Conservatives for Patients' Rights, a group bankrolled by Richard Scott and promoted by CRC Public Relations, is going beyond its "ominous ads warning that President Barack Obama will institute government-run healthcare." It's produced "a 30-minute documentary-style video featuring patients from the United Kingdom and Canada recounting horror stories at the hands of their country's government health care systems." The video is running on cable networks and will air "immediately after NBC's Sunday talk show 'Meet the Press' May 31," just as Congress returns from break. "The spot is part of a planned $20 million ad campaign," reports the Wall Street Journal. Another group, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, is spending $1.7 million on a similar ad campaign. In the Americans for Prosperity spots, a Canadian woman says, "As my brain tumor got worse, my government health-care system told me I had to wait six months to see a specialist." The group plans to run its ads in eight states "seen as influential in the health-care debate" -- Montana, Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, Indiana, Alaska and Nebraska -- and hold rallies "in Virginia and elsewhere."

"America's oil, gas and coal industry has increased its lobbying budget by 50%, with key players spending $44.5 [million] in the first three months of this year in an intense effort to cut off support" for cap and trade legislation to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The campaign "involves industry front groups, lobbying firms, television, print and radio advertising, and donations to pivotal members of Congress," reports The Guardian. The goal "is to water down or kill off" cap and trade measures. "Despite its global significance, the fate of the draft 'cap and trade' bill now lies in the hands of just a dozen Democrats. ... Seven of those pivotal Democrats received campaign donations in excess of $100,000 from the oil and gas industry, coal producers, and electricity firms during last year's elections. ... Another two received more than $90,000 last year."

Richard Scott, "a multimillionaire investor and controversial former hospital chief executive, has become an unlikely and prominent leader of the opposition to health-care reform," reports the Washington Post. But the public relations firm promoting Scott and his front group is a usual suspect. CRC Public Relations -- the conservative PR firm previously known as Creative Response Concepts -- is the firm "that masterminded the 'Swift boat' attacks against 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry." The firm is working with Scott and his group, Conservatives for Patients' Rights. "While disorganized Republicans and major health-care companies wait for President Obama and Democratic leaders to reveal the details of their plan before criticizing it, Scott is using $5 million of his own money and up to $15 million more from supporters to try to build resistance to any government-run program." The campaign includes television ads featuring "horror stories" of Canadian and British residents who "allegedly suffered long waits for surgeries, couldn't get the drugs they needed, or had to come to the United States for treatment" -- the same scare tactics industry groups used to respond to the 2007 Michael Moore movie "Sicko."

When Chevron "learned that '60 Minutes' was preparing a potentially damaging report," it "hired a former journalist" to tell its side of the story. For five months, former CNN reporter Gene Randall worked for the oil company. The subject of his video -- and CBS's "60 Minutes" segment -- is "a class-action lawsuit filed by Ecuadoreans who accuse Texaco, a company acquired by Chevron in 2001, of poisoning the rain forest," reports the New York Times. "An Ecuadorean judge is expected to rule soon on whether Chevron owes up to $27 billion in damages, which would make the case 'the largest environmental lawsuit in history.'" Not surprisingly, the Chevron-funded video is much kinder to the oil company. The Chevron video, which was posted online three weeks before the "60 Minutes" report aired, features company executives and consultants, but no interviews with the plaintiffs in the case. The video uses such news conventions as "Gene Randall reporting," which may confuse viewers. A producer with "60 Minutes" remarked that "his staff would have liked the same access that Mr. Randall had to Chevron. The oil company's chief environmental scientist appears in the corporate video, but 'they wouldn't let us interview her,'" he said. A member of the group Amazon Watch called the Chevon video "embarrassing public relations tactics" designed "to place all of the blame for Texaco's environmental disaster in Ecuador on PetroEcuador."

The pharmaceutical company Merck "paid an undisclosed sum to Elsevier to produce several volumes of a publication that had the look of a peer-reviewed medial journal, but contained only reprinted or summarized articles -- most of which presented data favorable to Merck products." The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine carried "ads for Fosamax, a Merck drug for osteoporosis, and Vioxx" and "appeared to act solely as marketing tools with no disclosure of company sponsorship." Merck's marketing ploy was unearthed as part of the Australian Vioxx lawsuits. The publisher, Elsevier, admits "that the journals in question didn't have appropriate disclosures." A member of the journal's "Honorary Editorial Board," Australian rheumatologist Peter Brooks, has worked with Merck, Pfizer and Amgen, and put his name on "a few advertorials" for drug companies. "I'm sure many a primary care physician was given literature from Merck that said, 'As published in the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, Fosamax outperforms all other medications,'" a Bioethics.net blog states. "If physicians would not lend their names or pens to these efforts, and publishers would not offer their presses, these publications could not exist."

