Non music - inappropriate donations

Subject: Non music - inappropriate donations
From: GUEST,Bagpuss at work
Date: 04 Apr 02 - 05:20 AM

Did anyone watch Mark Thomas last night? His show was all about how pharmaceutical companies are dumping useless drugs in needy countries so that they can get a tax break - often causing huge disposal costs for the country concerned.

Visit:

http://www.mtcp.co.uk/

to find out more - click on the links to drug dumping and especially read the report he produced with the support of War on Want. We need to raise the profile of this so that the same tax break laws that are in the US do not become law here without incorporating the WHO guidelines on appropriate drug donations.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: Non music - inappropriate donations
From: GUEST,Bagpuss at work
Date: 04 Apr 02 - 07:28 AM

And the channel 4 link gives more info, as well as a letter to send to Gordon Brown.

http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/M/mark_thomas/

Subject: RE: Non music - inappropriate donations
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 05:18 AM

Any UK pharmaceutical company that intends to take advantage of a deduction in its tax bill for donations should list the donation in its annual accounts. This should be updated every month on a website and a hard copy published annually.

Subject: RE: Non music - inappropriate donations
From: Ringer
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 07:40 AM

Are you saying, GUEST, that the UK tax laws insist that it must, or that you think it is morally obliged to?

Subject: RE: Non music - inappropriate donations
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 08:28 AM

Here are the clickies.

The Mark Thomas website (http://www.mtcp.co.uk/)

Channel 4: The Mark Thomas Product (http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/M/mark_thomas/we.html)

The first of these goes to an extraordinary site that attempts to present disturbing facts in a fun kind of way, and just about gets away with it. Light-hearted diversions include a chance to vote on what you'd charge for killing Bush (the "I'd do it for nothing" option is out in front, of course, polling around 78%).

The Channel 4 site has much info and some very useful links for people with enquiring minds - making the point that even in the UK, where our governments are obsessively secretive, there is a vast amount of info out there, if you know where to look.

It speaks volumes for investigative journalism in the UK that most of the serious digging these days is left to comedians like Mark Thomas and Jeremy Hardy.