PR strategies used to manipulate public opinions

The development of genetically engineeered food has cost billions of dollars. To ensure their acceptance, the industry has been using the very best marketing expertise and knowledge available. It has invested many millions of dollars, using every possible means to be successful. Three major mutually supporting strategies have been applied in parallell:

1. Securing support from scientists in biotech-related fields

This has been the easiest part. As research in these fields uses advanced and expensive technology, scientists have greatly welcomed any support they can get from corporations. In addition, several leading scientists have been hired as consultants earning important extra incomes. Others, who have developed patents with the support of biotech corporations, have become millionaires from royalties.

A hierarchal power-concentration has developed in the internationalised scientific society. Thereby a few top scientists are in a position to effectively influence the behavior of large numbers of their colleagues in important issues. Ensuring the cooperation of such influential "opinionmakers" and powerholders is, according to business experts, part of normal long term "marketing strategy".

Many scientists who are critical of the use of genetic engineering on foods have not dared to express their opinion, fearing that it may threaten their job, their career opportunities, their possibilities of obtaining research grants or their possibilities of getting their research published. They know that the same experts who are endorsed by the biotech corporations may sit in the committees of research funds and international journals. Also these experts may have a decisive influence on their career possibilities. This problem has been highlighted in the article "Independent Scientists An Endangered Species". Excerpt:

So by supporting scientific research three benefits are obtained in one stroke:

• Direct access to the latest developments
• A supportive attitude to the GE issue from leading experts
• Effective suppression of warnings and criticism by most scientists

Because few have dared to express criticism, the propaganda makers have been able to say that "mainstream science" supports food biotechnology, creating the impression that any criticism comes from a few persons who are not representative of science today. This situation reminds of the conditions in totalitarian states where those in power decide what is the "official truth" and the opposition is silenced.

2. Securing support from public authorities

The industry has positive experience of the usefulness of this strategy, not the least in the USA. An illustrative case is what the Ecologist called the transformation of FDA from a guardian of public health to a promoter of corporate interests, see "The Monsanto Files". The fact that regulations have been created that promote corporate interests on the expense of public safety (see Inadequate safety assessment of GE foods) demonstrate that this strategy has been successful in several countries including the US, Canada and the European Union (that however has stepwise turned more restrictive).

In USA, the FDA even actively contributed to the acceptance of the GE growth hormone milk by disregarding unfavorable scientific findings, issuing news releases promoting rBGH, making public statements praising the drug, and writing promotional pieces about rBGH in the agency's publication, FDA Consumer (see "The Monsanto Files" ). This is truly remarkable as there were no indications that the milk was better for health than normal milk. On the contrary, there were important evidence indicating that it was harmful, see e.g. Monsanto's Hormonal Milk Poses Serious Risks of Breast Cancer…

So it appears that the PR strategy to ensure cooperation from public authorities has been very effective. One reason may be the great financial power of the biotech corporations which makes it possible to apply a strong pressure on politicians. Corruption appears to be a systematically used by multinationals to achieve their goals, see footnote 1.

3. Creating a positive opinion in the public

An important component in the marketing of GE-products has been PR activity with the purpose to create a favorable public opinion. For manipulation of the public, the PR experts apply advanced knowledge of psychology and extensive experience from successful manipulation of attitudes and beliefs.

According to PR experts, marketing campaigns should begin several years before a new technology is launched, especially if it may be controversial. Already in the 1970-ies, the industry realized that genetic engineering of food may provoke worries among consumers. Therefore it is most probable that a systematic manipulation of the public may have gone on for over a decade. But naturally it was intensified in the beginning of the nineties, preparing for the market launch that occurred in 1995. When new regulations were to be created, it is but natural that the PR activity was designed to make people believe that this is a very valuable, yes indispensable and safe technology.

Beautiful brochures, articles and videos were designed to create the impression that biotechnology will bring great benefits to mankind. The prospect of man mastering nature in accord with his wishes has been envisioned with great enthusiasm in almost religious tones.

An efficient trick to manipulate people is to associate the product with issues that they feel are especially important or have a high status. Therefore, the propaganda has addressed topics like world hunger, cure of serious diseases and High Tech status of the technology.

When an unexpectedly strong resistance emerged against genetically engineered food outside America, the biotech industry became much concerned about people's fears and doubts about genetic engineering. This was especially the case in Europe where the majority of consumers in most countries are against genetically engineered food. Therefore, the European interest organization of the Biotech industry, "EuropaBio" hired, in the spring of 1997, the World leading PR firm, Burson Marsteller. The purpose was to create a favorable opinion about GE foods among European consumers. Several million dollars were invested into this campaign.

Before they start a campaign, the PR companies make a thorough investigation of the "market situation" in order to find out what should be avoided and what is especially likely to bring success. The result is formulated as general guidelines for the PR activity.

