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[eccr] Fwd: The Weekly Spin, Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Wed Jan 28 11:30:23 GMT 2004
>THE WEEKLY SPIN, Wednesday, January 28, 2004
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>sponsored by PR WATCH (www.prwatch.org)
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>The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to
>further information about current public relations campaigns.
>It is emailed free each Wednesday to subscribers.
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>THIS WEEK'S NEWS
>
>1. USDA Hides Behind the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis
>2. Bush Administration Protects Chemical Industy
>3. Mad Cow is Good for Industry Front Groups
>4. B-M's Biotech Front Group Exposed in the UK
>5. Hiding Wal-Mart's Warts
>6. Drug Researcher Continues To Challenge Industry Claims
>7. Bush Promises US Propaganda To Replace Hateful Propaganda
>8. US Obesity Expands PR Budgets
>9. 'Corporate Social Resposibility' Masks Corporate Damage
>10. Auto Industry Front Group Gets New Head
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. USDA HIDES BEHIND THE HARVARD CENTER FOR RISK ANALYSIS
>http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1075208119170910.xml
> "When Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman met a House panel last week
> to defend her response to mad cow disease, she cited a Harvard
> University study concluding the risk to public health is minimal.
> ... The Harvard study, released two years ago, has become a
> universal defense for Bush administration officials as they have
> responded to the first cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in
> Canada and then in the United States. But in their rush to embrace
> 'sound science,' Veneman and others at times mischaracterized the
> study's purpose, recommendations or conclusions, according to a
> review by The Oregonian." The USDA paid the Harvard Center for Risk
> Analysis $800,000 to produce a computer modeling study designed to
> deny and downplay mad cow risks in the US. Far from being an
> academic institution, the Harvard Center is an industry-funded
> front group specializing in producing risk assessments that favor
> its Fortune 500 supporters. Director George Gray is on the board of
> the industry-funded right-wing Foundation for Research and the
> Environment (FREE), and he and the Center's David Reopik recently
> penned a piece for FREE ridiculing concerns over mad cow disease.
>SOURCE: Oregonian, January 27, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1075179600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075179600
>
>2. BUSH ADMINISTRATION PROTECTS CHEMICAL INDUSTY
>http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000035.php
> "Last year the Bush Administration encouraged American chemical
> companies to lobby against European efforts to strengthen the
> regulation of thousands of chemicals contained in household,
> industrial and personal products," BushGreenWash.org writes. "When
> the chemical industry was slow to respond, Administration officials
> took it upon themselves to launch 'an unusually aggressive
> campaign' to pressure the European Union into watering down its
> comprehensive reform efforts. Documents uncovered by the
> Environmental Health Fund, using the Freedom of Information Act,
> showed the U.S. State and Commerce departments, Environmental
> Protection Agency and office of the U.S. Trade Representative,
> formed an alliance with Dow Chemical Co. and others to ward off
> regulations they feared would raise the cost of doing business in
> Europe." Meanwhile, the environmental group Earthjustice recently
> filed suit against the Bush Administration, asserting that it had
> allowed a special task force from the chemical industry to lobby
> secretly and illegally inside the EPA. According to internal
> documents obtained through FOIA, the chemical industry is seeking
> to cut U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries biologists
> out of the oversight process that determines whether or not a
> pesticide is safe for wildlife.
>SOURCE: BushGreenWash.org, January 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1075093201
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075093201
>
>3. MAD COW IS GOOD FOR INDUSTRY FRONT GROUPS
>http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=102-01262004
> Corporate-funded think tanks and food industry front groups are
> rushing into the debate over mad cow disease. This Wednesday,
> January 28th, the George C. Marshall Institute is hosting a
> presentation by Harvard Center for Risk Analysis director George
> Gray, hyping him as "the nation's foremost mad cow expert,"
> although his expertise is in getting money from government agencies
> and Fortune 500 companies to produce risk studies that favor their
> positions. Along with the Harvard Center and the Marshall
> Institute, other groups receiving industry funding and fronting for
> them on mad cow disease include Elizabeth Whelan's American Council
> on Science and Health; father and son combo Dennis and Alex Avery
> of the Hudson Institute; self-named 'Junkman' Steve Milloy of the
> Cato Institute; and tobacco, booze and fat-food lobbyist Richard
> Berman and his latest enterprise the Center for Consumer Freedom.
