Consumers! Beware Corporate Lapdogs Posing As Consumer Watchdogs

The so-called Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is at it again, this time attacking PETA. But their ploy has backfired. The CCF was set to run a full-page ad against PETA, in this week's Hollywood edition of Variety, but Variety pulled the ad at the 11th hour. That's good news because one thing we consumers don't need is more corporate spin.

Probably, the CCF planned the ad to coincide with the culmination of a North Carolina court case involving two PETA workers accused of animal cruelty, but a jury acquitted them of all charges, except for littering. The CCF has been playing up the case and hoping for a conviction, but with the acquittal, the rug has been pulled out from under them. Cooler heads prevailed, both in court and at Variety. No doubt, the CCF is doubly disappointed.

Why is something calling itself the Center for Consumer Freedom interested in PETA in the first place? You might think that PETA has little to do with limiting consumer freedom, and you'd be right. The real answer can be found by looking behind the scenes. Simply put, the Center For Consumer Freedom is a front group for the restaurant, junk-food, alcohol and tobacco industries, and they regularly run elaborate media campaigns opposing the efforts of scientists, doctors, health advocates, animal rights and environmental groups. Founded in 1995 as the Guest Choice Network with a grant from the tobacco company, Philip Morris, the misnamed Center for Consumer Freedom has never strayed far from its roots. Consumer freedom -- or consumer health -- is not nearly so important to them as corporate bottom-lines.

According to SourceWatch, a project of the Center for Media & Democracy:

Anyone who criticizes tobacco, alcohol, fatty foods or soda pop is likely to come under attack from CCF. Its enemies list has included such diverse groups and individuals as...the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons; the American Medical Association; the Arthritis Foundation; the Consumer Federation of America; New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; the Harvard School of Public Health; the Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems; the National Association of High School Principals; the National Safety Council . . . Ralph Nader's group, Public Citizen; and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A quick tour of the CCF website reveals article after article dismissing reputable scientific studies that demonstrate the dangers of high fat, trans fats, high sugar, processed food, meat-consumption diets, the dangers of high mercury levels in fish, etc., and attacking advocates of healthy lifestyles.

Public health, environmental, animal advocacy groups have always been targets for the CCF, because they all threaten the bottom lines of the CCF's corporate meat, dairy, restaurant and beverage-industry sponsors.

The constant barrage of disinformation put out by the CCF flies in the face of both science and common sense. But that should be no surprise, since their goal never was to promote consumer health -- or freedom -- but to increase their clients' profit-margins. Now that PETA has been cleared, the CCF can go back to fighting MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving).