTE FOR CLINICAL EVALUATIVE SCIENCES

Researchers from the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network (ODPRN) at St. Michael’s Hospital and Public Health Ontario analyzed health data from the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario and ICES, and found that there were 210 accidental opioid-related toxicity deaths within shelters between January 2018 to May 2022, with the number of deaths more than tripling during the study period (48 before the pandemic versus 162 during the pandemic). 

Statistics Canada data shows that the annual number of emergency beds in Ontario grew by only 15% (6,764 to 7,767) between 2018 and 2022. 

“People who use Ontario’s shelter system are not only facing housing instability, but also have complex healthcare needs and unique barriers to accessing treatment and harm reduction programs,” says lead author Bisola Hamzat, an epidemiologist with the ODPRN. “This report underscores the disproportionate impact of the opioid crisis on this population.” 

Trends in shelters differed from rest of Ontario 

When exploring the circumstances surrounding the overdose and death, the data showed that someone was present and able to intervene for only 1 in 10 opioid-related toxicity deaths within shelters, which is lower than in Ontario overall (approximately 1 in 4). However, naloxone was administered most of the time when someone could intervene within shelters. 

In the week before death, nearly half of people who died within a shelter had contact with the healthcare system, and in the five years prior to death, almost 80% had a hospital visit related for a mental health diagnosis, which is much higher than 56% of people in Ontario overall. 

Several factors remained consistent with the rest of Ontario, including the rise of multiple substances contributing to death (such as benzodiazepines and stimulants), a greater tendency toward smoking and inhalation of drugs, and fentanyl from the unregulated drug supply being the most common driver of deaths. 

In a secondary analysis of hotels and motels, the researchers found that opioid-related overdose deaths followed similar patterns to those in shelters but began to decline toward the end of the study period in 2022. The researchers say that the rise in deaths was likely influenced by the rapid expansion of temporary hotel-based shelters early in the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Urgent need for improved response to crisis 

“Our report highlights the need for improved and expanded harm reduction approaches, overdose response, as well as staff training and supports within shelters,” says co-lead author Tara Gomes, a scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital and ICES, and a principal investigator of the ODPRN.  

“Additionally, improved connection to community-based healthcare, treatment programs, and mental health supports are needed for people experiencing homelessness and housing instability, in combination with efforts to address upstream factors such as more accessible housing, income and employment supports, and community-based social supports across the province.” 

“The report highlights what we have witnessed the last few years in Timmins. It demonstrates the need for comprehensive support across the spectrum of care for unhoused community members, and of the importance of shelter design and management to ensure services are accessible and safe for people who use drugs. An increase in deaths in the Timmins shelter system over the past two years serves as a stark reminder of this importance,” says Jason Sereda, President, Board of Directors: DIY Community Health Timmins. 

The report, “Opioid-related toxicity deaths within Ontario shelters: circumstances of death and prior medication & healthcare use” was published on the ODPRN website. 

About St. Michael’s 

St. Michael’s Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in more than 27 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, care of the homeless and global health are among the Hospital’s recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Centre, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael’s Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto. 

 

About the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network 

Established in 2008, the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network (ODPRN) is a research program based out of St. Michael’s Hospital that brings together researchers, people with lived experience, clinicians, and policy-makers to generate evidence to inform effective drug policy development in Ontario. 
 
About Unity Health Toronto 

Unity Health Toronto, comprised of Providence Healthcare, St. Joseph’s Health Centre and St. Michael’s Hospital, works to advance the health of everyone in our urban communities and beyond. Our health network serves patients, residents and clients across the full spectrum of care, spanning primary care, secondary community care, tertiary and quaternary care services to post-acute through rehabilitation, palliative care and long-term care, while investing in world-class research and education. 

 

About Public Heath Ontario 

Public Health Ontario is a Crown corporation dedicated to protecting and promoting the health of all Ontarians and reducing inequities in health. Public Health Ontario links public health practitioners, front-line health workers and researchers to the best scientific intelligence and knowledge from around the world. For the latest PHO news, follow us on Twitter: @publichealthON. 

