The Russian government, upset at criticism from such foreign-funded organizations as the U.S. think tank Freedom House, is turning the tables. Moscow approved the creation of the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, which will "study democracy and human rights in Europe and the United States." The Institute, whose funding comes from "private businesses," has offices in New York and Paris. "No country can monopolize the definition of standards of democracy and human rights," said Institute founder Anatoly Kucherena. In related news, the National Information Center will open in Moscow next month. "The center's aims include improving Russia's image abroad, promoting national projects and providing [Russian and foreign] journalists with first-hand contacts in the presidential administration," reports the Moscow Times. The Center will also be funded by business leaders, while Vasily Shestakov, "a friend and judo partner of President Vladimir Putin," has been invited to head its supervisory board.

Scientists in eight Arctic nations prepared "a landmark assessment of oil and gas activity" in the region over six years, including "a clear set of recommendations on how to extract safely what are thought to be up to one quarter of the world's energy reserves." But the United States government blocked the report's release, as it prepares "to sell off exploration licenses for the frozen Chukchi Sea off Alaska, one of the last intact habitats of the polar bear." One of the authors of the report said the U.S. move "could be linked to activities in the Chukchi Sea ... where more research and assessment is needed." Another author said a "key message" of the stalled report is "to check more before you drill for oil and gas in the Arctic." The U.S. Center for Biological Diversity's climate director called the U.S. action "part of the Bush-Cheney strategy of handing out as many fossil fuel entitlements as quickly as they can in their final months in office." The Bush administration rushed the Chukchi sales, scheduled for February 6, "before Congress can complete efforts to protect the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act," which would also complicate oil exploration in the area.

Saab Australia ad, which has since been ruled misleadingAn increase in "green" marketing has led to scrutiny by watchdogs around the world. Britain's Advertising Standards Authority recently ruled that television ads from the Malaysian Palm Oil Council were "likely to mislead viewers as to the environmental benefits of oil-palm plantations." The ads claimed that palm oil trees "give life and help our planet breathe," but in reality many palm oil plantations are on illegally cleared rainforest land. In September 2007, Norwegian regulators "banned all cars ads from stating that their vehicles are 'green,' 'clean' or 'environmentally friendly,'" since car production means more carbon emissions. In the U.S., the Council of Better Business Bureaus ruled that "a distributor of infant feeding bottles had to drop ads that claimed that the plastic used in a competitor's bottles was unsafe for both the environment and kids." The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is also planning to update its environmental advertising guidelines, which currently include standards for what can be marketed as "recyclable" or "biodegradable." As mentioned in an earlier Spin, there are no FTC standards for "carbon neutral" or greenhouse gas emissions offset programs.

The case of Pierre Meneton is fueling demands for legal protections for whistleblowers in France. Meneton is a researcher for the National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Health and Medical Research. He is going to court on January 31, 2008, to face charges of defamation. Several industrial salt producers are suing Meneton for a comment he made during an interview in March 2006. "The lobbying of salt producers and agribusiness is very active. It misinforms health professionals and the media." While the negative effects of salt on health are no secret, it was not until Meneton went public with claims of unethical practices in the research analysis of the French Authority for Food Safety and of the consistent meddling of the salt industry that it was widely publicized. Environmental health researcher Andre Cicolella says that while Meneton may not be a whistleblower by all definitions, his case would benefit from the same types of protections that are lacking for those that do qualify. For instance, Veronique Lapides is a resident of the Paris suburb of Vincennes. She raised the alert about a high rate of childhood cancer in the area and pushed for environmental clean up. Now she is being sued for defamation by the mayor of Vincennes. Cicolella said that this case shows "absent laws to prtect whistleblowers, this type of pressure can be exerted not only on scientists, but on citizens as well." In the U.S., the Senate just passed a bill to reinforce whistleblower protections for U.S. government workers, but it needs to be reconciled with a stronger bill passed by the House in March 2007.

