Submitted by John Stauber on
DuPont, one of the world's worst polluters, hires PR firms with green credentials and access to environmental activists, firms such as Ecos in Australia and M+R Strategic Services in the U.S. M&R is a PR/lobby business begun and owned in part by Donald K. Ross, an advisor to foundations who is on the board of the League of Conservation Voters. Ross's PR firm M&R does business with dozens of major health and environmental non-profits, many of them funded by the individuals and foundations he advises. Recently M&R sent an urgent appeal to groups asking them to sign a joint letter to President Bush calling for "a major national initiative to end childhood lead poisoning." However, M&R's appeal failed to reveal that M&R works for DuPont, a company now named with others in forty-five government lawsuits to hold them accountable for contamination of U.S. housing with lead paint. Advocacy groups including the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning have rebuffed M&R and its client DuPont saying "their recommendations to the President are incomplete and out of balance." These groups are now circulating their own letter to the White House.