 

About ICES 

ICES is an independent, not-for-profit research and analytics institute that uses population-based health information to produce knowledge on a broad range of healthcare issues. ICES leads cutting-edge studies and analyses evaluating healthcare policy, delivery, and population outcomes. ICES knowledge is highly regarded in Canada and abroad and is widely used by government, hospitals, planners, and practitioners to make decisions about healthcare delivery and to develop policy. For the latest ICES news, follow us on X, formerly Twitter: @ICESOntario 

 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Opioid-Related Toxicity Deaths Within Ontario Shelters: Circumstances of Death and Prior Medication & Healthcare Use

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Jun-2024

 

How Capitalism really works – Grace Blakeley’s Vulture Capitalism Review

Grace Blakeley’s new book covers not only the scandals but also the structural corruption of capitalism, writes Walden Bello

21st June 2024Leave a Commenton How Capitalism really works – Grace Blakeley’s Vulture Capitalism Review

“Vulture Capitalism is not just a muckraking book, a collection of juicy scandals. Where a New York Times investigation ends is where Grace Blakeley really begins her work, which is to “look at how capitalism really looks.”

Vulture Capitalism is, at one level, a really good read, for the scandals that it brings together in one volume – like the Boeing 737 MAX debacle, where the pursuit of profits, lack of regulation, and corporate cost-cutting culture resulted in two crashes that killed hundreds of people, or the ways most of the $800 million allocated by Washington for the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) to enable workers to get through the COVID 19 pandemic actually ended up with their employers. Among the direct or indirect beneficiaries of the PPP were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s wife, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the notorious far-right conspiracy theorist. All owned businesses or were part-owners of enterprises that siphoned off PPP dollars meant for workers.

But don’t get fooled by the title, which was probably the bright idea of the publisher’s marketing department. Vulture Capitalism is not just a muckraking book, a collection of juicy scandals. Where a New York Times investigation ends is where Grace Blakeley really begins her work, which is to “look at how capitalism really looks.” For her, the scandals illustrate not just the doings of corrupt individuals or corporations but the larger, deeper, more encompassing structural corruption that is embedded system of capitalism itself.

Market Versus Plan

Blakeley begins her deconstruction of capitalism by taking up the market-versus-planning debate that continues to animate the economics profession. Neoliberals make out state planning as the greatest enemy of the market, the source of all the inefficiencies, distortions, and screw-ups in what would otherwise be a plain-sailing economic journey. Keynesians say the economy must be managed or “planned” to avoid market failures. Blakeley comes out straightforwardly and declares the debate to be largely a false one. Giant corporations can have a major distorting influence on the market, and their size and resources enable them to plan production not only at a corporate but at a social level. Effective control of the market by a few giants allows them to do large-scale planning even as they compete with each other.

Blakeley is refreshingly an unapologetic Marxist, and Marx could not have articulated his insights on the relationship between the market and planning for a contemporary audience better than her:

Capitalism is a system defined by a tension—a dialectic—between markets and planning, in which some actors are better able to exert control over the system than others, but in which no one actor—let alone individual—can control the dynamics of production and exchange entirely.  Capitalism is a system that teeters on the knife edge between competition and coordination; this tension is what explains both its adaptability and rigid inequalities.

So, the real conflict is not between markets and planning, but the ends of planning, with accumulating profit being the goal of planning under capitalism, and—in theory at least—the general interest being the aim of socialist planning.

Making Economics Accessible

Blakeley does not introduce a new theory about the way capitalism works. “Most of the ideas discussed in this book are not new,” she tells us right from the beginning. “My argument is constructed based on the analysis of the work of well-known economists, with which academic readers will already be familiar.” She wants to make their ideas accessible to people. Given the well-deserved reputation of orthodox economics being the contemporary equivalent of the medieval theological preoccupation with how many angels could stand on the head of a pin, this task is not to be sneered at, since the alternative that many opt for is conspiracy theory, which is the default mode of analysis in populist circles on both the Left and the Right.

But making economic theories accessible does not mean making their ideas sound simplistic. Even when it comes to economists Blakeley disagrees with, like Friedrich Hayek, Ronald Coase, and Joseph Schumpeter, she is not dismissive and accords their views the critical analysis they deserve.