Linda KeenThe fifty-year old nuclear reactor at Chalk River in Ontario, Canada, is running again after the Canadian Parliament overruled the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The facility is owned by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, which is a public-owned corporation of the Government of Canada. Then-Commission President Linda Keen has since been fired from her position. But she still testified in front of the House of Commons' Natural Resources committee Tuesday, saying, "When it comes to nuclear facilities, ignoring safety requirements is simply not an option – not now, not ever." At issue was the lack of adequate safety systems at the plant. "Ms. Keen said that without the backup system in place, the risk of a nuclear accident stood at one in a thousand -- 1,000 times higher than the international standard of one in a million." The reactor produces nuclear isotopes for medical use, and the members of the Conservative party in Parliament claimed that keeping the reactor shut down was leading to a medical emergency in Canada and worldwide. Others have disputed this, and point to the lag in time between the plant's shutdown and the government's sounding the alarm with other isotope producers. Regardless, Keen pointed out: "Under the law, the commission did not have the authority to take the issue of isotopes into consideration." She also added that "the Chalk River reactor, which is more than 50 years old, would not be licensed today by any nuclear regulator in the world."

Last week, House Republicans once again defeated an attempt override Bush's veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansion bill. Democratic leaders had re-submitted their old bill but actually lost ground this time as three Democrats and two Republicans failed to show up for the vote.

Though many Republicans voted for the bill, their House leaders once again cited higher tobacco taxes and the bill's $35 billion price tag in leading most of their party to oppose it. They also said the bill would cover illegal immigrants and middle-income Americans, though the bill now explicitly forbids that. The program is funded through March 2009 at existing levels, but Democratic leaders have said that the lagging economy will drive up the number of uninsured children, necessitating quicker action on expansion, so expect more votes this year.

How did your representative vote? Find out and record their position for all their constituents to read by following the easy, step-by-step instructions at the Congresspedia Voting Record Resource Center.

With marketing constraints increasing and cigarette usage declining in the developed world, Philip Morris (PM) is increasingly targeting smokers in other countries. PM now makes sweet-smelling cigarettes with cloves and other flavors that have twice the tar and nicotine as conventional products, created to appeal to smokers in developing countries. One example is PM's "Marlboro Mix 9," which is already sold in Indonesia and will soon be available throughout Southeast Asia. Another new PM product is "Tobacco Block," a roll-your-own cigarette system that allows smokers to avoid paying taxes on manufactured cigarettes. PM's "Marlboro Intense" is a shorter cigarette for smokers facing smoking bans who need a cigarette suited to a quick smoke break. Altria Group, Inc., PM's parent company, is expected to spin off PM International into an independent business that it hopes will be exempt from U.S. tobacco regulations and out of reach of American litigators.

The Huffington Post and TPM Muckraker highlight the newest activities of Roger Stone, whose past includes a stint as the "youngest dirty trickster" for Richard Nixon and a recent alleged prank call to Eliot Spitzer's father. Stone has formed a new 527 campaign group with a name that forms an obscene acronym. The group's purpose, according to Stone, is simply to sell T-shirts associating Hillary Clinton with that expletive. Stone praises 527's as a campaign vehicle: "A 527 doesn't have a wife.. It doesn't have a brother-in-law who knows a lot about politics, or a union president who calls and doesn't like the color of the suit, or bimbo eruptions. It's the perfect candidate, because it has no personal characteristics."

The Hotrodders.com website has launched a satirical spinoff, SpankMyMarketer.com, aimed at exposing "illegal stealth marketing" on behalf of companies including General Motors, Holley, Comp Cams and Dynomax, which they say has been posted on theirs and other auto-related websites. The first example, they write, was a "Spank My Monkey/Anti-Christ" campaign in which "Gas Monkey Garage, a fairly well-known hot rod shop," spammed websites with a "promotional photograph" that "featured the owner of Gas Monkey Garage, Richard Rawlings, posing in women's thong underwear with his shop manager," accompanied by a video in which Rawlings declared himself the "anti-Christ of the Hot Rod World." More recently, a viral marketing company called PowerTV has been posting on auto forums under usernames such as "powermelissa" who calls herself "a big-time car girl" as she posts promotional videos for clients' products.

