How nonprofit organizations can be bought - Article by Alicia Mundy in 2003

I read this post on YMB and that brought back some memories about a passionate obese woman talking about breast cancer at the panel meeting. I am suspicious of her testimony  after reading Alicia Mundy's article yet respect her opinion if independent(not bough out)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0301.mundy.html

In this article, the head of the National Women's Health Network says their organization doesn't take money from pharmaceutical companies -- but says nothing about whether they take money from hedge funds or their employees that may be investing in the biotech sector.

For any nonprofit, you can request a copy of their Form 990s to review the donations they received for the last 3 tax filings that are available. If this information is requested in person at a nonprofit's principal office, generally the organization must provide the information that day. If the information is requested in writing, the organization usually has 30 days to comply.

The 990 will itemize the org's donations, but the names and addresses of donors will be blacked out. These might at least tell us if the groups received any unusual large donations immediately before or after the AC. Unfortunately, any donations for 2010 won't be available until after they file 2010 taxes next April. 

In the meantime, a donor-disclosure law would help and there just happens to be one stalled in the Senate right now.
http://philanthropy.com/blogs/government-and-politics/donor-disclosure-bill-again-stalls-in-senate/27177

The following organizations spoke against approval. This is highly unusual.

Someone needs to dig deeper into who invited these groups and what motivated them to speak against ARNA


National Women's Health Network http://nwhn.org/
National Research Center for Women and Families http://www.center4research.org/
Washington Center for Weight Management and Research http://www.wtmgmt.com/
Council on Size and Weight Discrimination http://www.cswd.org/

Obesity Action which has more than 18K members called for approval of new treatments

http://www.obesityaction.org/home/index.php