Because of a leak, the general guidelines of Burson Marsteller for this GE-food campaign became available (ref: Penman, D. (1997). "Stay quiet on risks of gene-altered food, industry told." The Guardian Wednesday August 6, 1997, p. 9 (Home News)).

Here are some of the most important points in the document:

Scientists and other representatives of the Biotechnology industry should completely avoid open debates. The reason is that this will give the opponents an opportunity to inform about the health and environmental risks. Burson Marsteller called these topics "killing fields" because the proponents were bound to loose these debates.

Their thorough analysis of the issue obviously revealed that there are indeed health and environmental risks about genetic engineering. Therefore they recommended that the opportunities of the adversaries to voice the truth should be suppressed.

This is what I have experienced myself. TV and radio planned debates between me and leading proponents for genetic engineering. But to the surprise of the media people, no opponent wanted to participate, so the planned debates had to be canceled.

In stead of debating, the Biotech representatives were recommended to participate in interviews where there is no competent opponent present who could bring forth embarrassing facts.

Support from public authorities would effectively create confidence in gene technology. This the PR firms said will be effective because people generally have confidence in governmental authorities.

So the Biotech industry was recommended to secure positive cooperation with politicians and regulators. They would then reassure the public that the technology is safe and valuable, which was expected to have a strong positive effect on the public opinion according to Burson Marsteller.

Such supportive behavior by leading politicians and other public leaders has been reported in the press from several countries, including a/o USA, Canada, leaders of the European Union and United Kingdom (USA wanted to export large amounts of GE products - soy and maize to Europe and the GE canola of Canada sought new markets).

Burson Marsteller recommended that the representatives of the Biotechnology industry should avoid own appearances in the media. Instead popular and respected science journalists should be hired in order to create an impression of impartiality. Burson Marsteller offered a list of star journalists who could be hired for this purpose to covertly convey their propaganda through all possible media channels including radio, TV, journals and newspapers.

Materials and stories should be prepared that illustrate positive sides only, especially centering on human needs as these have a particularly strong PR value. Such material should be delivered as an "aid" to help stressed journalists to deliver high quality and rich information in time for deadlines.

In spite of an investment of millions of dollars, the campaign completely failed.

We think an important reason was the aggressive attempts at suppression of information, like the trashing of a critical article in the Ecologist by threatening the printing office (see The Monsanto Files), and the firing of an internationally renowned food safety expert, professor Arpad Pusztai who dared to warn about GE foods (see World renowned scientist lost his job when he warned about GE foods - The Pusztai case). It was commonly believed though not definitely proven that the biotech industry had forced the firing of Pusztai. These events generated great interest and public suspicion.

Another important aspect is that the European media, differently from the US, is not as well controlled by corporate interests. I think the US biotech firms seriously underestimated this factor. In several countries there are nationwide state-owned TV and radio channels. State owned BBC, for example, made a great impartial contribution to the GE debate in UK.

In the US on the other hand, there is no state TV and about nine private owners control a very large part of TV, radio and paper media. As all are heavily dependent on advertising, it is easy for big advertisers to make media suppress undesirable information. For example the global media mogul Rupert Murdoch controls a major part of American TV stations. One of Murdoch's stations, Fox TV, withdrew a story revealing the health hazards with milk from cows treated with Monsanto's genetically engineered growth hormone (see "Reporters press lawsuit to thwart FOX-TV cover-up"). For more about the media situation, including examples of corporate influence on the media, see "Corporate influence in the media" by Global Issues.

The control of media by corporate interests is probably an important reason why the American consumer awareness about the GE food hazards has lagged greatly behind that of many other countries. While very few critical voices have been heard, the media have been replete with propagandistic stories, probably mostly planted by PR firms hired by the Biotech groups. Yet we think the PR campaign is as likely to fail in the US as it did in Europe as it is based on deceptive manipulation and suppression of the truth, and we think it is impossible to fully supress all information channels even in the US.

A third reason for the failure of the GE PR campaign we think was the internet. Here people had cheap and easy access to facts provided by independent NGO:s and could thereby discover that the pro-biotech information was misleading and distorted (see for example "Misleading arguments commonly used by biotech advocates"). The Internet serves as an important safety mechanism allowing the truth to come forth even if information in the media is suppressed. There seems to be an increasing awareness of this in the US, making people prone to search independent information sources on the internet.

The Burson Marsteller document reveals the deceptive nature of the strategies used by the biotech lobby. They have been aimed at hiding or suppressing the truth, misusing trusted information sources and delivering biased and distorted information in order to change the public opinion and make regulators favor the interests of the industry.

Jaan Suurküla M.D.

P.S.: If you are skeptical about the criticism of GE foods, you are likely to have obtained a strong "dose" of skillful and powerful propaganda. If you want to be honest to yourself, go by facts from independent sources and not by opinions you have heard on Radio, TV and in newspapers as these are likely to be part of the massive pro-biotech propaganda, especially so presently in the US and Canada. You could start for example by reading "Misleading arguments commonly used by biotech advocates"

Footnote:

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