A new report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) suggests that U.S. universities may be jeopardizing their academic integrity by giving oil, gas, and other polluting industries influence over the research that companies fund on campus. CSPI surveyed nine universities with industry-funded research programs studying global warming, including the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Illinois, Stanford, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of California at Davis. It found that many of them let corporate executives sit on boards overseeing grants, gave companies first rights to intellectual property, and let companies review and possibly delay publication of studies. "It's a cheap subterfuge for carbon-emitting companies," said Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science project at CSPI and co-author of the report. "They get the prestige of associating themselves with major respected universities, yet can control the direction of research, get first rights to intellectual property, and can delay any finding that doesn't help the bottom line."

Although U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney "has cast himself as a Washington outsider and blasted his opponents' ties to lobbyists," in fact he "has more than a dozen federally registered lobbyists raising money for him and several others advising his campaign," reports Jessica Van Sack. Lobbyists involved in his campaign, according to a report compiled by Public Citizen, include former New York Rep. Rick Lazio, who ran for the Senate against Hillary Clinton in 2000; Ronald C. Kaufman of Dutko Worldwide; former New Hampshire Attorney General Thomas D. Wrath; former Missouri Senator Jim Talent; Gregory B. Butler Sr., who represents Northeast Utilities; and Jack Gerard of Virginia, who represents the chemical industry.

Author and activist Ted Nace has been very busy on SourceWatch creating a home for what he calls the Coal Swarm. He has an important article in Orion magazine examining the coal moratorium battle that pits gassroots activists against not just the coal industry, but also some of the biggest environmental groups. Writes Nace, "The contrast between No New Coal Plants and Big Coal is obvious, but the contrast between such low-profile, leaderless entities and the large national groups typically identified with the environmental movement is equally striking. The largest of these groups, sometimes known as Big Green, include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense, and the National Wildlife Federation. Typically based in Washington DC or New York and sporting annual budgets in the tens of millions of dollars, these groups, not unlike the corporate and governmental entities they oppose, are hierarchical, highly organized, and reliant on trained and seasoned attorneys, scientific experts, and lobbyists." Nace believes the strategic and tactical differences between the Coal Swarm and the Big Green groups over new coal plants is critical to determining whether and how the US addresses global climate change.

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at why leaders in China -- and the U.S. -- think more propaganda is better, what happens when journalists wear a PR hat too, and who's joining Blackwater's crowded payroll. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how many steps it takes to get from spreading democracy in the Muslim world to dropping bombs in our own backyard. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

Rumsfeld with Gen. Peter Pace in Nov. 2005Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is concerned that the United States "is losing the war of ideas in the Muslim world, and the answer to that, in part, is through the creation of [a] new government agency," writes Sharon Weinberger. In particular, Rumsfeld is advocating for a "21st century agency for global communcations" -- or propaganda, similar to his controversial Office of Strategic Influence. The U.S. government needs to get involved, Rumsfeld said, because "private media does not get up in the morning and say what can we do to promote the values and ideas that the free Western nations believe in?" Unlike the old U.S. Information Agency, Rumsfeld said the new agency should use "multiple channels of information. ... The Internet is there, blogs are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there. There are all kinds of opportunities. We do not with any systematic organized way attempt to engage the battle of ideas."

As China prepares to host the Olympic Games, President Hu Jintao is urging Communist Party officials to "perform well the task of outward propaganda, further exhibit and raise up the nation's good image." At a recent Communist Party gathering, Jintao stressed the need for "cultural soft power," or public diplomacy, and said Chinese propaganda must "advance the building of the body of socialist core value and further boost unity and harmony." To improve their propaganda, the Beijing 2008 Olympics organizers have been working with the major public relations firm Hill & Knowlton. In related news, Chinese officials "are increasingly engaging in the debate over their country's role in Africa," countering charges that "they are neo-colonialists engaged in a remorseless drive for Africa's commodities," reports Financial Times. China's ambassador to Pretoria, South Africa defended his country's engagement with repressive governments like Zimbabwe's: "If you want to pressure and you cut all dialogue you cannot reason" with them. He also defended "the influx of cheap Chinese goods," saying African villagers' ability to "wear new clothes from China" instead of second-hand clothes gives them "confidence."

