GE Healthcare

This article is part of the Pharma_Portal project of Spinwatch.

GE Healthcare is a company that specialises in (in its own words):

transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies.

It is a subsidiary of General Electric.

Omniscan libel case

In February 2010, The Guardian reported that a Danish radiologist being sued for libel by GE Healthcare, was launching a 'counterclaim for libel.' Henrik Thomsen previously claimed the company's contrast agent Omniscan which is used in MRI scans caused a 'potentially fatal condition in some patients with kidney problems'. According to Thomsen, 30 patients at Copenhagen University Hospital have developed nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF). Thomsen counter-sued the company for defamation after it called him a liar in a press release. GE Healthcare subsequently dropped the libel action after reaching a settlement with Thomsen, claiming it 'did not mean to stifle academic debate'. Thomson released a statement claiming:

I stand by my publicly expressed opinion, based on my experience and research on published papers, that there is an association between the chemical formulation of gadolinium-based contrast agents and NSF.

Lobbying firms

• Grayling Global (UK)
• APCO Worldwide

Donations to science PR organisations

GE Healthcare was a donor to the Science Media Centre from 2010 to 2012 according to the SMC.

In the financial year 2007-8 GE Healthcare was a funder of Sense About Science. SAS has run a high-profile campaign against libel laws in science (Keep Libel Laws out of Science) in relation to the case of the science writer Simon Singh being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for an article in the Guardian in which he claimed the BCA promoted "bogus" treatments.

While SAS devotes a substantial section of its website to supporting Singh's cause, however, it nowhere (as at February 2010) mentions the libel case that its funder GE Healthcare launched against the radiologist Henrik Thomsen.

Affiliations

• Former health minister, Lord Ara Darzi became a member of the Healthy Imagination Advisory Group of GE Healthcare in May 2010.

Resources

See: The Corporate Capture of the NHS

• Tamasin Cave, The privatising cabal at the heart of our NHS Spinwatch, 1 April 2015.
• Martin Donohoe, MD, FACP, and Claire Robinson, 2010. Corporations and Public Health: Overview and Case Study of GE Healthcare: Most Admired Company or Foe of Public Health?. Social Medicine, Volume 5, Number 4, December 2010.

Abstract:

This article discusses the nature and power of corporations and some ways in which their activities adversely impact public health. It reviews those activities of GE Healthcare and its parent company, General Electric (GE, ranked by Forbes Magazine in 2008 as the world's largest company), which have been antithetical to public health. These activities include unethical human subject experiments; environmental pollution; workers' rights and workplace health and safety violations; fraud; false and misleading advertising; sponsorship of corporate front groups; lobbying; a personal attack on a radiologist for exposing the risks of nephrogenic systemic sclerosis from its contrast agent Omniscan; and an ethically troubling technology transfer agreement with New York Presbyterian Hospital. Despite such activities, General Electric has been highly praised in the business community, including being named "America's Most Admired Company" in a Forbes Magazine poll and one of the "World's Most Respected Companies" in polls conducted by Barron's and Financial Times. The article concludes with suggestions for individuals, governments, and academic institutions on how to fight the corporate corruption of public health.