The Hygiene Council, a "think tank" created and funded by the cleaning products company Reckitt Benckiser, touts the need for "good hygiene practice" in the "home and community." Ruth Pollard reports that the council "is pushing products that contain the expensive -- and potentially damaging -- antibacterial additive, triclosan." Aside from promoting commonsense measures to prevent infections such as the washing of hands and appropriate preparation and refrigeration of foods, the council is enthusiastic about the chemical treatment of household surfaces. "Commonly touched surfaces should be regularly disinfected with products such as LYSOL Disinfectant Spray," the council states on its website. Peter Collignon, the director of infectious diseases at Canberra Hospital, believes that promoting the use of products containing triclosan was "a marketing exercise with no real benefit" that would "do nothing to stop multi-resistant bacteria in hospitals. If anything it may actually contribute to it." Triclosan products are used in hospitals as a disinfectant, particularly against staphlycoccus.

Alarmed at its rival Google's proposed purchase of the internet marketing firm DoubleClick, Microsoft is seeking to stoke opposition to the deal through its PR firm, Burson-Marsteller (B-M). B-M sent emails "to a number of top UK businesses," reports The Observer, urging board members "to raise the issue of Google's dominance of search engines with politicians, regulators and the media." The email, from B-M director Jonathan Dinkeldein, also invited companies "to join a new organisation -- Initiative for Competitive Online Marketplaces -- which in the next few weeks will make a series of announcements on Google, internet privacy and copyright." Dinkeldein later admitted that the group was formed by Microsoft, though his email did not disclose Microsoft's role. In the U.S., B-M pitched cautionary stories on the Google-DoubleClick deal. The Wall Street Journal received an email from B-M warning about "what is not known about Google's handling of personal data and their related privacy practices." The email, which also didn't disclose the Microsoft connection, went on to say "it would be a powerful consumer service to delve into these issues with journalistic vigor."

Nuclear Energy Institute coaster"If we are going to seriously address our energy needs as well as our concerns about global climate change, one source stands out -- nuclear," writes Christine Todd Whitman in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's one of two recent op/eds by the former EPA administrator (the other was in BusinessWeek) that fail to disclose that Whitman is a paid consultant for the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). Patrick Moore, Whitman's co-chair of the NEI-funded "Clean and Safe Energy Coalition," has also been busy, promoting nuclear power in Michigan. "Nuclear energy is the key," Moore told a Grand Rapids audience. Meanwhile, in Britain, environmental groups have dismissed a public consultation on nuclear power as a "public relations stitch-up" by the pro-nuclear government. This is the second consultation on the issue; Greenpeace won a legal challenge against the first. Liberal Democrat Sir Menzies Campbell accused the UK government of "making up its mind on nuclear power long before this latest consultation had even begun," reports the BBC.

"As the 2008 U.S. election starts to sizzle, the Indian outsourcing firms have returned to win Washington over as veritable insiders, slicker and better connected than ever," reports Anand Giridharadas. Nasscom, a trade group that represents Indian outsourcing firms, has hired Robert Blackwill, a Barbour, Griffith and Rogers lobbyist also working for former Iraq prime minister Ayad Allawi. Indian executives have "met with aides to all the major presidential hopefuls," while their lobbyists have met with more than 100 U.S. Congressional offices. The Indian outsourcing firms are working "with research firms like the Brookings Institution to generate sympathetic research," and are "waging proxy battles through local front organizations, which spare them from appearing to be foreigners with an agenda. They provide facts, figures and arguments to trade groups like the Information Technology Association of America and to Indian-American political groups. Then they watch as those groups arrange for seemingly neutral voices to champion their causes in the newspapers or before Congress."

Global warming skeptic William Gray, from the TCS Daily VNR

A White House "personnel announcement" states: "The President intends to nominate James K. Glassman, of Connecticut, to be a Member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, for the remainder of a three-year term expiring 8/13/07 and an additional three-year term expiring 8/13/10." President Bush will also nominate Glassman to be BBG Chair. Glassman is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank, the author of the wildly inaccurate book "Dow 36000," and the founder of Tech Central Station (TCS), a corporate-sponsored news and opinion site published by the Republican-associated lobbying firm DCI Group until last year. TCS has been accused of "journo-lobbying" or online fake news, for its tendency to not fully disclose its corporate sponsors (which often have a direct financial stake in the issues covered on the site). TCS also runs "TCS Daily," which received significant funding from ExxonMobil and paid for a video news release denying the evidence that global warming is causing more severe hurricane seasons. If confirmed by the Senate, Glassman would replace controversial BBG Chair Kenneth Tomlinson.

In an interview with the Toronto Star, veteran energy policy analyst Amory Lovins said that he had spoken with former Greenpeace co-founder turned nuclear power promoter Patrick Moore and concluded that "he's not well informed about energy alternatives." Earlier this year, the Nuclear Energy Institute established a front group, the Clean and Safe Energy Coaltion, with Moore as its co-chair. The group promotes nuclear power as a "solution" to global warming. Lovins referred to his recent Nuclear Energy International article, which showed that "if you spent 10 cents (U.S.) to make and deliver a new nuclear kilowatt-hour ... you can displace 1 kilowatt-hour of coal power. That's what Patrick is talking about. ... If you spend the same 10 cents (U.S.) instead on micropower or efficient use, you get two to 10 times as much coal displacement for the same money, because those options are cheaper -- you get more per dollar. They're also faster, so you get more carbon displacement, coal displacement, per year."

Cancer United, a cancer patient group created and launched by the PR firm Weber Shandwick with funding from the drug company Roche, has got off to a rocky start. On its website the group states that it aims to run an 18-month-long campaign for more uniform cancer treatments across the European Union. However, before the group was launched, it was revealed that the study it relies on was also funded by Roche. The study by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm argues that survival rates increase the more a country spends on drugs. Michel Coleman from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told the Guardian that the study was "woefully simplistic research." A Labor member of parliament, Ian Gibson, resigned from the group after discovering Roche's role. "I feel very silly and stupid," he said. The press conference convened in Brussels to announce the new group was "sparsely attended."

The Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) has dismissed an ethics complaint that a front group authorized by the Chief Executive of Corporate Communications Tasmania, Tony Harrison, breached the PR industry's self-regulatory code of ethics. In the March 2006 Tasmanian state election, Harrison authorised a major advertising campaign for Tasmanians for a Better Future but refused to disclose who was funding it. Australian Greens Senator, Christine Milne, argued that in her opinion Harrison breached the code of ethics provision which states that "members shall be prepared to identify the source of funding of any public communication they initiate or for which they act as a conduit". In a speech to the Australian Senate late last week Milne said that all she got from the PRIA "was a two-line reply" dismissing her complaint. Corporate Communications Tasmania is the largest PR company in Tasmania and an affiliate of Porter Novelli.