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Dimanche 10 août 2008

Par David Miller | Ceux qui disent qu'elles favorisent la science et la rationalité peuvent finir vers le haut de soutenir l'opposé.  La Science et la rationalité maintiennent une force très significative au cours de la discussion publique et sont ainsi intéressant exploiter par des droits acquis.  L'utilisation stratégique de la science est une partie bien utilisée de l'armurerie de l'industrie des relations publiques.  En effet il est vrai pour indiquer que la fondation du P.R. et des industries de incitation ont été basées sur des tentatives de pervertir la rationalité et la science dans l'intérêt des droits acquis.  Les praticiens de P.R. les premiers tels que le neveu Edouard Bernays de Freud, étaient versés à ceci.  L'utilisation de Bernays de la psychologie a été célèbre mise à l'utilisation en favorisant le tabagisme parmi des femmes en les dénommant que le `incendie de la liberté' et de les associer à l'égalité et à la libération des femmes. 

Bernays était parmi le premier pour faire une profession hors de ce qu'il a appelé le `manipulation' consciente' et intelligente de la croyance et du comportement du public. Ceux que le `manoeuvrent ce mécanisme invisible' de la société étaient, il ont écrit, un gouvernement invisible de `qui est la puissance régnante vraie de notre pays.' ¹

Aujourd'hui l'industrie de P.R. est toujours basée sur la même philosophie.  La promotion de la science-je-ness de `' est un talisman toujours présent.  Elle a deux principes cardinaux. Le premier de plus en plus suivant vu le tour néo-libéral des années 70 en retard - est que là où la science ou la vérité minera des intérêts de corporation, la science ou la vérité doit être changée.  Le deuxième principe est de déguiser la source d'information là où utile. Quand un message est susceptible d'être été incroyant ou traité avec le scepticisme quand dit ouvrir par une société ou un politicien, les mots doit être mis dans la bouche de quelqu'un plus crédible et apparent désintéressé.  C'est la technique célèbre de tiers et a mené à une bande entière des scientifiques prenant l'argent de corporation pour favoriser la science amicale de corporation.

Puisque la science est toujours une telle ressource qu'il est impératif pour que les intérêts puissants essayent et de cooptent, minez, tordez, influencez ou achetez la science de `'.  C'est maintenant si répandu que la question soit ouvrir discutée dans les journaux scientifiques et il y a un petit mais nombre de plus en plus important d'examiner d'études  la question de la polarisation potentielle présentée par le placement de corporation.²   From the 50 year battle to protect the tobacco industry to today’s strategic use of science in climate change denial, and to muddy the waters as obesity and binge drinking become crisis issues, scientists have been recruited as a resource. For example they receive research grants, are paid as consultants or have their names added to academic journal articles ghost written by PR operatives.  Some scientists are even kept on retainers by corporations or lobby groups and can be wheeled out to order.

The third party technique fits nicely into the co-option strategy.  Scientists whose research budgets are nicely swelled by corporate money can often be surprisingly willing recruits to speak on behalf of industry. A study of toxic industrial contaminants in farmed Salmon published in Science in 2004, was greeted with a chorus of condemnation in the press.  Many of the voices were described as academic scientists.  In fact almost all had financial links to the industry undisclosed in the press.  The study itself was well grounded.³   Nonetheless the industry campaign to remove the stain of poisoned Salmon from the public mind was largely successful.

In the US and UK the creation of ‘front groups’ is common.  These are organisations usually including a science-like term in their title such as ‘foundation’  ‘institute’ or ‘research’. In the UK the food industry has been able to sabotage healthy eating initiatives since the 1970s by – among other things - funding the apparently independent British Nutrition Foundation which is able to place representatives on a myriad of government committees.⁴ The International Life Science Institute sounds a bit scientific.  In fact it is a food industry lobby group funded by hundreds of the biggest food, pharma and chemical companies and was for years more or less directed by the Coca Cola company.  It was able to infiltrate the WHO process on dietary sugars by covertly funding some of the scientists involved.⁵ In January 2006 the WHO decided that ILSI ‘can no longer take part in WHO activities setting microbiological or chemical standards for food and water’, as a result of complaints about its lobbying tactics.⁶

The PR industry is at the forefront of creating and managing front groups today.  The Scientific Alliance turned out to be run from the offices of Foresight Communications a PR firm in central London and to be funded by Scottish quarry owner Robert Durward.  The Social Issues Research Centre ‘fosters the image of an ultraconcerned public spirited group’ and of ‘a heavy-weight research body’.⁷ It is also run by a PR/marketing company from the same address.  That company - MCM Research - used to announce on its website its approach to open and truthful communications: ‘Do your PR initiatives sometimes look too much like PR initiatives? MCM conducts social/psychological research on the positive aspects of your business… The results do not read like PR literature’.⁸ 

Of course the corporations can do little else than lie and attempt to co-opt science.  They require to extract maximum surplus from both labour and natural resources to be part of the global market.  Their problem is that these qualities of corporate operations are not very attractive to the overwhelming majority of the population of the globe.  As a result corporations and their PR agents must try to undermine or co-opt science. The only defence is transparency, enhanced ethics standards and public funding of research.

NOTES

1.  Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928, New York: Horace Liverwright.
2.  Kassirer, J.P. On the take: How medicine’s complicity with big business can endanger your health. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press: 2005.; Lesser et al. ‘Relationship between funding  source and conclusion among nutrition-related scientific articles’. PLoS Medicine 2007.; Jorgensen AW, Hilden J, Gotzsche PC. Cochrane reviews compared with industry supported meta-analyses and other meta-analyses of the same drugs: systematic review. BMJ 2006;333:782-5.;Veronica Yank, Drummond Rennie, Lisa A Bero, Financial ties and concordance between results and conclusions in meta-analyses: retrospective cohort study BMJ 2007;335:1202-1205 (8 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39376.447211.BE (published 16 November 2007); Jim Giles, Industry money skews drug overviews Nature 437, 458-459 (22 September 2005); DeAngelis, C. Comment on “Conflict of interest in medical research: facts and friction” in meeting proceedings, call to action: Managing financial relationships between academia and industry in biomedical research 2007; 15-16.;Peppercorn, J, Blood, E., Winer, E, Partridge, A. Association between pharmaceutical involvement and outcomes in breast cancer clinical trials. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2005.

3.  David Miller ‘Spinning Farmed Salmon (part 2 of 3)’, Spinwatch, 28 May 2008 http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/4953/8/

4.  Geoffrey Cannon The Politics of Food Century Hutchinson, London, UK, 1987. John Yudkin, Pure, White and Deadly, Penguin, 1988.

5. Sarah Boseley ‘WHO “infiltrated by food industry”‘ The Guardian Thursday January 9, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/jan/09/foodanddrink; Sarah Boseley ‘Sugar industry threatens to scupper WHO’ The Guardian Monday April 21, 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/apr/21/usnews.food; Sarah Boseley ‘WHO ‘buried’ report to please food industry’ The Guardian Wednesday November 3, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/nov/03/media.advertising

6.  John Heilperin, ‘WHO to Rely Less on U.S. Research’, Associated Press, January 27, 2006.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/01/27/national/w150409S47.DTL

7. Annabel Ferriman ‘An end to health scares?’ BMJ 1999;319:716- ( 11 September ) http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/319/7211/716

8. Ibid.

A shorter version of this article was published in the New Scientist (subscription required) on 23 July 2008.  

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