PR Firm Protects Chemical Industry From Press Release

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Within an hour of posting a press release headlined "Children, Pregnant Women Need Immediate Protection From DEHP, Says Sweeping New European Union Proposal" on its website, the public interest group Health Care Without Harm
received a call from PR Goliath Fleishman-Hillard asking them to change the release. "They took issue with our headline, arguing that a proposal to ban the toxic chemical DEHP from various consumer products in the European Union is 'a sweeping proposal to the EU' rather than a 'sweeping EU proposal,'" HCWH's Stacy Malkan wrote PR Watch. "But the proposal was actually submitted on behalf of the EU, so we're right and it seems that all they have to argue about is a preposition. It felt kind of creepy to realize that F-H saw our press release before any reporters and probably before any of our 400 member organizations. But to me this also seems like a last-ditch industry attempt to spin the unspinnable. As the new EU proposal points out, there's enough evidence about the risks of DEHP to warrant immediate action to protect kids, women of childbearing age, and other people," Malkan wrote.