Bucking intense restaurant industry opposition, New York City has banned all added trans fats in restaurant food. The ban was passed by the city's Board of Health on December 6, 2006, and takes effect in July 2007. Donut makers get a one-year reprieve in order to find a substitute oil for the deep-fried dough. The board's action also included a requirement that restaurant chains post nutritional information. "We're not trying to take away anybody's ability to go out and have the kind of food they want in the quantities they want," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He said that health department estimates show that the ban on hydrogenated oils could save hundreds of lives annually. Dan Fleshler, spokesman for the National Restaurant Association responded, "We're deeply disappointed. We would prefer to do this voluntarily. Restaurants have been moving on their own in response to customer demand and eliminating trans fats." The Center for Consumer Freedom, a national front group for the restaurant and beverage industry, had vigorously fought the ban and immediately issued a statement headlined "Are Calories Next?", calling the ban "unprecedented in its paternalistic scope."

When PR Watch most recently caught a cell phone signal from Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and the new Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food, Schlosser was rushing from car to car in New York City, after London, which was just after Berkeley, where he was giving students a preview of the indie film version of "Fast Food Nation." We didn’t have the chance to ask him when he had time to eat. But we did use the time to speak with him about fast food, the U.S. childhood obesity epidemic, and the public relations industry’s techniques in attacking his work. Schlosser has been likened to a latter day Upton Sinclair—exposing the abattoirs and abuses in the meatpacking and calorie-packing processed food industry. If you haven’t read his books, you should, and here are a few reasons why you can’t just see the movie.

Richard Edelman, the CEO of the Edelman PR firm, "issued an apology for his agency's role in creating a blog for client Wal-Mart that did not properly disclose its origins or funding," notes PR Week. The walmartingacrossamerica.com website "chronicled a couple's journey across the country in an RV while stopping at various Wal-Mart parking lots." The trip was funded by Working Families for Wal-Mart, a front group funded by the giant retailer. Edelman told PR Week, "We still have a job to do about explaining to our staff their [disclosure] obligation in old media and new media." Worse, one of the fake bloggers was Washington Post photographer James Thresher, who later agreed to repay Working Families for the $2,200 cost of his and his girlfriend's airfare, RV rental, gas and food during the 10-day trip. Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., who also asked that Thresher's pictures be removed from the pro-Wal-Mart website, called Working Families "a special-interest group," reports Howard Kurtz. Even worse, filmmaker Ron Galloway recently resigned from Working Families' steering committee, reports O'Dwyer's. Galloway said he disagreed with Wal-Mart's new wage caps; Wal-Mart says the split's because Galloway's new movie is about "the so-called myth of global warming." Even worse again, Wal-Mart is being criticized for a holiday-themed website that allows kids to email gift wish lists to their parents, reports Advertising Age.