Image from the PR videoA sponsored public relations video airing on cable stations in five Connecticut towns is drawing scrutiny. The video is structured like a news interview and is co-hosted by "one of the best known political reporters in the state," Duby McDowell. In the video, McDowell is identified as a "WFSB Political Analyst." While McDowell sometimes provides commentary on the television station WFSB-3, she also runs her own PR firm. The video was produced for a law firm that's one of McDowell's PR clients, and the interviewees are two of the firm's partners. McDowell admits that viewers might be confused about her role in the video, but added: "We have mentioned at the end that this is paid for by Shipman & Goodwin," the law firm. In the video, the lawyers discuss "a whopping $12.4 million jury verdict" in an eminent domain case that they won against the town of Branford. Branford is appealing the decision. During the PR video, one of the lawyers stresses that the appeal will result in additional costs for town residents. "We are certain to see property taxes rise," responds McDowell.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security "is paying a Pennsylvania ad firm to pitch 'pre-written' winter-weather-preparedness articles" to national and local media. The Neiman Group firm wrote to the Vermont newspaper Seven Days: "In light of the forecasted weekend snowstorm in Burlington, now is a great time to remind your readers about the importance of preparing for winter weather." In response to questions from the paper, a Neiman spokesperson explained: "We've just noticed that staffing has been a little down at newspapers. ... A lot of newspapers have been asking us for what we're calling 'pre-written' articles." The information offered from Homeland Security's Ready.gov campaign intersperses mentions of "winter storms and extreme cold," "man-made disasters as well as natural ones" and "attacks." Ready.gov "is administered by the Ad Council, a private marketing firm" that "first gained notoriety for its 'Loose Lips Sink Ships' campaign" during World War II.

The pharmaceutical companies Merck and Schering-Plough, which co-market the cholesterol drug Vytorin, "have gone into damage-control mode, taking out newspaper ads." The PR campaign follows the companies' reluctant publication of a study showing that neither of the drugs present in Vytorin "reduced the buildup of fatty plaque in arteries." The study "was completed in 2006, but Merck and Schering said they didn't release it for nearly 21 months due to the complexity of the data and their own scientific concerns." The drug companies' ads, which ran in the New York Times and USA Today, refer to the damning study as "a single study that has generated a lot of confusion." The ads stress that the drugs "have been proven to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol," but what the study showed was that Vytorin is not "any better than generic Zocor in reducing the buildup of fatty plaque." Members of Congress have called for an investigation into why the "massive advertisement campaign for Vytorin was allowed to continue," after the study was belatedly made public. (The drug makers pulled their Vytorin TV -- but not print -- ads on January 22, reports Associated Press.) Class-action lawsuits are also being filed, alleging that the drug companies "misrepresented and withheld significant information" from the Food and Drug Administration and the public.

Following a damaging Associated Press report that Blackwater Worldwide "repaired and repainted its trucks immediately after a deadly September shooting in Baghdad, making it difficult to determine whether enemy gunfire provoked the attack," the private military company has hired more lobbyists. The firm Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice will serve as Blackwater's "D.C. representative for contracting and acquisition issues," reports O'Dwyer's. Lobbyists working for Blackwater include Jimmy Broughton, who was former Senator Jesse Helms's chief of staff; Mark Harkins, who worked for Representative Brad Miller; and Kevin Jones, who worked for former Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen. Lobbyists.info also lists C&M Capitolink and Gregory F. Hahn among Blackwater's lobbying firms. Regarding the truck repairs, a Blackwater spokesperson said they "would have been done at the government's direction," perhaps referring to an obligation under the firm's contract with the State Department that it maintain its own vehicles. Blackwater has received more than $1 billion in federal contracts since 2001.

