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1. BAYER Attacks Critical Coverage
2. Hard rockers: The views of the green lobby should be challenged, according to a new alliance
3. Smoking is 'cost-effective' says report
4. The tightening grip of big pharma

Items 1 & 4 concern the chemical giant Bayer. Item 3 concerns Philip Morris which has financed a plethora of pro-corporate front groups aimed at undermining industry critical science.

The recently launched Scientific Alliance (item 2) supports GM crops, leaning inevitably on the recent UNDP report:

"Even though research into genetically-modified organisms is still in its infancy, fears of cross-contamination to non-GM crops have led to the blanket rejection by many of GM test trials. This viewpoint has been criticised by a United Nations Human Development report, released on 10 July 2001, which claims that GM crops could lift millions of the world's poor out of poverty." http://www.scientific-alliance.com/GMF.htm

The UNDP report also finds an echo in the statements of the Bush brigade during George W's current G8 trip:

"Meanwhile, U.S. officials looking ahead to the Italy summit said they expected developing nations to join with the United States in accepting genetically modified crops. Europe does not approve the crops, but Americans argue that the technology would boost production, particularly in food-starved poorer countries."

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1. BAYER Attacks Critical Coverage
Press Release
CBG/Coordination against BAYER-dangers
July 18, 2001

Bayer AG has forced the German group Coordination against BAYER-Dangers (CBG) to remove their homepage from the Internet by threatening them with heavy court costs. CBG had registered a domain and had oriented the name to be similar to other group names such as Germanwatch, AOLwatch, and Human Rights Watch. Bayer has taken legal action to apparently avoid confusion despite the homepage's unequivocally critical orientation.

The company also forced the group to cancel the related trademark by threatening them with a second court case. The CBG had already successfully registered the aforementioned name with the Munich Patent Office. Bayer has assessed the amount of the controversies to be 250,000 DM (115.000 US$) each, which would have led to the CBG having to pay over 100,000 DM in court costs. The honorary association therefore had no other choice but to concede by canceling the trademark and homepage.

The Patent Office s copyright investigation had reviewed whether there was any danger of confusion as a result of the copyrighted trademark and had determined that there was none. Bayer s arguments are also ignoring a recent court decision that declared that a domain name cannot be viewed separately from the contents of a homepage.

Axel Koehler-Schnura had the following to say about the issue: "Bayer s behavior in this issue, which is clearly directed towards the network s economic ruin is clearly an attack on democratic principles and freedom of opinion. The company is obviously afraid of a public discussion and has instead chosen repression and the devastating power of money". According to Koehler-Schnura, the association does not want to waste its energy on legal hair-splitting on letters, but instead chooses to continue to publicize the company s role in causing environmental damage, maintaining worker exploitation and endangering human health throughout the world.

The Bayer Group's attempts to prohibit the CBG from criticizing the company on the Internet have failed. You can now find all of the network s information and publications (including English newsletter Keycode Bayer) at www.cbgnetwork.org. However, the proceedings have already used up an exorbitant amount of money, which could threaten the group s existence. The CBG is therefore urgently asking for financial backing against the expensive legal attacks.

Please show your support and transfer money to the following German bank account: Oekobank account number 17 96 12 bank routing number (BLZ) 500 901 00

In addition, the CBG is asking associated groups to stage protests against this attack at the Bayer headquarters. An initial attempt by Bayer to silence the group was rejected by the Bundesverfassungsgericht (German Federal Constitutional Court) in 1992. The CBG has been campaigning against the questionable practices of Bayer's international operations for over 20 years.

CBG/Coordination against BAYER-dangers collects information about BAYER and coordinates activities against violations of human and environmental rights caused by this company. Anyone who has information on possibly illicit activities of BAYER - please let us know. Anyone who needs photos or information concerning BAYER is invited to contact us:

CBG/Coordination against BAYER-dangers, Postfach 15 04 18, 40081 Duesseldorf, Germany

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.   website: www.CBGnetwork.org
Fax: +49 211 333 940
Tel: +49 211 333 911
http://www.cbgnetwork.org/home/home.html [in English]

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2. Hard rockers: The views of the green lobby should be challenged, according to a new alliance
Andy Rowell
Guardian Wednesday July 11, 2001

Watch out anyone peddling scare stories about how the environment is going to  rack and ruin, because a new organisation is out to get you. The Scientific Alliance has been formed, it says, "in response to the growing concern that the debate on the environment has been distorted by extreme pressure groups".