"We don't tell them not to write" about bad experiences, "but most want to only write positive things," said Stacy Becker of Coyne Public Relations. She was talking about General Mills' new blogger network, "MyBlogSpark." Coyne built the network of "more than 900 bloggers -- over 80 percent are moms," and General Mills will "feed them free products and enable them to run giveaways for their audiences." General Mills requires participating bloggers to "contact the MyBlogSpark team before posting any content ... if you feel you cannot write a positive post regarding the product or service." The Federal Trade Commission recently indicated that it may require "clearer disclosure from bloggers who review products." Of the "half-dozen product review posts from MyBlogSpark members" reviewed by Adweek, none included "mention of General Mills." With "moms" controlling "up to $2 trillion in annual spending," companies including Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and Wal-Mart already have "mommy blogger" outreach programs.

An internal document (pdf) of the Global Climate Coalition -- an industry front group which disbanded in 2002 -- has revealed that when the group chose to promote doubt about the reality of global warming it was ignoring the views of its own scientific advisers. In a backgrounder distributed to members of congress and journalists in the 1990's, the GCC stated that “the role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood", though it added the qualifier that scientists disagreed on the issue. However, an internal document, obtained as a part of a court action against the automobile industry, indicates the GCC's advisers disagreed. '“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” they wrote.

A front group for the UK bottled water industry, "which is perceived to be expensive and environmentally unsound," signed a "six-figure" contract with the public relations firm Munro & Forster. The Natural Hydration Council was "set up by Nestle Waters, Highland Spring and Danone Waters last September." Its new PR firm "will attempt to stop bottled water being compared with tap water," reports PR Week. Natural Hydration Council director Jeremy Clarke claims that the recent decline in bottled water sales doesn't mean more people are drinking tap water. "Rather, they were turning to obesity-causing soft drinks, he argued." Munro & Foster will try "re-educating consumers about the benefit of drinking water, as Clarke argued consumers had become 'fuzzy' about what they should be drinking. Further, the agency will handle stakeholder engagement, reaching out to the Government and environmental groups, and lobbying the health community." British media have run negative articles about bottled water, under headlines like "Bottled water is an eco no-no" and "Bottled water is immoral."

As the Center for Media and Democracy reported previously, the Dewey Square Group lobbying firm is sending newspapers fake letters to the editor. The letters promote Medicare Advantage, a private health insurance plan, and are sent in the name of local seniors. The Eagle-Tribune paper was tipped off when Noah, really "an intern at the Boston office of the Dewey Square Group," called about one of the letters, claiming he was the letter writer's grandson. But the woman whose name was on the letter doesn't have a grandson named Noah, and didn't send the letter. Dewey Square is sending the Astroturf letters "under the banner of 'The Coalition for Medicare Choices,'" and also "bringing seniors to 'Medicare Advantage Community Meetings,' featuring 'free food' and 'door prizes,' with congressmen and senators, and offering them sample letters to Congress or local newspapers." Dewey Square's Mary Anne Marsh claimed, "no one's trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes." Instead, she suggested that "the time that elapsed between the meetings when the seniors saw the letters and the letters' arrival at the newspaper may have clouded some memories." The campaign comes after Democratic proposals, backed by President Obama, to cut funding to Medicare Advantage and use "the savings to expand health care coverage for all."

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is launching a $1 million television advertising campaign that takes a new line of attack against the Employee Free Choice Act, highlighting a provision that would allow federal arbitrators to set the rules for unionization if management and employees fail to negotiate their own deal." The ads "will hit the airwaves in Nebraska, Virginia, Louisiana, North Dakota and Colorado -- states whose senators could be swing votes." Previous attacks on the bill, from the Chamber and corporate front groups like the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace and Employee Freedom Action Committee, claimed it would get rid of secret ballot elections. The bill would actually allow employees to form unions either by holding elections or signing cards. According to the Wall Street Journal, the "more than $30 million on TV ads [spent] in the past few years portraying the secret-ballot provision as antidemocratic ... pressured several key senators to reverse their prior support, leaving the bill several senators short of 60 votes." Since Labor Day, unions "have spent $10 million" on ads supporting the bill. Their spots criticize corporate greed, and say the bill "would improve the lives of workers and help the economy."