Corporations

Dear Mr. President, I Wish I Had Known...

Like many others, I've heard President Obama talk about his mother's insurance problems during her final months in 1995. The memory of his mother having to devote precious time and energy pleading with her insurer to pay her mounting medical bills fueled Obama's determination to focus on passing health care reform.

But I didn't realize until reading a new book about the president's mother that the insurer she was pleading with was CIGNA, the one I used to work for. I wish I had known at the time. In my role as PR man for the company, I might have been able to help.

Energy Industry Puts Positive Spin on Record Profits

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum InstituteAfter Exxon Mobil posted first-quarter 2011 profits of $10.7 billion -- $6.3 billion more than it earned last year by this time -- the company put out a defensive statement arguing that it is not to blame for gasoline exceeding $4 around the country. Instead, the company blamed skyrocketing gas and oil prices on the U.S. government, saying Exxon makes about seven cents on a gallon of gasoline, while state and federal governments collect 40 to 60 center a gallon in taxes. Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry's lobbying group, spun his industry's record income as a positive, saying high oil company profits signal a stronger U.S. economy. Gerard said Americans "should be proud" of a high-earning oil industry, since it supports millions of jobs and provides income for retirees in the form of profits paid on shares in people's retirement accounts. Exxon vice president Ken Cohen portrayed the push to eliminate $4 billion in government subsidies for the industry as an attempt to raise taxes on the industry, saying the subsidies help keep jobs from being exported to other countries.

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Main Source: 
CNN Money, April 28, 2011
Topics: 
Corporations
Economy
Lobbying

Voter Suppression Bills Sweep the Country

Let the people voteA wave of voter suppression legislation is emerging from newly elected GOP governors and Republican legislators that would make it much more difficult for traditional Democratic constituencies to vote -- just in time for the 2012 election. About a dozen states are are actively considering legislation that would make voting much more difficult for college students, minorities, the elderly and the disabled.

And the Razzie goes to Norman Lear's EMA for Exposing Kids to Sewage Sludge and Not Coming Clean

For a non-actress surrounded by movie stars, Debbie Levin, President of the Environmental Media Association (EMA) -- an organization founded by Norman Lear -- is putting on quite a performance of her own. Too bad it's more likely to win her a fraud charge than an Oscar, based on her May 6, 2011 letter to her Board provided to the Food Rights Network by a source inside EMA.

Rosario Dawson gardening at a school next to a bag of Kellogg's AmendOver the past month, Levin has been confronted with ample evidence that the group she runs exposed school children (not to mention the Hollywood celebrities that serve on the group's board) to toxic sewage sludge. In 2009, EMA began a partnership with several Los Angeles schools, securing the donation of thousands of dollars in compost and soil amendment products from Kellogg Garden Products for the schools' organic gardens soon thereafter. In a sworn affidavit, former L.A. Unified School District garden advisor, Mud Baron, said that he informed Levin early on and repeatedly that Kellogg uses sewage sludge in many of its products, and sewage sludge is illegal for use in organic gardens.

Tobacco Companies Secretly Added Appetite Suppressants to Cigarettes

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Silva Thins adA recent study of tobacco industry documents reveals that cigarette makers added appetite-suppressing substances to cigarettes and strategized on how to enhance the appetite-suppressing and weight-reducing effects of smoking. In the 1960s, Philip Morris (PM) added tartaric acid to its cigarettes to reduce smokers' appetite. British American Tobacco (BAT) added the same substance to its cigarettes. Another known tobacco additive with appetite-reducing characteristics, 2-acetylepyridine, was referred to in industry documents using code-names and was used as a cigarette ingredient by PM, Brown & Williamson, R.J. Reynolds and BAT. The companies also considered adding ephedrine and amphetamine to cigarettes, but these chemicals were not found in their ingredients lists. Cigarette makers strategized that they could get away with adding appetite-suppressing chemicals to cigarettes as long as they made no overt health claims about their effects to the public. In a 1969 memo, Helmut Wakeham, PM's scientific director, in response to a question about introducing specific substances into cigarettes, explained that "FDA [has] no requirements until a health claim is made. Then there must be studies on safety, efficacy, mechanism of action, metabolism, etc. If a substance is simply added to a product and no claims are made there is not need for FDA approval.

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Main Source: 
European Journal of Public Health, April 7, 2011
Topics: 
Corporations
Health
Tobacco

Skin Care Company Tries to Get "Newsvertising"

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Handing moneyA skin care company that claims to have a cure for acne, psoriasis, folliculitis and other disorders is contacting Virginia media outlets and offering to pay them $100 for each person who sees the company's press release and signs up to get treatment. The company asks editors to "consider running our press release as a win-win project." The only problem? Taking kickbacks violates the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, which dictates that journalists should "refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment ..." and "be wary of sources offering information for favors or money." One editor who noted the corrupting significance of the company's bird-dogging offer to media outlets forwarded the release to the Poynter Institute, a school whose mission is to "ensure that Americans have access to excellent journalism" and to help Americans understand how to tell which journalism is credible. The Institute posted a blog alerting the public to the press release.

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Main Source: 
Boingboing.net, May 5, 2011
Topics: 
Advertising
Journalism
Corporations

Are Health Insurers Writing Health Reform Regulations?

Health care reformOne of the reasons I wanted to return to journalism after a long career as an insurance company PR man was to keep an eye on the implementation of the new health reform law. Many journalists who covered the reform debate have moved on, and some consider the writing of regulations to implement the legislation boring and of little interest to the public.

But insurance company lobbyists know the media are not paying much attention. And so they are able to influence what the regulations actually look like -- and how the law will be enforced -- with little scrutiny, much less awareness.

Another Big Business Win in the U.S. Supreme Court

Cell phone moneyThe U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority granted big business another win on April 27 by granting corporations the "right" to suppress class actions challenging unfair practices. In a decision that has serious implications for consumer and employment rights, Justice Scalia's majority decision ignores traditionally-conservative judicial principles to get to the pro-business end it seeks.

Blackwater (Xe) Hires John Ashcroft as an Ethics Adviser

Submitted by Anne Landman on

John AshcroftXe, the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater, has hired former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft as an ethics adviser. Blackwater gained notoriety after five of its contract security guards were indicted in the 2007 machine gun massacre in Baghdad's Nisour Square that took the lives of 17 Iraqi civilians. In the wake of that controversy, the company changed its name to Xe to try to escape its bad image. Ashcroft has faced his own ethical challenges, too, and he served as attorney general during many of the constitutional abuses conducted during the Bush Administration. In 2004, he refused to comply with Senate Judiciary Committee demands to produce copies of legal memos that lawyers in Bush administration had prepared that reportedly stated that as commander-in-chief, the president had the right  to order torture. Ashcroft was also instrumental in advancing so-called federal "charitable choice" initiatives that funneled taxpayer money to religious groups amid charges that such government-funded programs violate the constitutional separation of church and state. Ashcroft also signed off on the Bush Administration's unconstitutional warrantless wiretapping programs until 2004, when he finally refused to reauthorize them and was subsequently pushed out of the administration.

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Main Source: 
Politico.com, May 4, 2011
Topics: 
Corporations
Ethics

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