Children

"Horror Hotel": The New Frontier of Junk Food Marketing to Kids

626 Horror HotelToday's teenagers are probably the most savvy generation yet when it comes to filtering out advertising, but that is no worry for junk food and drink companies who steadily deploy stealthier and more sophisticated interactive promotions that specifically target teens and exploit their emotional and developmental vulnerabilities. The newest generation of internet-based junk food promotions uses cutting edge marketing techniques with names like "augmented reality," "virtual environments" and "neuromarketing" -- the use of scientifically-devised digital marketing techniques that trigger teens' subconscious emotional arousal.

Children Gardening in Sewage Sludge: Los Angeles Schools Alerted

Emmanuelle Chriqui gardening with kids at Carson Senior High School, with an empty bag of Kellogg sludge productThis week, CMD's new Food Rights Network sent letters to thirteen schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that have "organic" school gardens adopted by Hollywood's Environmental Media Association (EMA). As we reported in May, EMA teamed up with sludge-marketing corporation Kellogg Garden Products, which sells products made from Los Angeles area industrial and human sewage sludge with the label "quality organics" and which used the gardens for photo ops with sludge products.

Gardens in which kids grow vegetables and fruits were contaminated with sewage sludge as a result of EMA's partnership with Kellogg, which donated hundreds of cubic yards of sewage sludge products. EMA, which hosts its annual green carpet awards this Saturday, October 15th, has failed to take any steps to help remediate the children's "organic" gardens that were sludged.

Plastic Bag Manufacturers Edit California Textbooks

The American Chemistry Council (ACC), a lobbying group representing plastic bag manufacturers, successfully convinced the California Department of Education to rewrite its environmental textbooks and teachers' guides to include positive statements about plastic grocery bags. ACC wrote a letter to education department officials that said in part, "To counteract what is perceived as an exclusively negative positioning of plastic bag issues, we recommend adding a section here entitled 'Benefits of Plastic Shopping Bags.'" The state's final document was, in fact, edited to contain a new section titled "Advantages of Plastic Shopping Bags."

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A Smart Investment in Our Kid's Health

Sick handsIf opponents of health care reform could view the grant money in the Affordable Care Act as an investment in our children rather than wasteful spending, I believe at least some of them would eventually accept that we're better off with the law than without it.

I'd be especially confident if they took the time to visit some of the community facilities that will be able to meet the health care needs of thousands more Americans as a result of those grants.

Earlier this month, the Obama administration announced awards of $95 million to 278 school-based health center programs across the country. The grants -- the first of $200 million worth of awards between now and 2013 -- will help clinics expand and provide more medical services at schools nationwide.

Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg's Gift to Big Tobacco

Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg (R)The House Appropriations Committee voted to approve an amendment introduced by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Montana) that would immunize the tobacco industry against U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules stopping them from making cigarettes more addictive and marketing them to children. Among other things, Rehberg's amendment restricts FDA's authority to regulate the use of menthol in cigarettes. An FDA Scientific Advisory Committee concluded last March that menthol added to cigarettes makes them more attractive of children, increases the number of kids who start to smoke and reduces the number of smokers who can successfully quit. The Rehberg amendment also blocks FDA from regulating ammonia in cigarettes, which tobacco companies add to speed the the bodies' absorption of nicotine. Rehberg's amendment is aimed at weaking the landmark 2009 law giving FDA authority over tobacco products. Members of the Appropriations Committee who voted in favor of Rehberg's amendment together accepted $289,927 in tobacco industry campaign contributions in the last election cycle compared to just $10,000 taken by those who opposed the amendment -- a 20-fold difference.

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Wealthy Families, Corporate-Backed Foundations Behind Push for School Vouchers

L-R: Karl Rove, Dick DeVos, Betsy DeVos, Darby RoveThe sudden, rapid push for school voucher programs nationwide is not due to any public outcry or grassroots uprising for these programs. For decades these programs have been a hard-sell with the American public. Instead, a small group of wealthy individuals and corporate-backed, private foundations have been behind these efforts to divert public taxpayer dollars to private and religious schools. Among them is the son of the billionaire co-founder of Amway, Richard "Dick" DeVos, Sr., who advocates dropping the term "public schools" in favor of the term "government schools" and who has poured millions of dollars into groups that advocate "school choice," the term often used to refer to voucher programs. Dick DeVos's wife, Betsy DeVos, who is also the sister of Erik Prince of Xe, the private mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater, has been even more aggressive than her husband at promoting voucher programs. She launched the pro-voucher group "All Children Matter" in 2003, which spent $7.6 million in its first year alone to promote the adoption of state voucher programs. Betsy DeVos also founded The American Federation for Children in 2010. A PAC of the same name spent $820,000 on Wisconsin state legislative races to elect pro-voucher candidates. The Alliance for School Choice is another DeVos-funded group that promotes vouchers. The Walton Family Foundation (of Wal-Mart fame) has also given millions to push school voucher programs. These are just a small sample of the private, corporate-backed forces working to undermine public schools.

