PR Watch, Third Quarter 1997, Volume 4, No. 3

Flack Attack

by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

Thanks to successful lobbying by the U.S. health
care industry, a large portion of the U.S. public still lacks health insurance
and therefore cannot afford the rising cost of medicines, doctor visits
and hospital stays.

align="BOTTOM">Fortunately, some of the same folks who killed
health reform have thoughtfully provided you with an "alternative."

align="BOTTOM">In August 1994, while Republican politicians
were filibustering against the Clinton administration's health care proposals,
Utah's Orrin Hatch took advantage of a nearly-empty Senate floor to slip
through a law which prevents the government from regulating dietary supplements.

Swallowing Anything: The Hype Behind Alternative Remedies

Health

by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

Consumers Union scientist Michael Hansen says he was "pretty horrified" after looking into a question he received recently from Australia. The question came from a man who was trying to obtain a commercial, nonprescription nutritional supplement called "Complete Thymic Formula" from the United States for his girlfriend. The Australian authorities wouldn't let him import it due to fears that it might transmit Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), the human equivalent of mad cow disease.

CJD and mad cow disease both belong to a bizarre group of fatal brain disorders known as "transmissible spongiform encephalopathies" (TSEs), which kill by filling the brains of their victims with microscopic spongelike holes. In England, mad cow disease has reached epidemic levels in the cattle population, and the British beef industry has been devastated by the discovery that human beings are now dying from the disease after eating contaminated meat.

Did "Rejuvenation" Therapy Kill George Balanchine?

Health

by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

Choreographer George Balanchine is probably the most famous person in the United States who has died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (also known as Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease), the human equivalent of mad cow disease. In a retrospective written after Balanchine's death in 1983, one of his physicians speculates that he may have gotten the disease as a result of exposure to animal glands during "rejuvenation" treatments in Switzerland.

"Mr. Balanchine obviously had some kind of neurological disease, but a specific diagnosis could not be reached," recalls Robert D. Wickham, MD, senior attending urologist at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City, in the book, I Remember Balanchine by Francis Mason. "It was not until an autopsy was done that the disease could be identified," Wickham says. "Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease is rare and the diagnosis is ordinarily made only by microscopic postmortem examination of tissues."

Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?

Mad Cow Disease

by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

The bizarre infectious agent that causes mad cow
disease has now produced two U.S. Nobel prizewinners, 22 confirmed deaths
in Europe, and fears that thousands more may follow, along with an economic
catastrophe for the European meat industry. In the United States, however,
it has barely made a dent in the deadly complacency of industry and government
regulators.

align="BOTTOM">Mad cow disease, technically called bovine

Defending Hot Air: TASSC Takes On Global Warming

Global Warming

The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition is
an industry-funded PR front group run by the APCO public relations firm
which works to hang the label of "junk science" on environmentalists.
TASSC is using a thousand-dollar "Global Warming Sweepstakes"
to generate letters to President Clinton on the issue of global warming.

align="BOTTOM">"To enter the Global Warming Sweepstakes,
a contestant must visit the Junk Science Home Page (http://www.junkscience.com)
and, according to contest rules, send an e-mail to President Clinton expressing
an opinion whether the U.S.

Columbia Books Publishes Resources for Flack Trackers

Columbia Books publishes the best easily available information regarding lawyers, PR operatives, lobbyists and industry trade associations. Its directories are detailed, accurate and annually updated. We especially recommend the four directories described and priced below. If you can't afford to purchase each year's directory, ask your local library to stock them, especially Washington Representatives. For more information call Columbia Books at (202) 898-0662, or visit their website at <http://www.d-net.com/Columbia>.

Infocom Helps Flacks to Help Themselves

Public Relations

by Joel Bleifuss for PR Watch

One quick way to gauge the power of the public
relations industry is to plop the National PR Pitch Book on a
scale. The 1996 edition weighs four pounds and fills 706 pages. The Pitch
Book bills itself as "the insider's placement guide to the most
influential journalists in America." It offers the names of these
journalists, all 30,000 of them, along with their addresses, phone and
fax numbers.

align="BOTTOM">The Pitch Book is published by the
Infocom Group, which also puts out six newsletters for the "media
relations industry." Media relations is a big business, and Infocom
caters to the kind of organizations for which the $425 cost of a Pitch
Book is small change.

align="BOTTOM">The Pitch Book also provides first-person
information about the PR proclivities of these 30,000 top journalists.