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• Ethical Corporation: Nestle, British American Tobacco, Shell and AWE to join 100+ other multinationals to discuss their CR and sustainability reporting and communications in London in November  

The CR Reporting and Communications Summit (http://www.ethicalcorp.com/reporting) is the largest gathering in Europe on this topic. For two days in late November, many of the world's biggest companies will gather in London to debate and discuss the future of corporate responsibility reporting.

The Marriott hotel in Swiss Cottage will play host to 18 individual workshops, where over 30 of Europe's leading companies will present their own CR/sustainability reporting and communications strategies.

Julia King, Vice-President of CR at GlaxosmithKline will demonstrate how the pharmaceutical giant embeds sustainability reporting throughout the company's many offices in the second plenary session of the first day.

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120000 Lives a Year 

Video highlights one of the most urgent health challenges of the 21st Century, from the history of paid product placement to the May, 2004 U.S. Senate hearing, scientific research confirming the problem, growing youth activism, and the reasonable, effective four-step Smoke Free Movies solution endorsed by leading health groups.

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• Govt denies involvement in missing tobacco article 

The government has denied any involvement in the striking off of a contentious sub-article on tobacco in the recently endorsed health law, deemed an effort to protect the country’s cigarette industry.

State Secretary Hatta Radjasa said Tuesday the law, passed by the House of Representatives last month, was already missing the sub-article when his office received it.

He said he had contacted the Health Ministry and the Justice and Human Rights Ministry to settle the problem, and that the State Secretariat now had a complete version of the law, including the missing sub-article, to be signed by the President.

“The House of Representatives’ secretariat is lying if it said it received the law without the sub-article from the State Secretariat. That’s not how we send bills to the House,” Hatta said at a press conference.

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Climate Cover-Up / The Crusade to Deny Global Warming  

"Climate Cover-Up documents one of the most disgusting stories ever hidden about corporate disinformation. What you'll discover in this book amounts to proof of an intergenerational crime." DAVID SUZUKI, Author of The Sacred Balance and Good News for a Change.

"This book explains how the propaganda generated by self-interest groups has purposely created confusion about climate change. It's an imperative read for a successful future." LEONARDO DICAPRIO, Actor and Producer . . .

Starting in the early 1990s, three large American industry groups set to work on strategies to cast doubt on the science of climate change. Even though the oil industry's own scientists had declared, as early as 1995, that human-induced climate change was undeniable, the American Petroleum Institute, the Western Fuels Association (a coal-fired electrical industry consortium) and a Philip Morris-sponsored anti-science group called TASSC all drafted and promoted campaigns of climate change disinformation.

The success of those plans is self-evident. . . .

Although all public relations professionals are bound by a duty to not knowingly mislead the public, some have executed comprehensive campaigns of misinformation on behalf of industry clients on issues ranging from tobacco and asbestos to seat belts.

Lately, these fringe players have turned their efforts to creating confusion about climate change.

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• VIDEO: Kevin Grandia: The Philip Morris Theory of Global Warming 

The tobacco companies were sued by the US government for this behavior and I suspect such a suit will be filed someday against the companies (i.e. ExxonMobil), the organizations (i.e. the Competitive Enterprise Institute) and the individuals (i.e. Steve Milloy) who perpetrated the attack on climate science.

All this leads to a shameless plug.

Jim Hoggan, co-founder of the DeSmogBlog Project, which I have managed for the last four years has written a book that chronicles the history of PR spindoctors working to confuse the realities of climate change (and tobacco). It's called Climate Cover Up: the crusade to deny global warming and it comes out in hard copy in the US on Oct. 20th. You can get it now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble if you can't wait.

People who have read the book tell me that they're angry. And its time for everyone to get angry about this and start holding people like Milloy accountable for what they've done.

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Altria Group and Aon Corporation CEOs to be Honored by Chicago United as 2009 Bridge Award Recipients 

Chicago United, a membership organization that promotes corporate diversity and inclusion, today announced the recipients of the 2009 National and Chicago Bridge Awards. Michael E. Szymanczyk, chairman and chief executive officer of Altria Group, Inc., will receive the National Bridge Award for exemplary practices of a Fortune 500 corporation and Gregory Case, president and chief executive officer of Aon Corporation, will receive the Chicago Bridge Award for supporting the development of a vibrant and richly diverse business community in the Chicago region.

The awards will be presented at Chicago United's 6th Annual Changing Color of Leadership Conference and Bridge Awards Dinner on November 10 at the Hilton Chicago. A committee of corporate and non-profit executives, entrepreneurs and academics selected Szymanczyk and Case as the Bridge Award recipients based on an examination of publicly-available data along with select qualitative attributes of the company, such as supplier and workforce diversity.