> Late today, in a major victory for our work here at the Center for
> Media & Democracy, the Food and Drug Administration agreed with us
> and banned cattle blood as feed for US cattle. UPI quotes Mad Cow
> USA co-author John Stauber as saying "The steps announced today ...
> still fall far short of what is needed. The United States should
> follow the lead of the EU nations by banning all feeding of
> slaughterhouse waste to livestock, and testing millions of U.S.
> cattle for mad cow disease."
>SOURCE: US Newswire Press Release, January 26, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1075093200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075093200
>
>4. B-M'S BIOTECH FRONT GROUP EXPOSED IN THE UK
>http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1130785,00.html
> "Few could question the sentiment behind the campaign: a fight
> against cervical cancer. A clutch of famous women, including Liz
> Hurley, Caprice and Carol Vorderman, signed up to support a crusade
> to introduce a new NHS screening test that could save the lives of
> thousands of women. The campaign is due to reach the House of
> Commons on Wednesday, when MPs will be lobbied on the issue. But an
> Observer investigation has uncovered how the celebrities have been
> duped into supporting a sophisticated lobbying campaign secretly
> orchestrated from Brussels by one of the world's largest public
> relations firms, Burson-Marsteller. Celebrities contacted by The
> Observer said they had no knowledge of the lobby group. ... The
> company, whose headquarters are in New York, has conducted a
> clandestine lobbying campaign on behalf of Digene, the US biotech
> firm that would make hundreds of millions of pounds if the tests
> were introduced in the UK and elsewhere. The idea was to set up a
> 'grass roots' group of celebrities and other high-profile women
> that would appear to be an independent body and pressure Ministers
> to introduce the new screening tests."
>SOURCE: The Observer, January 25, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1075006800
>
>5. HIDING WAL-MART'S WARTS
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43156-2004Jan23.html
> "Wal-Mart's very success may be working against it," reports the
> Washington Post. "[T]he public tends to mistrust institutions that
> get too mighty." The world's largest retailer, with 4,300 stores
> and 1.3 million employees, Wal-Mart's woes include a lawsuit for
> Americans with Disabilities Act violations, federal raids netting
> some 200 illegal immigrant workers, and charges that employees are
> encouraged to rely on taxpayer-funded programs for health care.
> Wal-Mart's response? Run feel good TV ads and increase political
> donations to become the second-biggest donor in the 2004 election
> cycle, overwhelmingly to Republicans. "Our critics make an awful
> lot of noise, and we need to ensure that our side of the issues is
> heard as well," explained Wal-Mart spokesperson Mona Williams.
>SOURCE: The Washington Post, Saturday, January 24, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074920401
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074920401
>
>6. DRUG RESEARCHER CONTINUES TO CHALLENGE INDUSTRY CLAIMS
>http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7433/187-c?etoc
> A Canadian professor of pediatrics and medicine vows to continue
> speaking out on the risk of a drug used to treat thalassemia, a
> hereditary blood disorder. Dr. Nancy Olivieri lost her attempt to
> get her research on the harmful side effects of deferiprone looked
> at by the committee for proprietary and medicinal products (CPMP)
> that regulates drugs in Europe. "This ruling guarantees that only a
> drug company attempting to sell a drug will control the content of
> the scientific data submitted or not submitted to the European
> CPMP," she said. "It no longer matters whether drug companies tell
> the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, because it's
> unchallengeable now." PR Watch First Quarter 2003 reported on
> Olivieri's fight for academic freedom when the drug company that
> funded her research blocked her from making her findings public.
