Fw: Public Citizen Press Releases: Yucca Mountain Testimony,Profits in the Pharmaceuticle Industry

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Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 6:42 PM

Subject: Public Citizen Press Releases: Yucca Mountain Testimony,Profits in

the Pharmaceuticle Industry

Radioactive Shipments on Roads, Railways and Waterways Would Threaten Public

Health and Safety

Congress Should Put the Brakes on Nevada Nuclear Dump Plan, Public Citizen

President Tells Lawmakers

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Shipping tens of thousands of tons of deadly nuclear

waste to Yucca Mountain would compromise the health and safety of millions,

Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook told lawmakers today. Not only is

the chance of a crash high, but the transport casks have not been adequately

tested and the shipments would make prime terrorist targets, Claybrook said.

Claybrook testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's

Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality. It was the first congressional

hearing to examine the Yucca Mountain project since President Bush approved

it in February.

" Transporting nuclear waste is inherently dangerous because it increases the

likelihood of radioactive release and introduces this risk to densely

populated areas where the emergency response and public health

infrastructure may lack the capacity to respond effectively to a nuclear

emergency, " Claybrook said.

Following Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation to go forward

with the project, President Bush approved the plan to build a permanent

repository for 70,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste from

commercial reactors and Department of Energy (DOE) weapons facilities at

Yucca Mountain, 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn

vetoed the project April 8, and both houses of Congress will vote this

spring whether to support or override his veto.

Transporting waste from current storage sites across the country would

entail tens of thousands of shipments on roads, rails and waterways in 44

states and the District of Columbia. As former administrator of the National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Claybrook told lawmakers that the

dangers raised by those shipments cannot be justified.

The administration has touted the safety record of nuclear waste transport,

but it downplays the fact that there have been incidents in which radiation

was released and that waste has never been shipped on such a massive scale.

Since 1949, there have been 72 incidents involving nuclear waste shipments,

four of which involved radioactive contamination beyond the transport

vehicle, according to data compiled by the state of Nevada. General traffic

crash rates also indicate the high likelihood of a disaster. In 1999, there

were 453,000 crashes involving large trucks ¯ 8,857 of them involving

hazardous materials ¯ and 2,768 train crashes.

In spite of the statistical certainty of crashes, the casks that would be

used to transport the high- level waste have not been adequately tested.

Physical tests were performed in the 1970s on now- obsolete casks, and

current computer-model tests dangerously underestimate the conditions casks

would need to withstand in a worst-case accident, Claybrook said.

The tests simulated crashes at speeds no higher than 30 miles per hour,

submersion under water for only one hour and fires lasting only 30 minutes

at 1475 degrees Fahrenheit. But no rules limit the casks to traveling at

less than 30 mph, and a crash involving a river would likely mean a cask is

submerged for far longer than one hour because of the logistics of pulling

it out. Also, Claybrook noted that last summer's fire in Baltimore's

Street train tunnel burned more than three days and likely reached

temperatures over 1500 degrees.

Claybrook also noted that the Sept. 11 attacks have raised the prospect of

terrorist sabotage of nuclear waste shipments. Although Abraham has twice

halted nuclear transports due to security concerns, officials have not

addressed the security implications of the Yucca Mountain project.

An analysis by the state of Nevada indicated that a successful terrorist

attack on a transport cask using a common military device could cause 300 to

1,800 latent cancer fatalities, while a state-of-the- art anti-tank weapon

could cause 3,000 to 18,000 latent cancer deaths and cost more than $17

billion to clean up.

Further, the Yucca Mountain site itself is unsuitable, Claybrook said. It

sits atop an aquifer and in an earthquake zone, and the site selection

process has been rife with conflicts of interest and industry influence,

including millions spent on lobbying and campaign contributions to

decisionmakers.

The DOE's long history of investing in wasteful ventures, combined with the

numerous technical, environmental and policy issues that remain unresolved

with the project, suggest that Yucca Mountain is poised to become another

contaminated site and taxpayer boondoggle, Claybrook said.

