Health

Front Group Uses PR to Oppose Patients' Bill of Rights

PR giant Porter Novelli steps up its efforts to oppose the patients' bill of rights as it makes its way to the Senate floor for a vote. Porter Novelli represents the Health Benefits Coalition, a 3-year-old industry front group made up of 32 organizations such as the Business Roundtable, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers, according to a PR Week article. In preparation for the Senate debate on the bill, PN is doing polling, launching print, radio, and TV ads, creating briefing books, and holding a press conference the last week of June.

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Trashing Science

When it comes to science about your health, the Financial Post of Canada turns to the industry-funded American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) as its guru. In its "3rd Annual Junk Science Week," the Financial Post defends "smog, genetically modified foods, business, government & science, pesticides & diesel." Yum. For the real dope on ACSH, read PR Watch, vol. 5, no. 4.

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Chemical Industry Attacks Bill Moyers Exposé, "Trade Secrets"

Veteran journalist Bill Moyers exposed decades of corruption of science and politics by companies, trade associations and PR firms defending the chemical industry in his March 26 documentary, Trade Secrets. In the week leading up to the actual broadcast, the chemical industry launched its own attack on Moyers, claiming that his documentary was unfair and biased.

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The Secret Life of AAA

People join the American Automobile Association because they think it's a nice way to get Triptiks, traveler's checks and emergency towing, but what most members don't know is that AAA is a lobbyist for more roads, more pollution, and more gas guzzling vehicles. AAA weighs in on highway funding, suburban sprawl, mass transit, car design and safety, air pollution, and global warming. Almost without exception, critics say, it advocates policies that damage the environment and endanger health.

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Medicine, the Media and Monetary Interests

Emerging evidence suggests that media coverage of medicine is increasingly promotional in nature. Recent Australian examples include misleading newspaper articles on an experimental cancer vaccine and a high profile television current affairs segment on a new influenza drug, which failed to disclose the industry ties of a key expert featured in the report.

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PR Firms Exposed in Diet Drug Debacle

The diet drug craze of the mid-1990s was fueled by cover-ups, misinformation and a multi-million-dollar PR machine, according to Dispensing with the Truth, a new book by Mediaweek's Washington bureau chief, Alicia Mundy. Burson-Marsteller, Edelman Medical Communications, Ogilvy Adams & Reinhart and Ketchum were among firms identified as part of a nearly $100 million public relations spin campaign "that would put presidential consultants to shame," writes Mundy.

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Uninformed Consent: What Patients at "The Hutch" Weren't Told About the Experiments in Which They Died

Fresh on the heels of the Jesse Gelsinger gene therapy scandal, this report documents another case in which the biotechnology industry has experimented on humans without their consent. Patients died prematurely in two failed clinical trials at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center -- experiments in which the Center and its doctors had a financial interest. The patients and their families were never told about those connections, nor were they fully and properly informed about the risks of the experiments.

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Porter Novelli Wins Cancer Account

Porter Novelli will be handling a more than $1 million account for the American Cancer Society, whose recently-hired VP-corporate communications is Greg Donaldson. What's interesting (and thoroughly predictable) is that Donaldson came to ACS from Humana. ACS is gearing up to be a "player" in the DC public policy debate on healthcare.

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Grass Roots Seeded by Drugmaker

"Showing all the signs of a thriving grass-roots movement, a host of new health-care groups are drawing attention to the perils of a contagious, sometimes lethal virus called hepatitis C," writes Robert O'Harrow. "But contrary to appearances, these coalitions are not spontaneous gatherings of concerned citizens. They are instead a key part of a carefully orchestrated marketing campaign funded by Schering-Plough Corp. to sell the primary therapy for hepatitis C, Rebetron, which costs $18,000 a year." Several members of the Hepatitis C Coalition are on the payroll of the Shandwick PR firm.

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Junk Science for Junk Food

The food industry used an absurdly contrived "experiment" to prove that parents should let their kids eat junk foods in a study published in the June 1999 issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The food-industry researchers taunted preschoolers by displaying an item of junk food while forbidding them to eat it. After five days of this treatment, they found, the kids' desire for the food item had increased.

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