Allawi and Bush in 2004"Republican lobbyists with close ties to the Bush administration are aiding and supporting the efforts of an Iraqi opposition leader who is calling for the ouster of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki," reports IraqSlogger. On behalf of former prime minister Ayad Allawi, the firm Barbour, Griffith and Rogers purchased the website domain Allawi-for-Iraq.com and sent "hundreds of email messages in Allawi's name" to Congressional staffers and others in Washington. The emails included copies of a Washington Post op/ed by Allawi in which he wrote "there will be no lasting political reconcilitation under Maliki's sectarian regime" and "Maliki has squandered Iraq's credibility in Arab politics, and he cannot restore it." The firm's international president, Robert Blackwill, was Bush's Presidential Envoy to Iraq in 2004, when Allawi was in power. Barbour Griffith, and Rogers also works for the Kurdistan Regional Government.

During an August 15 news segment on nuclear power, why did National Public Radio's John Ydstie say "many environmentalists ... who began their careers opposed to nuclear power ... are now reconsidering nuclear power in the face of global warming"? In an alert, the media watchdog group FAIR notes that Ydstie only mentioned one by name: Stewart Brand. But Brand -- like fellow nuclear boosters Patrick Moore and Christine Todd Whitman, who consult for the Nuclear Energy Institute -- has financial ties to the nuclear industry. Brand's Global Business Network includes "more than a dozen corporations and governmental agencies involved in the production or promotion of nuclear energy." FAIR also found that NPR itself has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from nuclear companies Constellation Energy and Sempra Energy, between 1993 and 2005. FAIR is calling on NPR to accurately represent the consensus view of leading environmental groups: that "nuclear power, with its huge safety, security and cost issues, is not the solution to climate change."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will study whether direct-to-consumer drug ads "distract consumers from carefully considering and encoding risk information," reports AP. The agency will look at "how images used in ads affect consumers" and "how text on the screen can focus or divert attention from audio warnings." The FDA is concerned that "relaxing, upbeat images" and "text directing viewers to company Web sites or magazine advertisements" may detract from "important audio about side effects." FDA monitoring of drug ads has drastically decreased, according to a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The agency issued 21 citations in 2006, compared to 142 sent in 1997. During that time, drug industry spending on direct-to-consumer ads increased 330 percent, to $29.9 billion in 2005, according to the study. The industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America defends drug ads as educational, and promotes voluntary ad guidelines in an attempt to avoid more stringent or active regulation.

BP advertisement from 2004The oil and energy company BP recently received "a permit from the state of Indiana to dump more toxic discharges from its Whiting, Ind., refinery into Lake Michigan," reports Advertising Age. The permit, "which allows BP to dump 54% more ammonia and 35% more suspended solids" in the Great Lake, has "enraged" Chicago officials. Chicago's chief environmental officer remarked, "We'd like to have [BP] live up to their advertising." BP's rebranding as "Beyond Petroleum" has sought to associate the company with environmentally friendly initiatives. AdAge calls BP's move "the cardinal sin of touting an environmentally conscious image in marketing -- the central focus of BP's advertising for the past several years -- and failing to live up to the message." A company spokesman said BP had "started advertising in regional newspapers ... to clear up misconceptions about the issue." BP later said it would not increase its Lake Michigan dumping. Then, the Chicago Tribune reported that BP had requested and received an exemption from stricter soot emission limits.

Is there an attempt "to flush out would-be whistle-blowers" at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which "focuses on how pollution and other toxins in the environment contribute to disease"? Managers at the North Carolina institute recently "distributed 'record of congressional inquiry' forms to employees," asking "for details of each telephone call from the offices of members of the House or Senate, including on the information sought," reports the Associated Press. "Their distribution came in the midst of multiple and ongoing investigations by Congress," including by Sen. Charles Grassley's (R-Iowa) staff. Grassley wrote to National Institutes of Health director Dr. Elias Zerhouni about the "curious" timing of the forms. NIH whistle-blowers have informed Grassley's staff of previous management communications that "left them with the impression that there would be retaliation if it was discovered they had provided information to among others, congressional investigations," the Senator's letter states.