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Scholastic, Inc. Burned by Coal Industry-Sponsored Curriculum

Coal industry's 4th grade curriculumScholastic, Inc., a leading publisher and distributor of children's books and teaching materials, agreed to stop selling a coal industry-sponsored curriculum that it has distributed to 66,000 fourth grade teachers since 2009. The curriculum was sponsored by the American Coal Foundation, which represents the interests of the coal mining industry. A May 11, 2011 New York Times story labeled the coal industry-created curriculum "unfit" for fourth graders because it failed to mention the negative aspects of coal mining and burning on human health and the environment, like removal of Appalachian mountaintops, toxic waste discharge, sulfur dioxide, mercury and arsenic discharges, lung disease and mining accidents. The Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood, which drew attention to and opposed Scholastic's use of the curriculum, has also opposed Scholastic for its “SunnyD Book Spree,” which the company featured its Parent and Child magazine that encouraged teachers to have classroom parties with Sunny Delight, a sugar-fortified drink, and collect labels from the beverage to win free books. The campaign has also objected to Scholastic’s promotion of Children’s Claritin in materials it distributed about spring allergies. Scholastic is a $2 billion business whose educational materials are in 9 of 10 American classrooms.

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Walker Promotes Education Privatization in D.C. Amid Protests

Teacher ProtestIt seems wherever Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker goes, protesters seem to follow. This rule held true earlier this week in Washington D.C., when Walker used his newly burnished credentials as an extremist to address a forum promoting the privatization of public schools.

The American Federation for Children (ACF) promotes school privatization and voucher schemes that take away critically needed funds for public education to fund private schools. Inside the Marriott, The American Federation for Children's "School Choice Now: Empowering America's Children" policy summit attracted voucher boosters like Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and Michelle Rhee, the former controversial head of the Washington D.C. public school system. Outside the Marriott, there were around 200 protesters with signs that read "Public Education Not Privatization," "Save Our Schools," and "Vouchers Aren't the Answer."

Peabody Coal Company Spoofed in "CoalCares.org" Website

Spongebob Squarepants InhalerPeabody Energy, the world's largest private-sector coal company, says it is the victim of a hoax after a website, www.coalcares.org, sprang up offering free "Puff-Puff" inhalers for kids with asthma who live within 200 miles of a coal plant. The site allows kids to select the free decorative inhaler of their choice: "My First Inhaler" with a picture of a duck on it, or inhalers with pictures of My Little Pony, Harry Potter, Spongebob Squarepants, Justin Beiber and more. Each inhaler, the site boasts, in made from "sustainable, eco-friendly recycled plastic." The site offers a $10 coupon towards the cost of actual asthma medication and a free charcoal pencil with every order. Other links include the "Kidz Koal Corner" featuring word games for children ages 4-12, like a word puzzle called "The Good Coal Does" where children can hunt for words like "clean," "dependable," "jobs" and "natural." Another page has a photo of birds flying into a wind turbine's spinning blades, and explains the dangers of clean energy technologies. The text says, "Wind turbines can kill up to 70,000 birds per year, or 4.27 birds per turbine per year. Coal particulate pollution, on the other hand, kills fewer than 13,000 people per year." The site says it is sponsored by Peabody Coal. The activist group that created the site is unknown.

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And the Razzie goes to Norman Lear's EMA for Exposing Kids to Sewage Sludge and Not Coming Clean

For a non-actress surrounded by movie stars, Debbie Levin, President of the Environmental Media Association (EMA) -- an organization founded by Norman Lear -- is putting on quite a performance of her own. Too bad it's more likely to win her a fraud charge than an Oscar, based on her May 6, 2011 letter to her Board provided to the Food Rights Network by a source inside EMA.

Rosario Dawson gardening at a school next to a bag of Kellogg's AmendOver the past month, Levin has been confronted with ample evidence that the group she runs exposed school children (not to mention the Hollywood celebrities that serve on the group's board) to toxic sewage sludge. In 2009, EMA began a partnership with several Los Angeles schools, securing the donation of thousands of dollars in compost and soil amendment products from Kellogg Garden Products for the schools' organic gardens soon thereafter. In a sworn affidavit, former L.A. Unified School District garden advisor, Mud Baron, said that he informed Levin early on and repeatedly that Kellogg uses sewage sludge in many of its products, and sewage sludge is illegal for use in organic gardens.

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