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Epic Fail: Profits Over People [1]
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Date: 2025-01-05
Third of five posts.
In January 2022, Musings of a Nobody ran a series of posts about the Trump administration’s historic failure in its handling of the coronavirus as detailed in a report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
As we approach Trump’s inauguration, we’re running the series again. The goal is to remind people of the corrupt, politically driven mismanagement that led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths and the accompanying financial crisis, to serve as a warning of the type of administration we may be seeing during the next four years, and to illustrate the kind of damage and suffering that it’s corruption and incompetence is capable of creating.
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Companies profited during the pandemic while endangering the public’s health, according to a report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
In one example, the subcommittee uncovered evidence that coronavirus infections and deaths among meatpacking workers for five of the largest meatpacking companies were nearly three times higher than previously estimated.
The subcommittee requested documents and information concerning coronavirus outbreaks at the facilities of the five largest meatpacking conglomerates—JBS USA Food Co., Tyson Foods,Smithfield Foods, Cargill Meat Solutions Corp., and National Beef Packing Co.
Here’s what it found:
*As the coronavirus spread rapidly through the United States in the spring of 2020, meatpacking facilities became hotspots for outbreaks that sickened and killed meatpacking workers and generated “rapid transmission” in their communities.
*Documents received from these five companies revealed that the numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths among these companies’ meatpacking workers were significantly higher than previously estimated.
*During the first year of the pandemic, at least 59,000 meatpacking employees of these five companies were infected with the coronavirus -- almost triple the nearly 22,700 infections previously estimated by the Food and Environment Reporting Network for these five companies’ respective workforces based on publicly available information.
*The death toll was over three times higher than what was previously estimated, with at least 269 meatpacking workers employed by these companies having lost their lives to the coronavirus.
Meatpacking companies were reluctant to impose coronavirus precautions despite plant outbreaks, and politics hamstrung the government’s ability to protect workers, the report said.
From the report:
*Internal Tyson talking points showed that on March 20, 2020, Tyson had not yet begun to conduct temperature checks, but nonetheless was telling its workers: “It is vital that you come towork as planned, despite stores about ‘shelter in place.’”
*At Tyson’s Amarillo, Texas, plant, many employees were working with masks “saturated’ from sweat or other fluids, in lines where workers were not distanced and separated only by flimsy“plastic bags on frames.” This plant saw over 1,900 workers contract the coronavirus – 49.8 percent of the plant’s workforce – and five employees die of the disease.
*An internal Smithfield communication showed that on April 21, 2020, the chief executive officer of the company was vigorously pushing back on CDC recommendations for coronavirus precautions at its Sioux Falls, S.D., facility, insisting that social distancing, reducing employee density in non-work areas, and flexible attendance policies would be “problematic.” Smithfield’s CEO exchanged emails with the CEO of National Beef stating: “Employees are afraid to come to work.”
*Despite rising infections and deaths across meatpacking plants and a wave of meatpacking worker complaints of unsafe conditions, the Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and SafetyAdministration (OHSA) made a “political decision” not to issue regulations for meatpacking companies to take steps to protect workers from the coronavirus.
*OSHA staff were left able only to enforce its General Duty Clause authority, which carries a statutory maximum fine of about $13,000 for serious violations. This “can be more difficult to show, than the elements of proof required for a violation of a hazard-specific standard.”
*During 2020, OSHA issued just nine citations to three meatpacking companies with severe coronavirus outbreaks despite receiving over 100 complaints related to meatpacking facilities.
The subcommittee also reported on an investigation into Emergent BioSolutions, which it said wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and ruined tens of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses.
From the report:
*Emergent received multimillion-dollar contracts from the Trump administration to manufacture coronavirus vaccines and therapeutics after Emergent was forced to destroy millions of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses following repeated production errors and instances of contamination.
*The Trump administration had awarded Emergent a $628 million contract in May 2020 to expand the manufacturing capabilities at its Maryland facilities, despite a long, documented history of quality control issues.
*Emergent was warned multiple times that serious manufacturing problems and deficient controls at its Bayview facility in Baltimore could lead to the contamination of coronavirus vaccines manufactured at the facility.
*Despite these warnings, Emergent failed to promptly and fully remediate the problems --leading to the contamination of millions of doses of desperately-needed coronavirus vaccines.
*Documents detailed how Emergent collected more than $271 million from the federal government under the contract issued by the Trump administration, notwithstanding flaws in the company’s manufacturing operations.
*Emergent executives claimed to take responsibility for the company’s failures yet continued to minimize the seriousness of vaccine contamination at the Bayview facility.
*AlthoughEmergent privately admitted to serious manufacturing problems, senior executives received millions of dollars in raises and bonuses as vaccines were being destroyed.
*Despite acknowledging prior awareness of risks and apologizing to the American people,Emergent President and CEO Robert Kramer defended and refused to return large cash bonuses awarded to top executives.
*On November 1, 2021, the Biden Administration canceled its public-private partnership withEmergent and terminated the company’s contract.
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