The National Bridge Award represents the first national award that honors a CEO who is an advocate for multiracial diversity in corporate governance and executive level management. This award brings visibility to those who have managed change, and inspires others to follow.

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• SULLIVAN: Betsy McCaughey And Big Tobacco  

I certainly had no idea about any of this at the time. I take responsibility for publishing the piece, and feel that airing some of the internal fight over it would violate confidences. But at no point was I aware of a three-part series, claimed by the tobacco lobbyist. But I did not commission the piece as the Manhattan Institute notes.

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I certainly had no idea about any of this at the time. I take responsibility for publishing the piece, and feel that airing some of the internal fight over it would violate confidences.
Then-New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan, on publishing "No Exit," the 1994 Betsey McCaughey item on Clinton's Health Care plan.

Report: ‘Death panels’ author worked with big tobacco to scuttle health reform 

The person credited with inventing the "death panels" claim about health care reform worked with tobacco giant Phillip Morris to railroad health care reform in the Clinton administration, Rolling Stone magazine reports.

In an article in the magazine's October 1 issue, not yet available online, writer Tim Dickinson reveals that Phillip Morris "worked off-the-record with … writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part expose in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means," Rolling Stone reports.

McCaughey, a conservative columnist and former deputy governor of New York, penned a 1994 article in The New Republic that was credited with helping to kill the Clinton-era health reforms. As RS noted, the magazine later retracted the story. And The Atlantic magazine ran a story in 1995, entitled "A Triumph of Misinformation," debunking McCaughey's arguments at TNR.

Now McCaughey appears to be playing a pivotal role in efforts to shut down this year's health reform efforts.

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• Rolling Stone Finds A Smoking Gun: Betsy McCaughey Lied About Healthcare Reform For Tobacco Lobby  

McCaughey's lies were later debunked in a 1995 post-mortem in The Atlantic, and The New Republic recanted the piece in 2006. But what has not been reported until now is that McCaughey's writing was influenced by Phillip Morris, the world's largest tobacco company, as part of a secret campaign to scuttle Clinton's health care reform. (The measure would have been funded by a huge increase in tobacco taxes.) In an internal company memo from March 1994, the tobacco giant detailed its strategy to derail Hillarycare through an alliance with conservative think tanks, front groups and media outlets. Integral to the company's strategy, the memo observed, was an effort to "work on the development of favorable pieces" with "friendly contacts in the media." The memo, prepared by a Phillip Morris executive, mentions only one author by name:

"Worked off-the-record with Manhattan [Editor's note: At the time, McCaughey was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute] and writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part expose in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means to you. The first part detailed specifics of the plan."

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• Tobacco funds cause friction at University  

An anti-tobacco student group based in Toronto has called for an all-out boycott on involvement with the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health (SPH) because of a tobacco-industry-funded researcher and his attempt to affect the composition of Bill C-32, an act to amend the Tobacco Act.

The anti-tobacco group, called Education Bringing Youth Tobacco Truths (E-butt) identified a letter from SPH Associate Professor Carl Phillips to the House of Commons Health Committee on June 10, 2009, as unethical based on his failure to disclose his reception of funds totalling $1.5 million from U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company, now owned by Philip Morris USA.

E-butt has demanded the SPH issue a statement distancing itself from Phillip’s comments, and condemning both his use of SPH letterhead and failure to disclose his associations with the tobacco industry.

Phillips wrote the letter asking the House of Commons to exempt what he calls “low-risk nicotine sources,” such as Snus, Skoal, and chewing tobacco, including flavoured tobacco products, from the effects of Bill C-32, which is primarily purposed to protect the health of Canadians and “protect young persons and others from inducements to use tobacco products.” . . .

“In academia, one normally discloses any potential conflicts of interest, and when Phillips sent his letter, he didn’t,” Soskolne said.

According to Ward, however, the concern over academic freedom should not be held in higher regard than concerns of public safety.

Also irking E-butt is the fact that Phillips sent his recommendation on SPH letterhead, which could, according to Ward, lead to the misconception that his suggestions were a public statement from the SPH.

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LANDMAN: Attack of the Living Front Groups: PR Watch Offers Help to Unmask Corporate Tricksters  

Fake "grassroots" groups have started springing up like toadstools after a rain, and this time they're coming at us from every angle: they're on TV, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube: "Americans for Prosperity," "FACES of Coal, "The "Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights," "Americans Against Food Taxes," the "60 Plus Association," "Citizens for Better Medicare," "Patients First" ... It's making our heads spin! Issues affecting some of the country's biggest industries, like health insurance reform, a proposal to tax sodas and sugary drinks, and the FDA's possible reconsideration of the plastic additive Bisphenol A, have boosted corporate astroturfing up to a dizzying pace. With all these corporate fronts coming out of the woodwork, how can citizens tell true grassroots organizations from corporate fronts operated by highly-paid PR and lobbying firms? Here are some tips to help readers spot this kind of big-business hanky-panky. . . .

