The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is a small advocacy group that last fall successfully got the Walt Disney Company to offer full refunds to people who had purchased the company's "Baby Einstein" videos, which were supposed to make very young children into geniuses. But research found that Baby Einstein videos not only failed to make babies smarter, but they actually delayed language development in toddlers. Kids who watched the videos learned fewer words than babies who never watched them. In 2006, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood complained to the Federal Trade Commission about Disney's educational claims about the videos. As a result, Disney dropped the word "educational" from their marketing materials for the videos, but that wasn't enough. Lawyers threatened a class-action lawsuit for deceptive practices unless Disney agreed to refund the purchase price to everyone who had bought the videos. Disney finally agreed to the refund, calling it an "enhanced consumer satisfaction guarantee," without mentioning the product's defect or the lawyers' demands. Shortly after the New York Times announced the refunds, though, Disney contacted officials at the children's mental health center that had long housed and sponsored the Campaign, and pressured them to evict the Campaign, saying the group should not advocate against corporations (even though advocacy is a core responsibility of the 1963 law that provides federal financing for community mental health centers).

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is backing off its much-criticized position defending the safety of a ubiquitous chemical ingredient in plastics called Bisphenol-A (BPA). FDA now says it has "some concern" about the effects BPA has on the brain, behavior and prostate gland in fetuses, infants and children, and is offering the public tips on how to avoid the chemical. BPA is found in the lining of virtually all food and beverage cans. It is used to make hard, clear plastic for baby bottles, eyeglasses, dental sealants and hundreds of household objects. BPA leeches into food and drink when it is heated, and has been linked to reproductive failure, heart disease, diabetes, prostate and breast cancer obesity and behavioral problems. Use of BPA is so common that the chemical was found in the urine of 93 percent of Americans tested for it. Hundreds of studies have shown that BPA is harmful, but the FDA based its 2008 reassurance that the chemical is safe on just two studies, both of which were funded by the chemical industry. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel uncovered information showing that chemical industry lobbyists wrote entire sections of that FDA decision. The American Chemistry Council (ACC), which represents BPA manufacturers, has a very different spin on FDA's updated statement about BPA. It issued a press release saying the FDA's new statement "confirms that exposure to BPA in food contact products has not been proven harmful to children or adults."

On May 28, industry executives met "to devise a public relations and lobbying strategy to block government bans" of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in cans and plastic containers. The "manufacturers of cans for beverages and foods and some of their biggest customers, including Coca-Cola" are considering spending $500,000 on PR "to defend their industry." Independent research has linked BPA to heart disease and diabetes in humans, and a wide range of diseases including cancer, obesity and reproductive problems in lab animals. Canada has banned BPA in baby bottles, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "has deemed it safe largely because of two studies, both funded by a chemical industry trade group," part of the American Chemistry Council. At the meeting, industry executives described their "'holy grail' spokesperson" as a "pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA." Industry representatives also suggested "using fear tactics" -- like asking "do you want to have access to baby food anymore?" -- and framing the opposition to BPA bans as "giving control back to consumers." Their main concern is "young mothers, who often make purchasing decisions for households and who are most likely to be focused on health concerns."

A meta-study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics concludes that viewing movie smoking scenes is a significant factor in smoking among older teens and young adults. In 1999, researchers interviewed thousands of 10- to 14-year-olds, assessing their smoking status and exposure to images of smoking, via movies. Follow-up interviews in 2006 and 2007 determined whether the former non-smokers had taken up the habit and compared their smoking status to their earlier exposure to movie smoking scenes. Those with the highest level of movie smoking exposure were twice as likely to have become established smokers as those with the least amount of exposure, even after controlling for a wide range of other factors. Researchers defined "established smoking" as having smoked more than 100 cigarettes in one's lifetime. They estimated that 34.9% of the youths' established smoking could be attributed to movie exposure. Smoking in the movies has come under renewed scrutiny. A 2005 study found that the amount of smoking depicted in movies diminished steadily from 1950 to 1990, but then increased so rapidly that by 2002, smoking in the movies was just as common as it was back in 1950. A 2006 study found that in recent years, depictions of smoking have shifted from R-rated to PG-13-rated films, and that major studio pictures account for 90% of movie smoking scenes. The 2006 study authors concluded that major film studios are "delivering the most new adolescent smokers to the tobacco industry."