She recommended to the subcommittee that it uphold Guinn's veto, hold

hearings in major cities along waste transportation routes and maintain

vigorous oversight of any repository proposal or nuclear waste management

program.

A copy of the testimony is available at

http://www.citizen.org/documents/yuccatestfinal.PDF.

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Pharmaceutical Industry Ranks As Most Profitable Industry -- Again

Drug Companies Top All Three Measures of Profits in New Fortune 500 Report

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Even as many industries suffered last year, the

pharmaceutical industry - which continued hiking prices and resisting

efforts to control drug prices - once again was the most profitable industry

in the annual Fortune 500 list, indicating that the drug industry juggernaut

shows no sign of abating, Public Citizen said today.

The pharmaceutical industry topped all three of Fortune magazine's measures

of profitability for 2001. It was a year when average prescription prices

increased 10 percent, even though the government inflation rate was a mere

1.6 percent. For three decades, the industry has been at or near the top in

all three of these measures.

" During a year in which there was much talk of sacrifice in the national

interest, drug companies increased their astounding profits by hiking

prescription prices, advertising some medicines more than Nike shoes, and

successfully lobbying for lucrative monopoly patent extensions, " said

Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch. " Sometimes what's

best for shareholders and CEOs isn't what's best for all Americans -

particularly senior citizens who lack prescription drug insurance. "

While the overall profits of Fortune 500 companies declined by 53 percent in

2001, the top 10 U.S. drug makers increased profits by 33 percent last year,

from $28 billion to $37 billion, according to Public Citizen's analysis of

Fortune 500 data.

Collectively, the 10 drug companies in the Fortune 500 had the greatest

return on revenues, reporting a profit of 18.5 cents for every $1 of sales,

which was eight times higher than the median for all Fortune 500 industries

(2.2 cents). The drug industry also led others by realizing a return on

assets of 16.5 percent - almost six times the median (2.5 percent) posted by

all industries. Pharmaceutical companies completed the sweep with a return

on shareholders' equity (33.2) percent, which was more than three times the

median of all Fortune 500 industries (9.8 percent).

Other Public Citizen findings include:

§ The two most profitable drug companies - Pfizer and Merck - owned the most

blockbuster drugs, with four each. Pfizer led U.S. pharmaceutical companies

with $7.8 billion in profits in 2001, which is more than the profits of all

the Fortune 500 companies in the homebuilding, apparel, railroad and

publishing industries combined. Merck was the second most profitable

pharmaceutical, netting $7.3 billion, which is more than the profits of all

the Fortune 500 companies in the semiconductor, pipeline, food production,

mining and crude oil production, and hotel, casino and resort industries

combined.

§ The drug industry maintains that it needs extraordinary profits to fuel

risky R & D into new medicines. But companies plow far more into profits than

into R & D. Fortune 500 drug companies channeled 18.5 percent of revenue into

profits last year. Yet they spent just 12.5 percent of revenues on R & D.

§ The drug industry's dominance of Fortune 500 profitability measures has

been growing in recent decades. In the 1970s and 1980s, profitability of

Fortune 500 medicine merchants (measured by return on revenues) was two

times greater than the median for all industries in the Fortune 500. In the

1990s, the drug industry's profitability rose to almost four times greater

than the median for all industries in the Fortune 500. Last year, it jumped

to more than eight times the median for all industries in the Fortune 500.

Other Public Citizen findings unrelated to the Fortune list include:

§ Last year, 29 drugs attained " blockbuster " status (more than $1 billion in

sales) - nearly double the 1999 tally of 15 blockbusters. These 29 drugs

garnered more than $52 billion in retail sales last year - or 34 percent of

the total U.S. pharmaceutical market. That is a dramatic increase over 1999,

when blockbusters accounted for 21 percent of the entire U.S. pharmaceutical

market.

§ These 29 drugs were far more expensive than most drugs. They had an

average prescription price of $97.71 last year - almost double the national

average of $49.84 per prescription.

A copy of Public Citizen's report is available at:

http://www.citizen.org/congress/reform/drug_industry/profits/articles.cfm?ID

=7416

###

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Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org.

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