One of the best examples is Rick Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), which claims that its mission is to defend the rights of consumers to choose to eat, drink and smoke as they please. In reality, though, CCF is a front group for the tobacco, restaurant and alcoholic beverage industries, which provide all or most of its funding. . . .

Does the organization list a phone number and street address on their Web site? If no address or phone numbers are shown, be skeptical. If they do list an address, note where it is. If it's in Washington, D.C., Google the address and/or the phone number to see what other companies or organizations share, or have shared, that same address or phone number. D.C. is home to many of the nation's largest professional PR and lobbying groups, and often one firm will operate several front groups with different corporate interests out of the same address. If you find other groups share the same address, look up the groups on SourceWatch.org to see if they are front groups or not;

If the group's Web site only offers a contact form to fill in and no street address, telephone number or email links to staff members, be suspicious. Likewise if the site offers a way to donate by credit card, but gives no fixed office to which you can mail a check, be suspicious; . . .

More importantly, you -- along with other curious citizens -- can help document in our collaborative SourceWatch wiki site groups that you consider could be front groups. Many of the profiles on front groups in SourceWatch started out as a simple one or two sentence article created by citizens who were unsure whether a group was legitimate or not. As profiles expand, it becomes easier to make an informed judgement on the origins and agenda of a group. Perhaps just as importantly, a profile created in SourceWatch on a newly founded front group is likely to quickly be in the top results of as web search, enabling web-connected citizens and journalists to access referenced material on what is known about a group.

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BATN executes 82 projects in 34 states 

About 82 projects have so far been executed in 34 states of the country by the British American Tobacco of Nigeria (BATN) Foundation as part of its contributions to the country, Director of the Foundation, Dr. Ladi Hamalai, has said.

The BATN Foundation which is a community empowerment organisation, was established six years ago to improve the lives of Nigerians especially those in the rural areas. Speaking at the commissioning of a workshop and borehole donated by the Foundation to the Business Apprentice Training Centre, Sabon Gari,� Zaria, she said the projects covered four focal areas including agricultural development, provision of potable water, skills development� and environment protection programmes. . . .

Commissioning the project, the Emir of Zazzau, Dr. Shehu Idris, commended the Foundation and urged other multinational organisations in the country to emulate them. He urged the management and students of the school to take care of the buildings and tools donated to them, pledging the support of the emirate.

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• RAI Again Recognized for Leadership in Corporate Sustainability 

Reynolds American Inc. (NYSE: RAI) has been recognized as a leader in corporate sustainability for the second consecutive year by being awarded membership in the 2009-2010 Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index (DJSI North American), effective Sept. 21, 2009. RAI is the only U.S. tobacco company and one of only 146 North American companies on the index.

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• 'Watchdog' advocates for BPA  

Statistical Assessment Service, a major player in the public relations campaign to discredit concerns about bisphenol A, claims to be an independent media watchdog.

But a review of its finances and its Web site shows that STATS is funded by public policy organizations that promote deregulation. The Journal Sentinel found documents that show that its parent organization, the Center for Media and Public Affairs, was paid in the 1990s by Philip Morris, the tobacco company, to pick apart stories critical of smoking.

In June, STATS ran a 27,000-word assessment of the media's coverage of BPA and sharply criticized the coverage - especially stories in the Journal Sentinel - for ignoring the science. . . .

The Journal Sentinel in 2007 reviewed 258 scientific studies involving BPA and found the overwhelming majority determined the chemical to be harmful.

Gina Kolata of The New York Times and the Center for Health Care Journalists linked to the STATS report on their Web sites, identifying the group as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization.

But documents show that STATS' parent organization has a history of working for corporations trying to deflect concerns about the safety of their products.

STATS and the Center for Media and Public Affairs are run by S. Robert Lichter, a professor of communication at George Mason University. The organizations share the same office and tax records.

Documents from the Tobacco Institute on file at the University of California-San Francisco show that Philip Morris contracted with the Center for Media and Public Affairs at least twice during the 1990s to monitor media coverage of tobacco. A draft dated March 31, 1994, lays out Lichter's proposal to the tobacco company:

"The Center will track and report on two or three case studies, examining all of the source material for claims and then review how the story was covered by the national media."