A four-year study of more than 1,200 youngsters performed by the University of Massachusetts Medical School found that children whose parents let them watch R-rated movies are more likely to smoke. Participants were in sixth grade when they started the study, and researchers interviewed them a total of eleven times over the course of the study. They were asked questions about the availability of cigarettes in their home, whether smoking was allowed in their home and whether their parents let them watch R-rated movies and videos. According to the study's lead author, Chyke Doubeni, M.D., MPH, the results may indicate that parents who permit their children to watch R-rate movies may also have a parenting style that encourages smoking, or the results could be an outcome of children viewing all the smoking scenes that occur in R-rated movies. In August, 2008, the National Cancer Institute concluded that a causal relationship exists between exposure to smoking scenes in movies and youth smoking initiation. According to Doubeni, the results of the Massachusetts study show that parental permission to watch R-rated movies is one of the strongest predictors of children's belief that cigarettes are easily available, and that it is an equally strong predictor as having friends who smoke.

On January 26, the New York Times examined "The Epidemic That Wasn't" -- breathless news reporting from the 1980s that predicted an epidemic of irreparable damage to inner-city children whose mothers used crack cocaine. Actually, it turns out, the so-called "crack babies" are doing fine. On the same day, notes the Columbia Journalism Review, the Washington Post published a story on an epidemic that was -- hundreds of children who have unsafe amounts of lead in their blood due to contamination of the water supply in Washington, DC. "The sad irony about these stories appearing on the same day is that lead poisoning in young children actually produces some of the irreparable cognitive and developmental damage that was once believed to be caused by exposing infants to cocaine," writes Lester Feder. "Lead poisoning also disproportionately affects the low income and African-American populations menaced by the crack epidemic. But while crack babies became a symbol of America’s deteriorating inner city during the Reagan administration, President Reagan cut funding for lead screening and ordered the Centers for Disease Control to stop keeping lead poisoning statistics." Feder also notes a difference in reporting standards for the two epidemics. When writing about crack babies, he notes, "they often treated speculation as fact and used language as alarmist as possible." When writing about lead poisoning, however, they were careful to seek comments from lead industry representatives to flag "the possibility that the science could be questioned, a caution missing from the crack baby stories."

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has put over $176 million into funding abstinence-only sex education programs, a component of which is asking teenagers to take a pledge that they will remain virgins until after marriage. But a recent analysis of data from a large federal survey revealed that over half of youths became sexually active whether or not they took the pledge. The study also found that teens who took the pledge tended to have more negative views of condoms and to use them less. The percentage of teens who did have sex and took precautions against sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers. "This study again raises the issue of why the federal government is continuing to invest in abstinence-only programs," said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

It's never good to get your target demographic really mad at you. Johnson & Johnson managed to do exactly that with a recent on-line commercial for its Motrin pain reliever. In the ad, a "mom" talks about how much carrying her baby around is hurting her neck, shoulders and back. It starts with "Wearing your baby seems to be in fashion. I mean in theory, it's a great idea ... " But then the voice over says she cries more than moms that don't carry their baby around "hands free." It's worth it though, because when people see her with her little bundle of pain, she says,"it totally makes me look like an official mom." The reaction from parenting groups was quick, and the ad was pulled just days after launch. Because of long lead times for print publications, however, it will be around to haunt Motrin for a while.

"A ban on fast-food advertising to children would cut the national obesity rate by as much as 18%, according to a new study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research and funded by the National Institutes of Health," reports Emily Bryson York. The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), a front group for the restaurant and fast-food industry, has responded by calling the study "erroneous" because one of the study's authors acknowledges that "a lot of people consume fast food in moderate amounts and it doesn't harm their health" (as though this observation contradicts the study's findings in any way whatsoever). Previous studies have reached similar conclusions (and have likewise been attacked by CCF).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is poised to end "a six-year-old battle between career EPA scientists" who want to regulate a chemical linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women and children, and the White House and Pentagon, where officials oppose setting a drinking-water safety standard for the chemical, perchlorate. Guess who's likely to win? The EPA's "preliminary regulatory determination," obtained by the Washington Post, claims that setting a perchlorate drinking-water standard wouldn't result in a "meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public water systems." The document was heavily edited by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Among the OMB's comments was "that there was 'no need'" to include "detailed data" that showed that "infants would be exposed to perchlorate levels above" levels deemed safe by the National Academy of Sciences. Perchlorate is present in rocket fuel; many contaminated water sources are near military bases. In an attempt to avoid costly clean-ups, defense companies formed the Perchlorate Study Group, which has questioned whether perchlorate in drinking water poses a health problem.