In the case of Schumpeter, for instance, the notion of the process of “creative destruction” destroying monopolies may have once been a powerful reflection of the dynamics of early twentieth-century capitalism. But it is a theory that has outlived its usefulness, Blakeley contends, because today’s corporations, with their massive assets, can control the process of technological innovation, buying out or stifling the growth of innovative corporations that may threaten their stranglehold on the market.

Blakeley brings aboard not only political economists to help us understand the dynamics of contemporary capitalism. She draws on the insights of the French thinker Michel Foucault to show that neoliberalism not only seeks to shape the economy but the personalities of people as well. Foucault pointed to the creation of the entrepreneurial self or homo economicus who is engaged mainly in terms of maximizing his self-interest. This self-conceptualization has the effect of undermining the possibility of collective action, resulting in the “destruction of society itself, and its replacement with a structured competition between individual human capitals—but on a fundamentally unequal playing field.”

The State under Capitalism

According to neoliberals, the contradiction between market and planning is a manifestation of the larger conflict between the market and state as the principal organizing principle of the economy. The reality is that both the market and the state serve the interest of capital. For the most part, this is not done in a direct, instrumental fashion like extending benefits and perks to individual capitalists, though there is no lack of cases where government contracts or legislation favors particular business interests, as the cases of Boeing and the PPP debacle illustrate. More important is the fact that the state pursues the “general” and “long-run interest” of the capitalist class. Instead of conceiving the state as an instrument of the capitalist class, one must see the state as an institution or set of structured relations that “organize capitalists into a coherent group, conscious of its interests and able to enact them.”

Blakeley is expressing here the view articulated by the French philosopher Louis Althusser, the Greek-French political economist Nicos Poulantzas, and the American political sociologist James O’Connor: that the state is characterized by its “relative autonomy” from economic power relations because its primal role is to stabilize a mode of production that is marked by sharp social contradictions. Perhaps the best conceptualization of this relationship between the political and the economic was provided by O’Connor who saw the relative autonomy of the state as stemming from the tension between its two functions: that is, it has to balance the needs of capital accumulation that increases the profits of the capitalist class and the system’s need for legitimacy to maintain stability. Welfare spending by the state may cut into capital accumulation, but it is necessary to create political stability. This tension gives rise to a stratum of technocrats to manage the tradeoffs between the two primordial drives of capital accumulation and legitimation. Management of this tension, which expressed itself in, among others, the trade-off between inflation and unemployment, was erected into a “science” by the followers of John Maynard Keynes, but this drew the ire of Hayek and his followers, who regarded the Keynesians tinkering with the market as courting economic inefficiency and subverting political freedom.

But Blakeley puts things in perspective. Keynes’s technocrats may engage in social spending but the purpose is to keep the system stable and preserve the class division between those who benefit from the system because they own the means of production and those who are exploited by it despite their being the beneficiaries of some crumbs from social spending. Proponents of reform capitalism were elated by the massive government stimulus programs during the Covid 19 pandemic, but, as in the case of the PPP—where workers received one dollar for every four allocated by the program, with the rest going to business owners like the Trump fanatic Marjorie Taylor Greene—it was the corporate elite and its allied upper middle entrepreneurial and professional strata that cornered most of the benefits of the U.S. government’s fiscal spending and monetary easing policies.

Needed: Another Book

Vulture Capitalism focuses on the class division between owners and workers central to capitalism and its ramifications throughout the system. There are, however, key dimensions of capitalism that Blakely does not tackle but which are central to understanding how it operates. Among these are the social reproduction of the system, where gender inequality and patriarchal oppression play a decisive role, and the way racism stratifies and differentiates the working class, providing what the great sociologist W.E.B. Dubois called a “psychological wage” that coopts white workers into supporting the system. But there is only so much one can pack into as single volume, so it can only be hoped that Blakeley will come out with another volume that will bring to these and related issues the same clearsighted analysis and engaging style she displays in her current book.

