Center for Consumer Freedom

The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is a U.S. nonprofit organization with a stated mission to defend the "right of adults and parents to choose what they eat, drink, and how they enjoy themselves." CCF runs media campaigns and gives out annual "Nanny Awards" to "those groups and individuals who would protect us from ourselves" and is funded by the restaurant industry, food companies and individual donors.^[1]

CCF frequently criticizes the officials and actions of the Humane Society of the United States, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and other organizations.

Guest Choice Network

The forerunner to the CCF was the Guest Choice Network, which was organized in 1995 by Richard Berman, executive director of the public affairs firm Berman and Company, with $600,000 from the Philip Morris tobacco company,^[2] "to unite the restaurant and hospitality industries in a campaign to defend their consumers and marketing programs against attacks from anti-smoking, anti-drinking, anti-meat, etc. activists ..." According to Berman, the GCN mission was to encourage operators of "restaurants, hotels, casinos, bowling alleys, taverns, stadiums, and university hospitality educators" to "support [the] mentality of 'smokers rights' by encouraging responsibility to protect 'guest choice.'"^[3] Philip Morris donated $2.95 million to GCN between 1995 and 1998.^[4]

The Guest Choice Network argued against restaurant-related initiatives from environmental, animal rights and anti-alcohol organizations^[5] and straightedgers, including arguments that restaurants should be allowed to maintain smoking sections.^[6] In November 2001, the group expanded its criticism of activist groups with the launch of ActivistCash.com, which compiled information gathered from IRS documents and media reports, describing the funding and activities of groups it opposed, and listed key activists and celebrity links.

In January 2002 the Guest Choice Network became the Center for Consumer Freedom, a change the group said reflected that "the anti-consumer forces [were] expanding their reach beyond restaurants and taverns [and] going into your communities and even your homes," claiming that a broader organization was needed to act "wherever they try to take away your consumer freedom."^[7]

Activities

A Center for Consumer Freedom print ad which criticizes the PETA President's statement opposing animal research to cure AIDS, terming it an "extremist agenda."

The group defines its mission as fighting against "a growing cabal of food cops, health care enforcers, militant activists, meddling bureaucrats, and violent radicals who think they know what's best for you, [who] are pushing against our basic freedoms."^[8]

The CCF has argued against smoking bans and for keeping the legal blood-alcohol level for drivers at 0.10. It questions the dangers of red meat consumption and pesticides.^{[9][10][11][12]}

In a 1999 interview with the Chain Leader, a trade publication for restaurant chains, Berman said his organization attacks activists more aggressively than other lobbyists. "We always have a knife in our teeth," he said. Claiming that activists "drive consumer behavior on meat, alcohol, fat, sugar, tobacco and caffeine," his strategy is "to shoot the messenger... We've got to attack their credibility as spokespersons."^[13]

In 2002 CCF spokesman John Doyle described nationwide radio ads put out by the group as efforts to attract people to their website and "draw attention to our enemies: just about every consumer and environmental group, chef, legislator or doctor who raises objections to things like pesticide use, genetic engineering of crops or antibiotic use in beef and poultry."^[14]

The CCF has posted a number of videos to YouTube.^[15] It posted the trailer for the children's movie Charlotte's Web, claiming that the movie "encourages kids to 'say no to bacon' and print out stickers reading 'Tofu Rulez'" and links to groups it claims are "extremist," such as the Humane Society of the United States.^[16]

The CCF criticizes statistics used by nutrition groups to describe a global "obesity epidemic," and in 2005, it filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests against the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in response to a CDC study claiming that 400,000 Americans die each year as a consequence of being obese.^[17] After the CCF campaign CDC reduced its estimates to 112,000 annual deaths, leading the CCF to advertise widely that it had discredited the study.^[2]

Activism websites

PETA is a frequent target of CCF advertising and publicity stunts.^[18] The Center for Consumer Freedom is publisher of the website PetaKillsAnimals.com,^[19] which alleges People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals unnecessarily euthanizes animals in its care.^[20]

The CCF runs ActivistCash.com, a website that claims it "provides the public and media with in-depth profiles of anti-consumer activist groups, along with information about the sources of what is called their exorbitant funding."^[21] The site features generally negative profiles of various groups it believes oppose consumer freedom, such as Greenpeace, PETA and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. It also hosts "biographies" offering negative portrayals of key activists and celebrity supporters for various groups. The site reports what it claims are links between profiled groups and extremism, and argues, in general, that the groups profiled hold extreme views that are contrary to the public interest. It claims to have examined 500,000 IRS documents in its profiling, listing for each group major donors, income and expenditure, key supporters and connections with other groups.