The alliance, which is currently recruiting staff and hopes to find a high-profile director, says it wants to "put forward the debate about the environment on scientific facts, not the scaremongering that is the trademark of the so-called green lobby".

According to its web-site, www.scientific-alliance.com, it represents "those who are concerned about the growing strength of the environmental movement and the often illogical, emotive and flawed arguments it uses to advance its case".

To counter views it does not like, the alliance plans a debate forum, lobbying activities and to give a political voice to the "sensible majority" overlooked, it says, by the green lobby. But what is the alliance? A genuine non-government group, or a corporate front group, reminiscent of the many set up in the US to fight the environmental movement?

Their contact person is Robert Durward. He says: "There is a need for a balancing organisation like this because whatever happens, it's global warming - if it's too hot, it's global warming; if it's too cold, it's global warming. I object to people like CPRE and FoE who only give one side of the story."  Durward is a "a businessman who is totally fed up with all this environmental stuff... much of which is unjustified, such as the climate change levy. We also have the aggregates tax, which will put the UK quarry industry out of business".

Durward is also the director of the British Aggregates Association (BAA). Indeed, the Scientific Alliance's phone number is also the contact telephone for both the BAA and Cloburn quarry in Lanarkshire. The domain name for the Scientific Alliance is also registered to Cloburn quarry. The BAA says that it represents the "commercial interests" of Britain's independent quarry operators.

BAA members have been campaigning against the introduction of an aggregates tax, which has been demanded by "environmental pressure groups who have little sympathy with the quarry industry and have chosen to ignore the efforts made to minimise environmental impact as well as the obvious necessity of our work".

But the alliance's concerns also include transport, climate change, biodiversity, the countryside and waste. On climate change, they quote research from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to back up their argument of the considerable benefits of a "delayed approach to climate change" - the US position.

The CEI is one of America's leading rightwing think-tanks and has close ties to the anti-environmental "Wise Use" movement, which pioneered the use of corporate front-groups more than a decade ago. They are being advised by Foresight Communications, a new political consultancy which is based near Trafalgar Square, London.

The executive handling the Scientific Alliance account is Mark Adams OBE, who was a private secretary for parliamentary affairs at No. 10 for nearly four years. He also worked as private secretary to Tony Blair for six months after the 1997 election.

Durward, who refuses to disclose who the financial backers are for the Scientific Alliance, says he would not play an active role after "getting it started". "We are hoping to attract academics or people with a scientific background to contribute papers." They are looking to appoint two full-time staff and say that there has been "a tremendous amount of interest" because the alliance will be "quite popular".  

Andy Rowell is the author of Greenwash. Applications to join The Scientific Alliance should be sent to Foresight Communications, Golden Cross House, 8 Duncannon Street, London WC2N 4JF, by Friday.

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3. Smoking is 'cost-effective' says report
Smoking's Economic Benefits
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1442000/1442555.stm
Tuesday, 17 July, 2001, 01:11 GMT 02:11 UK

The premature deaths of smokers has economic benefits, according to a  controversial report commissioned by a leading US cigarette manufacturer.  The report, drawn up for tobacco giant Philip Morris Inc, found that the Czech Republic saved about $147m in 1997 through the deaths of smokers who  would not live to use healthcare or housing for the elderly.

“This is not the normal way we think about the lives of citizens” - Richard Daynard, anti-tobacco industry lobbyist

Compiled as a cost-benefit analysis and delivered to the Czech Government,  the study weighted the savings against the income tax lost and cost of   caring for smokers before they died.

However, tobacco industry opponents have attacked the report as an attempt  to show that governments benefit from smoking related deaths.   "I think it's pretty egregious," said Richard Daynard, Chairman of the  Tobacco Products Liability Project.   "You don't see other companies doing it ... this is not the normal way we think about the lives of citizens," he added.

'Scary logic'

In a statement, Philip Morris said it "deeply regrets" suggestions of the  beneficial economic effects of smoking.   Philip Morris produces one of the world's best known brands   The study "was part of an ongoing debate about the economics of cigarette  excise tax policy in the Czech Republic," said a company spokesman.   But, said Patti Lynn from the corporate watchdog Infact, "even if it were  true ... it's a scary logic on which to base policy."

