The top 50 PR firms worldwide more than tripled their revenue from 1994 to 2000, according to the Council for Public Relations Firms. 2000 saw a 30 percent jump from the previous year, breaking the 3.8 billion dollar mark. Money makes the world go 'round--with a little spin from the burgeoning PR industry.

The prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize has been awarded to Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, TV journalists who researched the potential health risks of rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), the genetically modified hormone injected into U.S. dairy cows to stimulate milk production. The hormone is one of the first genetically modified products approved by the FDA. It is banned in Europe, Japan and most other industrialized nations. The story by Akre and Wilson proved too hot for their local Fox TV network affiliate for which it was produced and ultimately led to their firing.

Back in the heady days of the dot-com bubble, writes Martin Kady II, "enthusiastic folks in the public relations world could really work up a lather about their tech clients. In promoting the new new thing, these publicity machines would exercise all manner of hyperbole -- and the public and business press would fall for it hook, line and sinker. " Nowadays, most of the PR pitches he receives attempt to put a brave face on disaster or invite him to write about profitable companies that are exceptions to the rule. "That's not a bad idea for a story," Kady writes, "but where were the contrarian opinions when this dot-com craze was full-steam ahead? I never got an e-mail during the peak of the tech boom saying: 'I really think you should do a story about how this is a horribly speculative bubble and when it bursts, thousands of people will lose their jobs, trillions in stock value will be lost, bankruptcies will be rampant and entrepreneurs' dreams will be dashed.'"

Archer Daniels Midland Company, seeking a more wholesome image, replaced its longtime slogan "Supermarket to the World" with the touchingly eco-friendly tag "The Nature of What's to Come." ADM has reason to be concerned about its public profile; the feds have convicted the agri-business giant of multiple counts of price-fixing, multiple states have taken it to court for pollution-related issues, and political reformers say ADM has reaped massive government pork from heavy soft money donations.

PR Watch staffers Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber wrote Mad Cow USA in 1997. This report by the chemical industry's official publication does a very good job of updating developments since then. "Has the U.S. government taken sufficient measures to keep it from infecting humans?" asks reporter Bette Hileman. "For years after BSE first appeared in Britain, authorities believed the disease would not spread beyond the U.K. They also believed it would not jump species to infect humans. ... They were wrong. Over the past year, BSE has cropped up in 12 European countries and as far afield as Canada and Oman. It is not known how many human victims vCJD will eventually claim. ... Some scientists are also concerned that blood donations from people unknowingly infected with vCJD will contaminate part of the blood supply. And they worry that if BSE does show up in U.S. cattle, it may spread quickly because the U.S. still renders cattle into feed for pigs and poultry, and sometimes this feed is inadvertently given to cows. ... Moreover, experts worry that a similar prion disease called chronic wasting disease (CWD), now infecting deer and elk in Colorado and Wyoming, could sicken humans or cattle."

This article includes correspondence between editor Michael Manville and the PR firm of BSMG Worldwide, which tried to get Manville to publish "one or more bylined articles written by experts in the field" of biotechnology. After initial denials, the BSMG representative eventually admitted that its client was actually the industry-funded Council for Biotechnology Information. "Having their PR representative get caught in a lie, take ten days between emails to figure out the best way to handle it, and then come back with a breezy apology about 'unintended confusion,' changed my thinking about BSMG much more than it did about biotechnology," Manville writes.

Amway representatives spread rumors that Procter and Gamble's "man-in-the-moon" logo is a Satanic symbol. That's according to a new P&G lawsuit against the Michigan-based household goods distributor. This is just the latest tiff between the two giant corporations; as far back as the 1980's, Amway distributors were publicizing a link between the Devil and their corporate rival, leading Procter and Gamble to drop the logo.

President Bush announced that he will nominate Linda J. Fisher, a former executive of the Monsanto Company, as well as an official with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the Reagan Administration, to be Deputy EPA Administrator. Fisher most recently served as Vice President of Government Affairs for Monsanto, an agricultural biotechnology firm. Fisher served as Chief of Staff for EPA Administrator Lee M. Thomas from 1985 to 1988. In her EPA tenure, Fisher also served as Assistant Administrator for Policy, Planning, and Evaluation from 1988 to 1989, and Assistant Administrator for Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances from 1989 to 1993.

Less than one percent of the 60,000 articles published during 1997 in 181 peer-reviewed science and medical journals with conflict of interest policies contained any disclosure of the authors' personal financial interests, according to a study by professors Sheldon Krimsky and L.S. Rosenberg which was published in the April 2001 issue of Science and Engineering Ethics. "Growth in university-industry collaborations has intensified the conflicts of interest among academic researchers and weakened public trust in science," Krimsky observed.