Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Newspapers in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Boston, including chains owned by the publishers of The Wall Street Journal and the Boston Herald, are refusing to carry a paid advertisement criticizing retail giant Home Depot for selling lumber treated with dangerous amounts of arsenic, according to a news release from the Healthy Building Network and the Environmental Working Group.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Scientists as well as financial analysts caution that gene therapies may never come to fruition. If they do, they will be probably useful only for a handful of rare diseases. A Motley Fool financial columnist tells millions of readers, "There's no reason why the average investor should be invested in biotechnology companies.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
After the Taliban fled Kabul, BBC reporter John Simpson inspected an abandoned building where he claimed to find instructions for assembling a nuclear weapon. Actually, the document he filmed was a 1979 spoof from the Journal of Irreproducible Results, which publishes humorous parodies of scientific writing. If terrorists used this document to build a weapon, they're in worse trouble than they realize.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The World Resources Institute (WRI) is urging journalists to exercise caution in reporting on the new book by Bj
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
In a startling plea for official censorship, Amy E. Smithson of the Henry L. Stimson Center has urged the government to "close down" web sites run by environmental organizations if they publish information about hazardous materials in local communities around the country, claiming that such information could be used by terrorists.
Submitted by John Stauber on
The Rocky Mountain News reports that a Colorado "Division of Wildlife biologist believes a nutritional study he conducted with deer, sheep and goats in the late 1960s might have been the genesis of chronic wasting disease. Gene Schoonveld suspects some of the sheep in his study had scrapie, a relative of chronic wasting disease. Some of the deer might have become infected with scrapie, which then mutated into CWD and spread to other deer. ...
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Environmental activists are stereotyped sometimes as head-in-the-sand hippies, but the protesters who are blockading logging in Western Australia are "some of the most organised and tactically smart activists around," according to Aizura Hankin, who profiles Louise Morris, a self-described "media liaison (media slut), police/industry liaison, and lock-on wench" for the anti-logging campaign.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Congress is on the verge of passing a new law (H.R. 3160) that would block public access to information about the US biological defense program under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Secrecy will do little to protect public safety, since extensive information has already been widely published about bioweapons agents, most of which are naturally-occurring. The Sunshine Project explains the public relations agenda behind the drive for secrecy, which may have more to do with protecting corporate reputations than public safety.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
In the last 20 years, corporate funding in the fields of information technology and biotechnology has grown faster than support from any other source, and there is growing concern over possible corporate interference and industrial pressures that could inappropriately influence the direction, interpretation, and outcome of research. This past summer, several organizations took measures to examine and address this situation.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
In our book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, we reported on a PR campaign by the U.S.
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