The Center for Public Integrity "has released the first analysis of its kind, Iraq – The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War ... identifying 935 false statements by eight top administration officials that mentioned Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, or links to Al Qaeda, on at least 532 separate occasions. The false statements included in the analysis were made by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan." In July, 2003, the Center for Media and Democracy wrote the first book detailing the Bush propaganda campaign that lied the US into war, Weapons of Mass Deception.

We need help tidying up Tobaccowiki's expansive database of people involved with the tobacco industry. Many of the descriptions in the database are currently in fragmented sentences. For example, the description of Betsy Agle says "(EPA Indoor Air Branch employee)." We would rather it say "Betsy Agle was a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Indoor Air Branch employee." You don't need to add information to any of the descriptions in the database; we just want to correct any punctuation errors and make sure the descriptions that already exist are in whole sentences. You can work on any part of the list, and do as much or as little as you want. To get started, go to the Tobacco documents biographies page, click on any letter of the alphabet and start editing any of the entries in the list that need cleanup. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here, here and here. Have fun, and thanks for your help!

The General Chairman of Indonesia's National Commission for Child Protection, Seto Mulyadi, called tobacco companies' corporate social responsibility programs "hidden cigarette campaigns." Mulyadi said that cigarette companies "do free advertising through their CSR programs." Mulyadi is proposing a complete ban on cigarette advertising in Indonesia, after a study by the country's Public Health Department revealed that up to 81 percent of youth surveyed from 353 junior, senior and vocational schools admitted to having participated in activities sponsored by cigarette companies. As many as 51 percent of the respondents said they thought it was acceptable for a cigarette company to sponsor artistic performances and sporting events in schools; 93.3 percent could recite slogans used in cigarette commercials. Not only are youth familiar with the slogans, they use them in daily conversation, said the Secretary General of Indonesia's Child Protection Commission.

When the Tallahassee Democrat combed the community in early 2007 for residents whose blogs and articles could fill out the paper's local coverage, Stacey N. Getz was happy to sign on. "Getz's Let's Talk Tallahassee blog is a paean to civic boosterism, inviting readers to submit ideas to help business leaders and developers improve the city," writes Adam Weinstein. But Getz didn't disclose that her PR firm, CoreMessage, had worked for Wal-Mart Stores when she wrote a blog post bashing the company's critics as "illogical lunatics." Weinstein argues that this exemplifies a problem with the news industry's growing embrace of citizen journalism. "As newspapers' circulation numbers and ad revenues free-fall, their executives have decided that publications must go 'hyper-local' and online, and they've enlisted the help of amateurs such as Getz to do it. But as her Wal-Mart plug shows, the newspaper industry's embrace of 'citizen journalism' has a downside. Reader-submitted content rarely gets vetted by editors. ... By forcing their beleaguered staffs to depend on outsiders for content, then running the content without much editorial oversight, newspapers may be taken in by crackpots and sly marketers who make Jayson Blair look like a grade-school plagiarist."

"Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the January 6 US-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness," reports Gareth Porter. The incident, described by Pentagon officials as a "careless, reckless and potentially hostile" provocation by Iranian boats that nearly led to gunfire, was actually a nonthreatening, "almost routine" encounter that officials in Washington distorted. "The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs in charge of media operations, Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the navy itself," Porter writes. "Then the navy disseminated a short video into which was spliced the audio of a phone call warning that US warships would 'explode' in 'a few seconds.'"

"Several of the leading presidential candidates have adopted 'change' as a campaign theme and have rushed to claim that they themselves are the candidates for change," notes Frank Newport of the Gallup polling organization. "But exactly what form that 'change' should take has been a little murky. Change is such a broad concept that -- like a Rorschach inkblot test -- an individual can read into it what he or she wants." To clarify things a bit, Gallup surveyed Americans to ask what type of change they wanted. The three most common answers were: end the war in Iraq/bring troops home (26 percent); healthcare reform (19 percent); and fix the economy/create more jobs (18 percent). Stopping illegal immigration came in fourth, at 10 percent.

Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said he expected the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move forward on "a large raft" of complaints against television stations, for undisclosed video news releases (VNRs). He said, "Whether dealing with payola or VNRs or product placement, the commission's fundamental concern is the same. The American public deserves to know when someone is trying to persuade them ... and so I am glad we are really bringing that to the forefront of our enforcement efforts." Based on the Center for Media and Democracy's three reports on the fake news spots, CMD and Free Press filed complaints with the FCC against 112 television stations. In September 2007, the FCC proposed its first-ever fines for fake news. Comcast received (and appealed) liability notices for its cable channel CN8 having aired five VNRs without disclosure. The complaints against the other 111 stations are still pending.

The coal industry front group calling itself Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) "is waging a $35 million campaign in primary and caucus states to rally public support for coal-fired electricity and to fuel opposition to legislation that Congress is crafting to slow climate change." ABEC has already spent $1.3 million on ads in Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina. Its ads talk about "clean coal" and "70 percent cleaner" coal plants, though those reductions have been mostly in non-greenhouse gases. "About 50 people, many of them paid, walked around as human billboards and handed out leaflets outside Tuesday's Democratic debate in Nevada with questions for voters to ask the candidates," reports Steven Mufson. Facing increased public opposition, coal companies gave more money to ABEC and the industry lobbying group the National Mining Association. As reported in a previous Spin, ABEC's PR plan singles out Nevada for "issues management," presidential candidate outreach and connecting with "cities and communities critical to helping shape policy at the grassroots level."

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is criticizing the Providence Journal for publishing an op-ed article by Robert Goldberg while failing to disclose that Goldberg and his organization, the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, receive financial support from the pharmaceutical industry. Goldberg's article attacked the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services for limiting reimbursement for erythropoetins, a class of anti-anemia drugs. (The government's decision to limit use of these drugs is prompted by concern that they may increase risk of earlier death when given to cancer patients.) The co-founder of CMPI is Peter Pitts of Manning, Selvage & Lee, a public relations firm with numerous pharmaceutical industry clients. Physician Roy M. Poses of the Foundation for Integrity and Responsibility in Medicine has examined Goldberg's op-ed piece and found numerous deceptive statements, most notably his claim that "America’s Medicare program is willing to let seniors suffer and die sooner from cancer." To make this argument, Poses writes, Goldberg "ignored the most relevant evidence while criticizing less relevant studies." He points out that Goldberg ignored six studies which "raise the concern that erythropoetins, rather than preventing early death, may hasten early death."

Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at Tony Blair's new gig, how to make people love fossil fuel and one news director's stand against fake news. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how many steps it takes to get from the U.S. Marines to Third World dictators. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

"A shadowy group calling itself Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain has been busy," reports Kevin Connolly, "handing out flyers implying that in Mr. McCain's long spell as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, during which he was tortured, he gave information to America's enemy. The evidence? Well, there isn't any. It's a straightforward attempt to take one of Mr. McCain's best cards -- his status as a war hero -- and use it against him." VVAJM's members include Ted Sampley, who previously attacked other U.S. veterans in Congress including 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry and Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha. In addition to VVAJM, attacks on McCain and several other Republican presidential candidates have been launched by "Common Sense Issues," a group working on behalf of candidate Mike Huckabee. In response to the current attacks, McCain has "mobilised a group of volunteers called 'the Truth Squad' to lead his rebuttal of the rumours," Connolly reports. "We shall see how they fare."

Ryan Grim reports that the biggest and best-funded organizations in the liberal peace movement, primarily MoveOn and the groups in its Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI) coalition, are no longer advocating that Congress end the war. This year "the groups instead will lower their sights and push for legislation to prevent President Bush from entering into a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could keep significant numbers of troops in Iraq for years to come. ... The groups believe this switch in strategy can draw contrasts with Republicans that will help Democrats gain ground in November." AAEI's PR spokesperson, Moira Mack of Hildebrand Tewes Consulting, called it "the perfect legislative opportunity." In other words, as CMD's Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber noted last March, for MoveOn and other Democrat-aligned peace groups it's not about ending the war, it's about electing Democrats. Most of the tens of millions of dollars that MoveOn and AAEI have spent lobbying and organizing for "peace" has been directed at pressuring and embarrassing pro-war Republicans, while the Democratic Congress has continued to fund the war and pro-war Democrats have generally been given a pass.

The pharmaceutical industry is using a novel technique to cheer up people who suffer from clinical depression -- only publishing favorable studies about the effects of its antidepressant medications. A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at 74 studies registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Of the 36 favorable studies, all but one was published. Of the 37 unfavorable studies, all but three were "either not published (22 studies) or published in a way that, in our opinion, conveyed a positive outcome (11 studies)." As Newsweek science writer Sharon Begley observes, "The result of this selective publication is no less than a distortion of science and -- since these are studies that drive what doctors advise their patients to do and what patients ask for -- a perversion of the biomedical system in which untainted results are supposed to benefit public health."

"The U.S. Marine Corps is rolling out a new ad campaign this week in an effort to target teachers, coaches, clergy and other groups that tend to have influence on kids' career paths," reports the Wall Street Journal. The Marines "previously aimed its marketing directly at young adults," running ads on Walt Disney's ESPN or News Corporation's FX. But the new spots will run during Fox's "American Idol," which "has a broader audience that includes adults as well as kids." The WPP Group advertising firm JWT designed the Marines' new television spots; the campaign also includes print and online ads. One ad "features a line of Marines standing in formation in front of landmarks across the U.S. such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Independence Hall." The campaign's focus on "influencers" is consistent with the U.S. Army's recruiting efforts, which the Center for Media and Democracy previously reported on. Their slogan "Army strong" was chosen, in part, to appeal to influencers.

Cigarette pack-shaped books. (Photo from TankBooks.com)Capitalizing on the public's familiarity with cigarette brands, a publisher and design company in the United Kingdom has released a set of literary classics designed to look like cigarette packs. The company timed the appearance of the books, called "Tales to Take Your Breath Away," to coincide with a new ban on smoking in workplaces and public venues in the UK. The co-founder and creative director of Tank, the agency that produced the books, claims the cigarette-pack design has "introduced reading to people who don't take in much literature." The company's Web page about the books justifies the design by saying, "As one habit dies hard, another takes hold. ... Cigarette packs are iconic objects, familiar, tried and tested, and over time TankBooks will become iconic objects in their own right." British American Tobacco, however, claims that the book containing the Hemingway classics "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Undefeated" too closely resembles a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes. BAT believes the association could threaten the health of its brand.

TV coverage of the FEMA press conferenceIf the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had used his new company's "communications management systems, the ill-fated press conference about the California wildfires would not have happened," former FEMA public affairs director John "Pat" Philbin told O'Dwyer's. After an October 2007 press conference where FEMA staffers posed as reporters, asking questions of their boss, Philbin was denied a planned promotion to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He was recently hired by PIER Systems, as a senior vice president and head of their East Coast operations. In a statement, PIER (which stands for "public information emergency response") said of the FEMA fake news conference: "It was clear to us that Pat became aware of the planning errors while things were happening. ... He accepted responsibility ... and he has paid a very high price." PIER's clients include BP, Shell, Allstate and the Office of Homeland Security.

The British government's recent decision to encourage new nuclear power plants has attracted much scrutiny. Andy Rowell and Richard Cookson report that "the Government held at least nine secret meetings at Downing Street with the bosses of nuclear energy companies while it formulated controversial plans for a new generation of the power plants." Prime Minister Gordon Brown's energy adviser met with representatives from British Nuclear Fuels, British Energy, E.ON, EDF and the World Nuclear Association. But "there are no official records of the meetings," and officials "initially tried to block details of the meetings." The British government's own Sustainable Development Commission criticized the nuclear power decision as "the wrong option" and dismissive of "legitimate concerns expressed by the general public," reports the Financial Times. Lastly, an official inquiry may be launched into "two senior ex-ministers who will earn tens of thousands of pounds on top of their parliamentary salaries by working for the nuclear industry," according to The Times.