Anti-smoking groups have also questioned the report's validity, as it  assumes that if cigarette sales ceased, smokers would not spend their money  on other goods.

Philip Morris employs 178,000 people in more than 150 countries, and is the  world's largest cigarette maker with brands such as Marlboro.   It produces 80% of the cigarettes smoked in the Czech Republic.

Defence

Tobacco companies have used similar arguments in the past to defend  themselves against lawsuits from states demanding reimbursement for  treating smoking-related diseases.   However, last month a Los Angeles jury ordered Philip Morris to pay more  than $3bn to a smoker suffering from terminal cancer who said the company  did not warn him of the dangers of smoking.   The award was the largest individual punitive damage award ever against a  cigarette maker.

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4. The tightening grip of big pharma
Editorial from THE LANCET

When Prof Martin Cormican, a bacteriologist at University College Hospital, Ireland, wrote to Bayer in November last year asking for a supply of pure ciprofloxacin and related products for his research into antibiotic resistance, he was asked to sign a document stating that, "We  declare that we will inform Bayer AG in writing of our test results and will not publish or commercialise them without written permission of Bayer AG". He replied that he was "concerned in respect to the restriction on publication without permission".

A Bayer employee, Dr Andrew Saich, called Cormican to say that he could neither waive nor remove the restriction, but he was sure it would not be enforced. Dissatisfied with this response, Cormican wrote to the European Commission seeking their support for his unfettered right to publish whatever results he obtained. Philippe Jean replied on March 13, 2001, describing the matter as "delicate". All he could do was remind pharmaceutical companies of "the potential public interest of this type of research".

Nobody would deny a pharmaceutical company its right to commercialise results of scientific research. But that issue is completely different from its "right" to block publication. The Lancet recently came under pressure to remove a sentence from the discussion of a research paper, which raised questions over the safety of a drug. The lead author had shown the report to the company after final journal pages were passed for publication. She was satisfied with the paper but the company  was unhappy. The best way for the journal to support her was to promise to publish an editorial naming the company and describing its attempts to manipulate the study's conclusions, if the offending sentence was removed. The final report remained in its original form.

Efforts by drug companies to suppress, spin, and obfuscate findings that  do not suit their commercial purposes were first revealed to their full,  lethal extent during the thalidomide tragedy. Although government drug regulation schemes around the world are now in place, the insidious tactics of big pharma have changed little. For example, <italicJAMA</italic recently published a study whose dataset was incomplete because the sponsor refused to supply necessary information to the research team. The issue at stake in all these cases is the relation  between a company that is sponsoring a study in some way and the investigators. In protocols of trials that The Lancet is provisionally committed to publish, the sponsor's veto is occasionally made explicit, although there is usually no corresponding statement affirming the right of investigators to publish their results irrespective of the sponsor's views. In addition, the sponsor's role in interpreting data, writing the report, or publishing the paper is far from clear, leaving a damaging ambiguity over the entire research process.

The matter of malign commercial influence in research is complicated by investigators' own conflicts of interest. As research becomes driven by ever more costly technologies, so industry will intrude even further into the scientific process. If medicine wants a flourishing research culture, it will be hard to find ways to limit industry involvement in medical research without constraining that culture. But this position is weak and self-serving. Instead, doctors must look to existing institutions to challenge, on the public's behalf, forces of commercial bias that risk staining permanently the integrity of medicine.

Governments, nationally and regionally, have consistently failed to put their people before profit. By contrast, academic institutions could intervene to support scientists when financial conflicts threaten to do harm. But these institutions have become businesses in their own right, seeking to commercialise for themselves research discoveries rather than  preserve their independent scholarly status.

Perhaps one last means of protection is the scientific journal. It is the editorially independent, peer-reviewed medical journal that remains a final common path by which investigators obtain justified credit for their work. Journal editors can do much to reinforce the integrity of the science they publish. For clinical trials, one important next step is to  strengthen the latest revision of the CONSORT statement to make explicit  the role of the sponsor in data collection, analysis, and publication. Such rigour should apply to the oversight of all medical research.  

Lancet Editorial,  April 14, 2001