The CCF operates a number of other websites aside from its own, including PhysicianScam.com, Trans-FatFacts.com, Animalscam.com, Obesitymyths.com, and CSPIScam.com. MercuryFacts.com and FishScam.com contain a mercury calculator that offers an alternative calculation of amount of a fish that can be eaten before getting an unsafe dose of mercury, calculated as ten times the reference dose recommended by the EPA.

The CCF has also claimed (counter to research findings) that dieting and meal tracking do not lead to weight loss,^[22] and it has been a critic of United Auto Workers,^[23] and the American Federation of Teachers,^[24] among others.

Organization and finance

The CCF is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) U.S. nonprofit organization.^[8] As such, it does not disclose the identity of its funders. However, some information is available from statements the CCF and its funders have made and filed, and on yearly IRS Form 990 filings. IRS records show that in 2007, the CCF paid more than $1.5 million to Berman and Company for "research, communications, and other services."^[25] Both the Center for Consumer Freedom and American Beverage Institute are managed by and share facilities with Berman and Company,^[26] a public affairs firm owned by lobbyist Richard Berman and also associated with Center for Union Facts.

Initial funding for the original Guest Choice Network organization came from Philip Morris, with the initial donation of $600,000 followed by a $300,000 donation the following year. Philip Morris attorney Marty Barrington wrote in a 1996 internal company memorandum: "As of this writing, PM USA is still the only contributor, though Berman continues to promise others any day now." ^[27] By December, 1996, supporters consisted of Alliance Gaming (slot machines), Anheuser-Busch (beer), Bruss Company (steaks and chops), Cargill Processed Meat Products, Davidoff (cigars), Harrah's (casinos), Overhill Farms (frozen foods), Philip Morris, and Standard Meat Company (steaks). The group's advisory panel comprised representatives from most of these companies, plus further representatives from the restaurant industry, including former Senator George McGovern, and Carl Vogt of law firm Fulbright & Jaworski.^[28]

Form 990s for the Center for Consumer Freedom are available for years 2002-2005 on the GuideStar website.^{[29][30][31][32]} For the last available year, 2005, revenues were $3.7 million, while expenses reached $3.8 million.

Acknowledged corporate donors to the CCF include Coca-Cola, Wendy's, Tyson Foods, Monsanto, and Pilgrim's Pride.^[2][33][34] As of 2005, the CCF reported more than 1,000 individual donors^[2][8] as well as approximately 100 corporate supporters.^[33]

Known personnel

The CCF's directors are Richard Berman, Jacob Dweck, David Browne, and Lane Cardwell, all under the management of Berman and Company, which received fees of $1,190,512 in 2006 and $1,562,280 in 2007.^[35] Other Berman and Company employees are affiliated with the CCF, including David Martosko, who serves as the CCF's director of research,^[36] and Justin Wilson, a CCF senior research analyst who makes occasional appearances on various news channels including CNBC.^[37]

Criticism

The CCF has drawn harsh criticism for having taken its startup funding from the Philip Morris tobacco company and for lobbying on behalf of the fast food, meat, and tobacco industries while representing consumers.^{[2][38][39][40][41]}

Some groups the CCF has targeted have questioned its ethics and legitimacy. The president of the American Federation of Teachers referred to the CCF's leader as "a shameless lobbyist who has shilled for pesticide, alcohol and tobacco companies." ^[24] A USA Today journalist said that they should change the name of their website to FatForProfit.com.^[42] It has also been criticized for its efforts to portray groups such as the Humane Society of the United States as "violent" and "extreme," and for its opposition to banning the use of trans fats.^{[43][44][45][46][47]} The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has also campaigned against the CCF's validity as a non-profit tax exempt charitable organization, filing an IRS complaint in 2004 attacking the CCF's claims that its advocacy campaigns were "educational" in nature.^[2][48][49]

Some corporations, including PepsiCo and Kraft Foods, have declined to work with the CCF, saying they disagree with some of the group's arguments or with its approach to advocacy.^[33]

Following a CCF call for a retraction of a New York Times story about mercury levels in sushi as “bad science,” Newsweek senior editor Sharon Begley has criticized the CCF's interpretation of EPA statistics and implications of FDA restrictions on tuna and other fish.^[50]

See also

• Astroturfing
• Center for Union Facts

References

External links

CCF-operated websites

• ConsumerFreedom.com Official website
• PetaKillsAnimals.com
• ActivistCash.com
• PhysicianScam.com
• Trans-FatFacts.com
• AnimalScam.com
• ObesityMyths.com
• CSPIScam.com.
• MercuryFacts.com
• FishScam.com
• SweetScam.com
• HolyVeal.com

Other

• Sourcewatch: Center for Consumer Freedom A wiki hosted by the Center for Media and Democracy that criticizes the CCF.