"I could not with a clear conscience go into that newsroom and tell the staff that this was a good thing," explained former WEAU-13 news director Glen Mabie. Mabie resigned from the northwest Wisconsin television station "because of a disagreement ... regarding coverage of medical topics." WEAU's management "attempted in recent weeks to negotiate a deal with Sacred Heart Hospital in which TV-13 would run medical stories featuring personnel from that hospital and its affiliates but not employees of other Chippewa Valley hospitals or clinics." Mabie said, "My problem with this is it was going to dictate newsroom content." This week, after an official with WEAU owner Gray Television "met with the station's staff ... the company decided not to proceed with the agreement." Mabie "said he hopes to land a communications or marketing job but acknowledged his future is uncertain."

"Fibromyalgia is a real, widespread pain condition," stresses a woman in a television ad for Lyrica, a Pfizer drug that recently became "the first medicine approved to treat the pain condition." But some doctors have their doubts. These skeptics "say vague complaints of chronic pain do not add up to a disease. ... The condition cannot be linked to any environmental or biological causes." Even Dr. Frederick Wolfe, who first defined fibromyalgia, "now considers the condition a physical response to stress, depression, and economic and social anxiety." The president of the National Fibromyalgia Association, "a patients' advocacy group that receives some of its financing from drug companies," counters that the Food and Drug Administration's approval of Lyrica made her pain "real to people." Even though Lyrica has troubling side effects, its sales increased 50 percent from 2006 to 2007, and are expected to "rise an additional 30 percent this year, helped by consumer advertising." Forest Laboratories and Eli Lilly have "asked the FDA to let them market drugs for fibromyalgia." One thing is certain, says Dr. Wolfe -- the drug companies are "going to make a fortune."

BP solar ad from 2004The energy company BP's rebranding as "Beyond Petroleum," led by WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather, is reviewed by Adweek's Gregory Solman. The campaign was launched in 2000, after multiple mergers left BP wanting "to replace its multiple brand images with a distinct and uniform identity." Research done by WPP's BrandZ revealed "a crucial insight about selling fuel." Unlike other products, motor fuels hadn't developed much "brand affinity" among consumers. "Ogilvy's team resolved to build the BP brand with 'real equity and emotional affinity beyond the products and services themselves,'" explained Ogilvy's John Seifert. "In other words, there was plenty of room for emotional attachment to a fuel company." Part of the campaign, "BP on the Street," sought to earn "street cred" by holding public forums to project "more humility, more transparency, more openness." Seven years later, "brand awareness" for BP has increased to 67 percent (from four percent in 2000), and marketing surveys have identified BP as the "greenest" energy brand.

The U.S. Congress is investigating "the pharmaceutical industry's use of celebrity endorsements in direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements." First up are ads for Pfizer's cholesterol drug Lipitor, which feature the inventor of the artificial heart, Dr. Robert Jarvik. In the ads, Jarvik says, "Just because I'm a doctor doesn't mean I don't worry about my cholesterol." Representative John Dingell noted, "Dr. Jarvik appears to be giving medical advice, but apparently, he has never obtained a license to practice or prescribe medicine." Dingell is leading the investigation, along with Representative Bart Stupak. The lawmakers are asking Pfizer for "all of its records -- including contracts, e-mails and correspondence -- related to the advertising campaign, as well as all records related to Jarvik's financial association with the firm" and "materials detailing Jarvik's professional qualifications, his own use of Lipitor, and Pfizer's rationale for featuring him in the campaign." Other celebrity drug endorsers include former Senator Bob Dole and athletes Magic Johnson and Cal Ripken.