Also deserving of further analysis is democratic planning. The final section of the book presents us with examples of exciting possibilities for progressive planning, such as the detailed plan proposed by the workers of Lucas Aerospace Corporation to turn this British arms manufacturer into a producer of socially useful commodities and the innovative “participatory budgeting” formulated by the city government of Porto Alegre that spread to over 250 other cities in Brazil.  Blakeley’s discussion of various democratic and socialist initiatives is a valuable complement to the late sociologist Erik Olin Wright’s book Envisioning Real Utopias.

It would have been useful, however, for Blakeley to draw out lessons from the failure of central planning in the Soviet Union and how democratic planning would be different, since many people associate socialist planning with the Soviet Union. Here, it would also be important to contrast Soviet central planning with Chinese planning, which allowed market forces to develop non-strategic sectors of the economy while restricting foreign investment in sectors considered strategic and prioritizing the transfer of technology from transnational corporations to key industries. True, there are some major problems with China’s technocratic development model, but an annual growth rate of 10 percent over 30 years and the radical reduction of poverty to two percent of the population (according to the World Bank) is not to be ignored, even by partisans of democratic planning, especially since, despite its technocratic bias, the “Chinese Model” is finding so many partisans in the Global South. Indeed, what else can one take away from the Biden administration’s adoption of industrial policy in its effort to catch up with China except Washington’s moving away from neoliberalism and the triumph of planning?

Again, you can only pack so many topics into one volume, but I raise these concerns related to democratic planning in the hope that, whether in articles or in books, Grace Blakeley will apply to them the same analytical acuity and clear exposition she has displayed in analyzing class conflict, the market, and the state in Vulture Capitalism.

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• You can grab a copy of Grace’s new book ‘Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom‘
• You can follow Grace Blakeley on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
• This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus on June 17th, 2024.

 

Forget free markets – it’s all about global domination!

Mike Phipps reviews Vulture capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom, by Grace Blakeley, published by Bloomsbury.

JUNE 22, 2024LABOUR HUB EDITORS

In the Introduction to this book, Grace Blakeley says her aim is to show that “capitalism is not defined by the presence of free markets, but by the rule of capital; and that socialism is not defined by the dominance of the state over all areas of life, but by true democracy.” How far does she succeed?

The first premise is amply illustrated – from the huge sums of government money thrown at the under-regulated and cost-cutting American aviation industry, to the state bailouts for the US car industry which allowed Ford and others to continue to pay huge dividends to shareholders. Embracing neoliberalism has certainly not resulted in a smaller state: what has changed under its system is who benefits.

Pandemic piñata

The Covid pandemic underlines this. The US’s “Paycheck Protection Program” saw workers receive just $1 out of every $4 distributed through the initiative. The rest went to business and has mostly never been repaid. Many of the companies involved use tax havens to cut their tax bills. Several members of Congress benefited financially from the scheme, as did lobbyists. Meanwhile, millions of workers lost their jobs or were evicted by companies that received public money.

Likewise in the UK, “dozens of large companies that had accessed government support through the Bank of England’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility went on to lay off workers and pay out dividends to shareholders.”

Similarly, all of France’s top companies received some form of government support and paid out 34 billion euros to shareholders while cutting 60,000 jobs around the world. A recent report noted that “public assistance to the private sector now exceeds the amount paid out in social welfare.”

In Australia, a colossal A$12.5 billion of government money was given to companies that were “largely unaffected “ by the pandemic. All over the world, the same picture emerges.

The precedent for such largesse was set during the financial collapse of 2008. Although the crash is often blamed on corporate greed, in reality the investment banks would never have taken the risks they did without the implicit insurance of the central bank, and behind it the government. The crisis’s global dimension “was driven as much by crooked coordination between powerful actors as it was by unrestrained ‘free market’ capitalism. And when the crisis did hit, once again the state stepped in to shield powerful vested interests from the consequences of their own greed.” Prosecutions in its wake were almost unheard of.

Permanent subsidies and rigged rules

Big corporations expect a government bailout in a crisis, but for many industries public subsidies are a permanent state of affairs. The fossil fuel industry gets a staggering $5.9 trillion of public money worldwide.

