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For Immediate Release
April, 25 2013, 02:20pm EDT
Contact:
Paul Collins (+44) (0)20 7324 5054 or (+44) (0)7983 550728
Campaigners Demand Action Following Bangladesh Building Collapse
Primark, Matalan and Mango accused of neglect
LONDON
As rescuers today dug for survivors after a high rise building in Bangladesh, including garment factories, collapsed killing at least 187 people, campaigners demanded immediate action so that major multinational buyers linked to the factories, such as Primark, Matalan and Mango, are held to account.
The demand came from the British charity War on Want and its partner in Bangladesh, the National Garment Workers' Federation, following initial evidence that the eight-story Rana Plaza block in Savar, 18 miles from the capital Dhaka, contained factories supplying British retailers like Primark, Matalan and Mango.
The charity and federation accused UK chains and Bangladeshi garment bosses of widespread neglect for failing to put in place proper measures to ensure safe working environments.
With more than 1,000 people injured, the organisations pressed for them to receive proper medical treatment, and urgent financial support for the workers and bereaved families. War on Want, together with the NGWF, are demanding compensation from the brands as redress for the loss of earnings facing the casualties and their families.
In addition, the charity and the federation called for an independent probe that will bring to justice those responsible for the alleged negligence.
Both groups joined international calls to demand all brands sourcing from Bangladesh sign the Bangladesh Fire and Safety Agreement to avoid future tragedies.
War on Want senior programmes officer, Laia Blanch, said: "Multinational corporations, factory owners and the Bangladeshi government have once again failed to ensure that the health and safety of garment workers are at the forefront of the country's main export sector.
"It is equally unacceptable that UK firms continue to make huge profits from garments produced under appalling health and safety conditions.
"The British government must act to ensure UK brands are held accountable for protecting workers overseas turning out clothes for our high street stores."
The NGWF president, Amirul Haque Amin, said: "This negligence must stop. The deaths of these workers could have been avoided if multinational corporations, governments and factory owners took workers' protection seriously.
"Instead, the victims' families must with live with the terrible consequences of this tragedy."
War on Want fights poverty in developing countries in partnership with people affected by globalization. We campaign for human rights and against the root causes of global poverty, inequality and injustice.
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FTC Report Shows Big Pharma Middlemen Jack Up Prices by Up to 7,736%
Pharmacy benefit managers "are raking in billions in excess revenue—$7.3 billion over just five years—while squeezing independent pharmacies and leaving patients and health plan sponsors with skyrocketing costs."
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday published the second part of its investigation into how prescription drug middlemen are marking up the prices of specialty generic drugs dispensed at their affiliated pharmacies by hundreds—and in some cases, thousands—of percent, underscoring what advocates say is the need for urgent action by policymakers.
The FTC's second interim staff report on consolidated pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) found that the three largest of these middlemen—CVS Health's Caremark Rx, Cigna Group's Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth Group's OptumRx—"marked up two specialty generic cancer drugs by thousands of percent and then paid their affiliated pharmacies hundreds of millions of dollars of dispensing revenue in excess of estimated acquisition costs for each drug annually."
"Of the specialty generic drugs analyzed in this report and dispensed by the 'Big Three' PBMs' affiliated pharmacies for commercial health plan members between 2020 and 2022, 63% were reimbursed at rates marked up by more than 100% over their estimated acquisition cost... while 22% were marked up by more than 1,000%," the report states.
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"The FTC's second interim report lays bare the blatant profiteering by PBM giants."
"Such significant markups allowed the Big Three PBMs and their affiliated specialty pharmacies to generate more than $7.3 billion in revenue from dispensing drugs in excess of the drugs' estimated acquisition costs from 2017-22," the FTC said. "The Big Three PBMs netted such significant revenues all while patient, employer, and other healthcare plan sponsor payments for drugs steadily increased annually."
The new analysis follows a July 2024 report that revealed Big Three PBM-affiliated pharmacies received 68% of the dispensing revenue generated by specialty drugs in 2023, a 14% increase from 2016.
"The FTC staff's second interim report finds that the three major pharmacy benefit managers hiked costs for a wide range of lifesaving drugs, including medications to treat heart disease and cancer," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement Tuesday. "The FTC should keep using its tools to investigate practices that may inflate drug costs, squeeze independent pharmacies, and deprive Americans of affordable, accessible healthcare—and should act swiftly to stop any illegal conduct."
Khan's time as chair is limited. Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration is next week and he has named Andrew Ferguson as the next FTC chair. As Ferguson is already on the commission, his elevation to chair won't require Senate confirmation.
Greg Lopes, spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a PBM lobby group, said Tuesday that "it's clear this report again fails to consider the entirety of the prescription drug supply chain and makes sweeping assertions about the role of PBMs disconnected from a full appreciation of their critical cost-saving role for employers, unions, taxpayers, and patients."
Last September, the FTC sued the Big Three and their affiliated group purchasing organizations for allegedly "engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices that have artificially inflated the list price of insulin drugs, impaired patients' access to lower list price products, and shifted the cost of high insulin list prices to vulnerable patients."
FTC Office of Policy Planning Director Hannah Garden-Monheit said Tuesday that the problem of PBM price inflation "is growing at an alarming rate, which means there is an urgent need for policymakers to address it."
To that end, U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act of 2023, a bill backed by the AARP aimed at increasing transparency and "holding PBMs accountable for deceptive and unfair practices that drive up prescription drug costs and force independent pharmacies out of business."
"This report is a call to action for policymakers to dismantle these exploitative schemes."
Responding to the FTC report, Emma Freer, senior policy analyst for healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project—a corporate accountability and antitrust advocacy group—said in a statement Tuesday that "the FTC's second interim report lays bare the blatant profiteering by PBM giants, which are marking up lifesaving drugs like cancer, HIV, and multiple sclerosis treatments by thousands of percent and forcing patients to pay the price."
