Submitted by Anne Landman on
A California group that represents large produce growers, marketers and the suppliers who sell them pesticides and fertilizer, is getting $180,000 in federal funds for a PR campaign to combat critics of the pesticide industry.
Originally published on September 22, 2010 in Health Care and Tennessee Voices.
As I sit beside my 92-year-old father in his hospital bed in Kingsport, Tennessee, there are reminders all around me of why I left my job in the insurance industry to become an advocate for health-care reform — and why all Americans have reasons to be grateful that many provisions of the reform bill that became law six months ago are taking effect now.
To begin with, there is my dad himself. He must take costly medications every day. This year he and millions of other older Americans fell into the Medicare Part D "doughnut hole." They have to spend thousands of dollars for medicines they need before their drug benefit will kick back in. The new law has already begun to reduce their pharmacy expenses.
David Whelan blogs about the health care business for Forbes.com, and he's published a review of Wendell Potter's forthcoming new tell-all book about the health insurance industry, Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans. After twenty years as head of corporate public relations for two of the country's biggest for-profit health insurers, Wendell gave up his six-figure salary and cushy life as an insurance executive and decided he had to start telling people how the for-profit insurance industry manipulates the government and sticks it to Americans.
Submitted by Anne Landman on
Philip Morris tried to escape its tarnished reputation by re-branding itself "Altria" and the private military contractor Blackwater tried to ditch its bad image by re-naming itself "
Independent testing commissioned by the Food Rights Network found toxic contaminants in San Francisco's sewage sludge "compost." In the sludge product given away free to gardeners from 2007 to March 4, 2010, are contaminants with endocrine-disruptive properties including PBDE flame retardants, nonylphenol detergent breakdown products, and the antibacterial agent triclosan. The independent tests were conducted for the Food Rights Network by Dr. Robert C. Hale of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.
Watch a CBS 5 KPIX August 10, 2010 report providing a startling story of how San Francisco is violating its own precautionary principle law by dumping toxic sludge on city gardens.
Submitted by Anne Landman on
Wendell Potter is a former health insurance company executive, and he knows exactly how health insurance companies maximize profits at the expense of policyholders. Now Wendell is putting his inside knowledge of the industry to work -- for policyholders.
Submitted by Anne Landman on
AMC's Emmy-award winning TV show "Mad Men" depicts advertising executives in the 1960s, including their ubiquitous smoking, which occurs in practically every scene in every show. Now "Mad Men" is holding a celebrity auction on E-Bay in which it will sell off a walk-on role in the show to benefit lung cancer research and treatment at the City of Hope National Medical Center.
Submitted by Anne Landman on
Health insurance companies are continuing to charge double-digit increases in premium rates, even though profits are already skyrocketing and executives are raking in generous pay packages.
Submitted by Anne Landman on
CMD's Senior Fellow on Health Care, Wendell Potter, spoke at the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles about the ongoing struggle over the implementation of the new health care legislation. Coverage of the new law has been minimal lately, pushed off the front pages by the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, but a lot has been going on behind the scenes. Even though Congress passed, and the president signed the new healthcare legislation, we still don't know how it's going to be implemented, because the legislation only lays out Congressional intent. Numerous regulations must now be written to govern the business of healthcare in America. Parts of the new law could still be invalidated by the courts, or repealed by future members of Congress. So what is going on behind the scenes, anyway? Big insurers are quietly working very hard to preserve the status quo, just as the big banks are doing with financial reform.
Center for Media and Democracy (CMD)
520 University Ave, Ste 305 • Madison, WI 53703 • (608) 260-9713
CMD is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit.
© 1993-2024