In Sunday's New York Times, Robert Pear reports that biotech industry lobbyists were especially successful in getting their spin mouthed by House Members during the health care reform debate. He notes: read more Read Full Story

The Center for Media Democracy's Wendell Potter was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Triple Bottom Line Investment (TBLI) conference in Amsterdam this past week. This year's TBLI conference focused on worldwide "health insurance and related human rights issues, the Credit Crunch and its effects on investment ethics values and investment, and the Copenhagen Climate Council and its consequences for investment portfolios," according to their statement about the event. read more Read Full Story

The country's largest private health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, is urging its 75,000 employees to phone their senators and write letters-to-the-editor to protest the inclusion of a public health insurance option in health reform legislation. California-based consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog obtained a copy of an email that United for Health Reform, UnitedHealth Group's lobbying arm, sent to company employees. The letter contained form letters that employees could use to contact new... Read Full Story

The Center for Media and Democracy and BanksterUSA are pleased to present its Golden Throne Award to Scott Talbott, the Senior Vice President for Government Affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable. The Golden Throne Award salutes the behind-the-scenes lobbyists and spinmeisters of the financial services sector who have done their utmost to hold off any meaningful reform of their industry, even after collapsing the global economy and sending the U.S. unemployment rate above 10%. It invoke... Read Full Story

The global tobacco industry is holding a marketing conference in Bangkok, Thailand called TabInfo Asia, that it is billing as "the hottest event on the Asia Pacific tobacco market's calendar." Scheduled workshops pose questions like "What if you were in charge of a country's health system -- what would you do about smoking?" and seminars promise to discuss "future innovations in nicotine delivery systems." One workshop, about the global increase in restrictions o... Read Full Story

Since the publication in May of his book, ''Heaven and Earth: Global Warming - The Missing Science,'' Ian Plimer has been the darling of conservative media commentators and the global network of climate change skeptics. Plimer, an Australian geologist, has been strongly criticized by climate scientists for errors in his book. More recently, he has been in the news over his challenge to British journalist, George Monbiot, for a debate over climate science. Monbiot agreed, subject to Plimer ans... Read Full Story

The British climate change skeptic, Christopher Monckton, warned those attending an Australian conservative think tank seminar that bureaucrats will mastermind a "coup d'etat" in the aftermath of the COP15 climate change negotiations and establish a "world dictatorship". Monckton, who was once an adviser to the former Conservative Party Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was speaking at a seminar by the mining and power generation industry funded think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs. "... Read Full Story

Thursday, November 12th marks the ten year anniversary of the repeal of the depression-era Glass-Steagall Act that protected consumers from casino-style gambling on Wall Street and prevented significant financial crises for almost 60 years. As Congress took up a series of bills this fall to restore confidence in the financial sector, notably lacking were any bills to break up the big banks and restore Glass-Steagall protections. Until now! U.S.read more Read Full Story

Here's an article that was recently published in a special issue of The Regulator: The current economic crisis teaches insurance regulators several key lessons to prevent a wholesale health care meltdown in America. Much like the financial sector, the health insurance sector has made short-term gains its priority rather than the health and well-being of its customers. read more Read Full Story

The Roman Catholic Church worked aggressively to get a last-minute amendment added to the newly-passed House health care reform bill that specifically prohibits abortion coverage in insurance plans that receive funding from the federal government. The "Stupak-Pitts Amendment," named after Bart Stupak, (D-MI) and Bill Pitts (R-PA), who introduced it, prohibits both public and private insurance plans participating in the proposed government health insurance exchange from providing abortion cov... Read Full Story