"By steering prescriptions for the most expensive specialty generic drugs to their own pharmacies, PBMs are raking in billions in excess revenue—$7.3 billion over just five years—while squeezing independent pharmacies and leaving patients and health plan sponsors with skyrocketing costs," Freer added. "This report is a call to action for policymakers to dismantle these exploitative schemes, outlaw the rebate system driving up prices, and restore fairness and affordability to the U.S. healthcare system."
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"Los Angeles is on fire right now, and this is the number one priority this majority has," said the congresswoman.
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While Republicans claimed a bill restricting transgender girls' participation in school sports was aimed at protecting "our culture and civilization" on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the legislation benefits the corporate class as it distracts from true life-threatening emergencies faced by communities across the country.
"Thank you for your concern about women for the first time that I've seen," said the New York Democrat on the House floor, noting that Republicans have consistently voted against the Violence Against Women Act and backed abortion bans that have stripped women of the ability to control their own bodies proven deadly.
But contrary to the GOP's claims that barring transgender girls and women from playing on sports teams that align with their gender will protect girls from assault, Ocasio-Cortez suggested, the biggest beneficiaries of the legislation include corporate executives whose companies do far more harm to American families than transgender athletes.
"I know who loves this bill," said the congresswoman. "Yes, bigoted folks love this bill. Assaulters love this bill. But also, CEOs love this bill. Because Los Angeles is on fire right now, and this is the number one priority this majority has."
The bill passed 218-206, with the entire Republican caucus supporting it and all but two Democrats voting no. If the legislation is signed into law, schools that receive federal funding would be barred from allowing transgender girls from playing on girls' sports teams.
Republicans have poured $111 million on political ads regarding the issue in the past year, as communities in the Southeast have suffered catastrophic hurricane damage and homelessness has soared by 18%.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) agreed with Ocasio-Cortez's comments about the distraction caused by the transgender sports bill.
"Republicans fearmonger about the trans community to divert attention from the fact they have no real solutions to help everyday Americans," said Bonamici. "Transgender students, like all students, they deserve the same opportunity as their peers to learn teamwork, to find belonging and to grow into well-rounded adults through sports."
Ocasio-Cortez added that the bill, which lacks an enforcement mechanism, would open the door to "genital examinations" of student athletes as it would force schools to confirm the sex assigned at birth of each member of a school sports team.
"What this also opens the door for is for women to try to perform a very specific kind of femininity for the very kind of men who are drafting this bill, and to open up questioning of who is a woman because of how we look, how we present ourselves, and yes, what we choose to do with our bodies," said Ocasio-Cortez.
The so-called Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act was the subject of a letter signed by more than 400 civil society groups on Monday, who urged members of Congress to reject the "discriminatory proposal."
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"We knew there was a hunger for a different kind of politics but this is beyond even our highest expectations," said Mamdani.
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Zohran Mamdani, the Queens state assemblymember and democratic socialist who is running for New York City mayor, announced the results of his latest fundraising haul Tuesday, reporting that he brought in more money than any other campaign has so far and from the largest pool of unique donors.
Mamdani (D-36) netted $642,339 from 6,502 unique donors in the 80 days since his bid launched, according to a statement released Tuesday.
"Biiiiiig fundraising numbers for Zohran Mamdani in his first 80 days," wrote New York City journalist Christopher Robbins, who also reported on Mamdani's fundraising totals.
Those running for mayor—a crowded field that includes a number of progressive candidates—face a January 15 fundraising deadline for the filing period from October 8, 2024 through January 11.
Of Mamdani's total haul, the campaign estimates that at least $300,000 will be matched by the city's 8-to-1 public financing program, meaning an additional $2.4 million to the campaign next month, for a total of more than $3 million, according to the statement.
"We knew there was a hunger for a different kind of politics but this is beyond even our highest expectations," said Mamdani in the statement. "Our thousands of donors have launched us and our vision for a more affordable city into the top tier of this race."
Other Democrats running to be elected mayor include current City Comptroller Brad Lander, former City Comptroller Scott Stringer, state Sen. Jessica Ramos (D-13)—all of whom are to the left of current Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for re-election while facing five federal charges of bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. Adams has pleaded not guilty.Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has also hinted that he will enter the race.
The candidates will face off in June primary in a ranked choice voting election.
Mamdani, who was elected to the New York State Assembly in 2021, has distinguished himself as a vocal figure on the left. The Ugandan-born, Manhattan-raised Mamdani was active in a successful effort to win New York City taxi drivers hundreds of millions in debt relief, including by participating in a hunger strike. He also helped spearhead the city's first free bus pilot.
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Speaking on WNYC last week, Mamdani said that one of the ways he intends to pay for these programs is by raising the corporate tax rate and increasing income taxes on people who make more than $5 million a year.
Mamdani was not considered a serious candidate when it was first reported that he was running, wroteCity & State publisher Tom Allon in an opinion piece last week, but he's since distinguished himself as a consistent and clear communicator and "captured the left's imagination with a number of simple ideas that he's clearly articulated."
Recent polling indicates that Mamdani's bid is still a long shot, though he's currently neck and neck with the incumbent mayor. Politico, citing numbers from a survey commissioned by the 501(c)4 Progressives for Democracy in America that was conducted December 16-22, reported that Cuomo led with 32% when likely Democratic voters were asked to pick a favorite candidate. Stringer came in second at 10%; Lander came in third with 8%; Ramos was at 7%; and Adams and Mamdani both earned 6%. Two other candidates, Michael Blake and state sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-20), earned 2% and 1%, respectively.
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