Clinton Global Initiative Hires APCO Worldwide [1]
Submitted by Anne Landman [2] on
Former President Bill Clinton [3] established the Clinton Global Initiative [4] (CGI) in 2005 to implement innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems, like hunger, poverty and access to health care. By some accounts [5], CGI's effectiveness rivals that of the United Nations [6] in this regard. Ironically, CGI selected APCO Worldwide [7] to help organize its 2010 annual meeting. APCO is the same public relations [8] firm that helped Philip Morris [9] organize a damaging front group [10] in October, 1993 called The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition [11] that helped the tobacco industry fight public health efforts to control secondhand tobacco smoke [12] after the EPA [13] rated it a Group A Human Carcinogen. APCO has also helped industry pin the label of "junk science" on environmentalists. APCO also managed a massive, tobacco industry-funded, below-the-radar national effort aimed at altering the American judicial system to make it more hostile towards product liability lawsuits. The effort, also known as tort reform [14], was actually an internal corporate program of Philip Morris (PM). PM hired APCO to create fake "grassroots" organizations around the country called "(insert state name here) Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse [15], e.g., "Alabama Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse." Creating the appearance of a "tort reform movement" was a massive undertaking. It involved convincing other industries to join the so-called "movement" to help obscure the fact that Philip Morris was the organizer.