An e-mail from the Tobacco Institute's files, dated Feb. 18, 1999, quotes Philip Morris vice president Vic Han referring to Lichter's center as "a media watchdog group that we have contributed to over the last several years."

The center, according to the tobacco documents, was paid to conduct an analysis that takes into account the topical focus, sources and tone of presentation of tobacco stories in the media. . . .

Trevor Butterworth, editor of STATS, has become BPA's fiercest advocate. He combs the Internet for stories that raise concern about the chemical, even on the most obscure blogs, and he chastises those who claim BPA can be harmful.

Butterworth offers this advice on a journalism Web site:

"Forget conventional PR! If some bratty journalist gives you a whack, whack back with obscene, jaw dropping disproportion: knee him in the groin, pull what's left of his hair out, tell him he writes in clichés, and misuses the semicolon, and stomp on his iPhone! A hack is like a bully, and charming a bully is a bit like reasoning with a psychopath or writing a novel on Twitter. For the tough cases, go Dada.  . . .  Defending the brand means exacting respect and that will come from fear not charm." . . .

The Journal Sentinel reviewed IRS documents and found the Sarah Scaife Foundation reported giving STATS $100,000 in 2007, an amount that equaled all of STATS' assets - except for $435 in income interest. The Scaife Foundation funds a number of organizations that promote public policy against regulation, including the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute.

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Forget conventional PR! If some bratty journalist gives you a whack, whack back with obscene, jaw dropping disproportion: knee him in the groin, pull what's left of his hair out, tell him he writes in clichés, and misuses the semicolon, and stomp on his iPhone! . . . For the tough cases, go Dada.  . . .  Defending the brand means exacting respect and that will come from fear not charm.
Trevor Butterworth, editor of STATS, who combs the Internet for stories that raise concern about BPA, even on the most obscure blogs, and chastises those who claim BPA can be harmful. According to a stellar series of Journal-Sentinel articles, secret tobacco documents reveal that STATS' parent organization is the Center for Media and Public Affairs--paid for in the 1990s by Philip Morris to pick apart stories critical of smoking. Even today, tobacco-related message boards across the country seem vulnerable to this and other techniques that may be deployed by tobacco companies and/or their hirees in this, the new world of Internet PR.

• BPA industry fights back  

For decades, the chemical industry has been able to control the debate on whether BPA is harmful to human health. Now the Food and Drug Administration, which had relied on industry-financed studies to declare the chemical safe, is reconsidering its determination. The decision is expected by Nov. 30.

"We are under attack from all fronts," Carteaux told the audience at the group's annual meeting in June.

And with increasing urgency, the industry is pushing back - hard.

The industry has launched an unprecedented public relations blitz that uses many of the same tactics - and people - the tobacco industry used in its decades-long fight against regulation. This time, the industry's arsenal includes state-of-the-art technology. Their modern-day Trojan horses: blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and YouTube.

A four-month investigation by the Journal Sentinel reveals a highly calibrated campaign by plastics makers to fight federal regulation of BPA, downplay its risks and discredit anyone who characterizes the chemical as a health threat. The newspaper examined thousands of pages of Internal Revenue Service reports, disclosure forms and e-mails between government scientists and lobbyists as well as the industry's own public relations materials.

The documents offer a rare glimpse at the hardball politics of chemical regulation, where judgments about safety are made not necessarily on the merits of science but because of the clout of lobbyists working the system. . . .

Details of meetings between federal regulators and chemical industry lobbyists are found in the archives of the Tobacco Institute, the lobby group of the tobacco industry. A court settlement in 1998 disbanded the institute and opened the records to the public.

Lobbyists for tobacco closely followed the government's assessment of BPA because of concerns that a ban on the chemical would affect cigarette filters and plastic packaging. The two industries share the same lobby firm, the Weinberg Group.

The Tobacco Institute documents show administrators from the FDA routinely turned to chemical industry scientists to establish the government's safety level for BPA. Government scientists relied on test results performed by industry scientists without independent confirmation. . . .

Chemical makers and plastics industry executives are putting up their own versions of news clips on social media outlets such as YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Twitter and blogs. Often, they are disguised as neutral, unbiased information and rarely reveal the source.

So what might look to consumers researching BPA on the Internet as independent information are often stories written by chemical industry public relations writers.

Allegiances are not always explained. The most impassioned defense of BPA on the blogs comes from Trevor Butterworth, editor of Statistical Assessment Service, also known as STATS. He regularly combs the Internet for stories about BPA and offers comments without revealing his ties to industry. . . .

STATS claims to be independent and nonpartisan. But a review of its financial reports shows it is a branch of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. That group was paid by the tobacco industry to monitor news stories about the dangers of tobacco.

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