Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Another Sleazy Green TV Ad (this time, it’s from fake doctors)

There are several problems with this campaign. For starters, the American Lung Association suffers from a huge conflict of interest. The point of the ad is to protect the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate under the Clean Air Act. Left unmentioned by the narrator is the fact that the EPA is a major funder of the ALA, having delivered more than $20 million over the last ten years. As my colleague Myron Ebell noted, "So the EPA pays the American Lung Association, which in turn lobbies against a bill that would rein in EPA." Many Americans labor under the misapprehension that the ALA is staffed by disinterested MDs in white coats; in fact, it employs partisan shills.

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