In the world of exports, ‘free markets’ don’t really explain the dominance of the companies of the Global North over poorer countries, for all the neoliberal rhetoric about free trade. Attempts by the Global South to use industrialization to escape the cycle of dependency enshrined in their export of raw materials, have repeatedly been thwarted by richer countries, whether by direct political interference – as in the US-sponsored coup in Guatemala in the 1950s – or through Western-imposed trade rules. These prevent governments in poorer countries from protecting their fledgling industries against Western imports, themselves often state-subsidised.

Investor-state dispute settlements (ISDSs) are part of this international architecture, dreamed up  – and arguably rigged – by the West. When after a lengthy legal battle, the Ecuadorian courts ordered Chevron to pay $9.5 billion in compensation for a massive toxic waste spillage in the country’s rainforest, the company closed all its Ecuadorian operations and launched an ISDS claim, which overturned the judgment. To add insult to injury, the Ecuadorian government was then ordered to pay $800 million of the company’s legal costs.

Blakeley concludes: “ISDSs are part of a growing body of international law that, with the active support of powerful states, has helped to routinise corporate crime on a mass scale.” They can be used to get compensation for companies whenever a government passes a law to discourage smoking or protect the environment. Canada, Mexico and Germany have all been forced to abandon or dilute environmental regulations and pay compensation to corporate polluters in recent years.

And this is just one mechanism that allows Western capital to penetrate overseas markets on unequal terms. The state-assisted exploitation of less developed countries can be violent and barbarous. “One of the first things the US government did with occupied Iraq was sell off state assets en masse. In doing so, the planners of the 2003 US invasion sought to share the spoils of the invasion with US businesses and introduce the disciplining hand of American capital into Iraqi society.”

Blakeley is hardly the first economist to highlight capitalism’s monopolistic tendencies. But what’s new here is how today’s giant companies use their privileged position not just to corner the market or raise prices, but to establish for themselves as much sovereignty as possible. This applies not just internally, for example in the case of Amazon’s ruthless approach to suppressing trade union organisation, but also externally, as with corporations involved internationally in human rights abuses.

In this sense, modern corporations constitute a form of private government, hierarchically centralised and controlled, and often unconstrained by the national laws of weak governments – in poorer countries especially, but not exclusively. And in many fields, such companies are empowered to act using force – from private armies to outsourced contracts for immigration detention and removal activities.

Democratic alternatives

Blakeley’s focus on economic democracy as an expression of nascent socialism is a lot shorter. The 1976 Alternative Plan for Lucas Aerospace was a significant milestone, but it may be overstating its importance to say “it provided inspiration for workers all over the world for the next several decades.” In any case, as one reviewer pointed out, “it was swatted aside by management.”

However, the author does produce some interesting examples of human cooperation and democratic planning: the New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation which refused to allow its labour to be used for harmful purposes; the Union of Farm Workers’  occupation of land in Andalusia after the death of the fascist dictator Franco in 1975; the Brazilian Workers Party’s experiment in participatory budgeting pioneered in Porto Alegre in 1989, which spread to over 250 cities in Brazil and another 1,500 around the world; the People’s Plan in the Indian state of Kerala in 1996; the post-2008 Better Reykjavik initiative in which 40,000 people pitched ideas to improve Iceland’s capital in an online consultation; the Preston Council experiment in Community Wealth Building; and quite a few others. While the levels of genuine popular participation in these experiments vary considerably and most proved short-lived, they do demonstrate the potential of this kind of democratic planning.

For Blakeley, the 1970-3 Popular Unity government in Chile showed that “it is possible to begin building democratic institutions at scale.” However, it also underlined that full control of the state apparatus is vital, to prevent not just capital strikes and flight, but also the possibility of a violent military coup of the kind that toppled Allende.

Democratising society through activity in trade unions and community campaigns falls some way short of this critical goal. The author’s section on “Democratise the state” says nothing about dismantling its repressive apparatus.

Vulture Capitalism is certainly worth reading for its well-argued critique of contemporary capitalism and the historical alternatives it explores. However, as with many books in this vein, how we proceed from the current mess to a more enduring socialist alternative is less clear.

Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.