Country of Origin of Medical Products and Risk of Labour Rights Abuse: A Cross-Sectional Analysis Using Four Procurement Datasets

Background Case studies have highlighted labour rights abuse in the manufacture of several healthcare products, but little is known about the scale of the problem or the specific products involved. We aimed to quantify and compare the overall and product-specific risks of labour rights abuse in the manufacture of healthcare products supplied to high-income settings using multiple datasets on the product country of origin (COO). Methods Public procurement data from South-Eastern Norway (n=23,972 products) were compared to datasets from three other high-income settings: procurement data from Cambridge University Hospitals, trade data from UN Comtrade, and registry data from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In each dataset, the product COO was matched to the International Trade Union Confederation risk rating for labour abuse and deemed high-risk when rated 4, 5, or 5+. Results In the Norway data, 55.4% of products by value had a COO declared, 49.1% of which mapped as high-risk of labour rights abuses. COO was identified for 70/100 products in the Cambridge data, with COO matching high-risk at 59.9% by value. The level of risk for specific medical product categories varied between the Norway, US FDA, and UN Comtrade datasets, but those with higher proportional risk included medical/surgical gloves and electrosurgical products. Conclusion Evidence of high-risk of labour rights abuse in the manufacture of healthcare products present in these data indicates a likely high level of risk across the sector. There is an urgent need for global legislative and political reform, with a particular focus on supply chain transparency as a key mechanism for tackling this issue.

trans-activation of RNA polymerase II and III promoters by SV40 small t antigen

A biochemical role for SV40 small t antigen (t) in the viral infectious cycle that would explain the strong conservation of t structure among papovaviruses and its role as a helper of SV40 large T antigen function in the viral transforming process is not understood. Here, we report an intracellular biochemical function of the protein--the capacity to trans-activate selected RNA polymerase II and III-requiring promoters. Since t has failed in the past to bind to DNA and did not stimulate all polymerase II-requiring promoters tested, it likely trans-activates, at least in part, by modifying the activity of selected transcription factors.