>SOURCE: BMJ.com, January 24, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074920400
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074920400
>
>7. BUSH PROMISES US PROPAGANDA TO REPLACE HATEFUL PROPAGANDA
>http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1074683529256&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
> "To cut through the barriers of hateful propaganda, the Voice of
> America and other broadcast services are expanding their programs
> in Arabic and Persian -- and, soon a new television service will
> begin providing reliable news and information across the region,"
> George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address. In response,
> the Toronto Star's editorial page editor emeritus Haroon Siddiqui
> writes, "There's the Bush doctrine: The mess in the Middle East is
> to be solved by duplicating regional propaganda with American
> propaganda." The U.S.-funded Iraqi Media Network, which is run by a
> defense contractor, has drawn much criticism from Iraqis and former
> employees for being a mouth piece of the Coalition Provisional
> Authority. The Boston Globe reports that Bush is asking for $80
> million this year for the National Endowment for Democracy, up from
> $39.6 million. The new money is slated to fund groups in the Middle
> East that support free elections, open markets, a free press, and
> labor and trade unions. NED, however, has critics on both the right
> and the left. Terry Allen, from the Chicago-based In These Times,
> wrote in commentary accompanying a listing of Project Censored's
> under-reported stories of 2003 that "using the same conduit Reagan
> used to fund the contras, the National Endowment for Democracy, the
> George W. Bush administration had funneled money to Venezuelan
> Opposition."
>SOURCE: Toronto Star, January 22 , 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074799592
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074799592
>
>8. US OBESITY EXPANDS PR BUDGETS
>http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/7765780.htm
> "The United States spent $75.1 billion last year on medical
> expenses, such as drugs, doctor visits and hospitalizations,
> related to obesity, according to a study published this month in
> the journal Obesity Research," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
> The study, financed by the Centers for Disease Control and
> Prevention, found that taxpayers paid half of the bill through
> Medicare and Medicaid programs. Obesity-related health problems
> added up to 5.7 percent of the nation's total medical expenses,
> according to the report. America's expanding waistline has meant
> more fast food and soft drink dollars being spent on PR. "New
> York-area McDonald's have kicked off a PR campaign designed to
> increase sales by telling customers how various McDonald's offering
> cans fit into their favorite diets," PR Week reports. The industry
> front group Center for Consumer Freedom, which got $200,000 from
> Coca-Cola in 2001, wrote in an newspaper op-ed that opposition to
> soda machines in schools is "fueled by junk science and media
> frenzy" and that it is a "wild claim that soda consumption causes
> childhood obesity."
>SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, January 22, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074747600
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074747600
>
>9. 'CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPOSIBILITY' MASKS CORPORATE DAMAGE
>http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/news/media/pressrel/040121p.htm
> As the international business elite meet behind high fences in
> Davos, Switzerland, an international relief organization says
> corporate claims of good deeds often hide companies' efforts to
> undermine regulations and to elude responsibility for harm already
> done. "The image of companies working hard to make the world a
> better place is too often just that -- a carefully manufactured
> image," Christian Aid says in its new report, "Behind the mask: the
> real face of corporate social responsibility." The study targets
> "the burgeoning industry known as corporate social responsibility
> -- or CSR -- which is now seen as a vital tool in promoting and
> improving the public image of some of the world's largest companies
> and corporations." The report examines campaigns carried out by
> Shell, British American Tobacco and Coca Cola. "Some of those
> shouting the loudest about their corporate virtues are also among
> those inflicting continuing damage on communities where they work
> -- particularly poor communities," said Andrew Pendleton, senior
> policy officer at Christian Aid and author of the report.
>SOURCE: Christian Aid, January 21, 2004
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074661201
>
>10. AUTO INDUSTRY FRONT GROUP GETS NEW HEAD
>http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0121mccahill.htm
> "Barry McCahill, a longtime transportation PR and public affairs
> exec, has taken over as president of the Sport Utility Vehicle
> Owners of America, a lobbying group which claims to represent the
> 24 million SUV owners in the U.S.," O'Dwyer's PR Daily Reports.
> "Jason Vines, former managing director of Strat@comm and ex-head of
> PR at Ford, left the post in December to return to DaimlerChrysler,
> where he began his career. McCahill is a senior consultant to
> Strat@comm and the group's communications director is a principal
> and founder at the firm. McCahill was a longtime spokesman for the
> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and was on the team
> that put together its talking crash-test dummies and 'Friends Don't
> Let Friends Drive Drunk' campaigns."
>SOURCE: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, January 21, 2004
>More web links related to this story are available at:
> http://www.prwatch.org/spin/January_2004.html#1074661200
>To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
> http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1074661200
>
>
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