Submitted by Laura Miller on
The National Center for Public Policy Research, a right-wing think tank, has launched a new website, envirotruth.org, to attack what it calls the "jihad" that environmental activists are waging against corporations.
Submitted by John Stauber on
Rick Berman, the tobacco lobbyist who runs Consumer Freedom.com (which he started with $900,000 from Philip Morris) condemns us for "fearmongering" about the dangers of mad cow-type diseases in the US. Berman uses a combination of false claims and misinformation to smear us and our 1997 book Mad Cow USA. Berman's operation is funded by food and booze interests such as Philip Morris, the world's largest tobacco company and the largest food conglomerate in the US.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
U.S. news media are overwhelmingly biased in favor of genetically modified (GM) crops, according to a survey of major newspapers and weekly newsmagazines conducted by Food First. "A search was made to find all opinion pieces over a two-year periodofrom September 1999 through August 2001," reports Nick Parker.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
"Anti-GMO (genetically modified organism) scientists and activists are increasingly having their credibility attacked through a campaign orchestrated by the biotech industry," investigative reporter Andy Rowell writes. In two in-depth stories Rowell and Jonathan Matthews, of Norfolk Genetic Information Network, examine the dirty tricks Monsanto has played to promote its gene altered food.
Submitted by John Stauber on
Two young Michigan men have died from a mad cow-type disease called "sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)." The men did not die of actual British mad cow disease, called new variant CJD or vCJD in humans. No one knows what caused their sporadic CJD, but the odds of two young men dying at the same time in the same hospital are astronomical. The human victims of British mad cow disease are also typically young.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
In their resignation letters, the top two members of the Ombudsman Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have accused the agency of covering up the existence of deadly pollution in the area of the destroyed World Trade Center towers in New York. Emergency workers who were sent to the scene and residents of Lower Manhattan are developing serious, and in some cases, life-threatening respiratory ailments and other health problems.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
"Burson-Marsteller is handling the public and media uproar over the safety of New York's Indian Point nuclear plant for the facility's owner Entergy Corp," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. "Activist groups and the media have criticized the safety record of the plant and its potential vulnerability to an attack by an airliner in the wake of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center tragedy. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in its annual review of the nation's 103 reactors released last month, gave the Indian Point 2 reactor its lowest performance rating.
Submitted by John Stauber on
Lester Crawford, acting director of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told the Associated Press "we should probably try to eradicate (Chronic Wasting Disease in deer). There's no reason you couldn't stop it. It's not something you want in the livestock herds." Tough talk, but don't expect much action. Crawford supposedly is well-informed on mad cow-type diseases, but his statements ring hollow and provide no specifics.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
Trade publication PR Week reports that critical news stories have caused the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) to pull a $3-million PR plan that "would have gathered community input for its long-range planning process." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's reporting on MMSD's PR spending led city commissioners to question the cost and details of the PR plan. According to the Journal Sentinel, MMSD's "budget for publicity and lobbying ranks fifth overall -- second among similar-sized systems -- and No.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The resignation of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Ombudsman Robert Martin ends his long-running battle to preserve his office and its ability to independently investigate cases where the agency mishandled Superfund sites. His resignation came on the heels of actions taken by EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman to disband his office, including sending agents to confiscate his files and his computers, and to change the locks on his office.
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