Wendell Potter Wins the Ridenhour Book Prize
The Center for Media and Democracy's insurance industry insider and health reform advocate Wendell Potter has been awarded the 2011 Ridenhour Book Prize for his work, Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Healthcare and Deceiving Americans.
In 2007, Wendell was the head of Public Relations and Corporate Communications for CIGNA when the insurer denied a life-saving liver transplant to Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17 year old California girl who suffered from leukemia. Desperate to save their daughter's life, Nataline's parents organized protests and demonstrations against CIGNA. The company eventually yielded to public pressure and reversed its decision -- but too late. Nataline died just two hours after CIGNA approved the operation.
Nataline's case profoundly effected Wendell. He gradually felt that he had "sold his soul" by being "part of a industry that would do whatever it took to perpetuate its extraordinarily profitable existence." Wendell quit the insurance industry and started working tirelessly to make the public aware of the industry's widepsread unethical practices and PR techniques, and the harm these practices cause Americans.
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