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.

"Fast Food Nation" mega-selling author Eric Schlosser must be doing something right. He's under vicious attack from food industry lobbyists and front groups mimicking his book title in their website smearing him. Long time Fleishman-Hillard food flack Becky Johnson and her fellow spinmeisters risk publicizing Schlosser's writings in their over-the-top efforts to condemn him.

The industrial food lobby is freaking-out over "Chew On This", his new book with Charles Wilson aimed at youngsters, and the fact that his "Fast Food Nation" is being made into a major Hollywood movie with the same title. Best Food Nation is the food industry's sound-alike website funded by the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Meat Institute, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Council of Chain Restaurants, and 14 other food lobbies. The website highlights anti-Schlosser rants by industry-funded front groups including Heartland Institute and the American Council on Science and Health.

As the anti-fast food documentary "Super Size Me" hits theaters, McDonald's is fighting back. "We're responding aggressively because the film is a gross misrepresentation," said a company spokesperson. Helping defend McDonald's are "global nutritionist" Cathy Kapica and the corporate-funded American Council on Science and Health. According to PR Week, ACSH's "aggressive independent third-party response" includes editorials on Tech Central Station, a website published by Republican lobbyists. Also under attack is Coca-Cola, for alleged "complicity in gross human rights violations" in Colombia, reports O'Dwyer's PR Daily. "We plan to destroy the image of Coca-Cola, for which it has spent millions to cultivate," said the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke's director. To "get the facts to all concerned parties," the soft drink giant launched www.cokefacts.org and www.killercoke.com -- the latter to "capture" people seeking the Campaign's website, www.killercoke.org.

The APCO PR firm, which is currently representing WorldCom in its ongoing bankruptcy scandal, has hired Tim Croasdaile as a senior vice president. Croasdaile formerly chaired the National Investor Relations Institute's ethics committee. He should fit right in at APCO, which has worked previously to set up deceptive front groups for clients such as the tobacco industry and Russian robber baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky.