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星期天， 2008年8月10日

由大衛米勒 | 說的那些人他們傾向科學和合理性能導致支持對面。  科學和合理性在公開辯論中保留非常重大力量并且因而是值得剝削由既得利益。  對科學的戰略用途是公共關係產業的軍械庫的一個很好使用的部分。  的確它是真實的認為建立PR和遊說的產業根據企圖濫用合理性和科學有利於既得利益。  最早期的PR實習者例如弗洛伊德的姪子愛德華Bernays，是嫻熟在此。  對心理學的Bernays用途著名使用在促進吸煙在婦女之中通過稱呼他們自由`火炬』和同他們聯繫在一起婦女的平等和解放。 

Bernays是在做行業的一个之中在什麼外面他稱`神志清楚』和聰明的操作』公眾的信仰和行為。 `操作這個未看見的機制』社會的那些人是，他寫了，是我們的國家的真實的支配的力量的`無形的政府』。 ¹

今天PR產業根據同一哲學仍然。  `科學我岬突端的促進』是一老在護符。  它有二項基本原則。 一个-被看見的越來越以下新自由主義者輪70年代晚期-是哪裡科學或真相將破壞公司興趣，科學或真相必須改變。  第二項原則是假裝信息源在有用地方。 當消息可能懷疑地懷疑或對待，當公開說由公司或政客，詞時時在明顯公正的某人的嘴必須投入更加可信和。  這是著名第三方技術和導致了採取公司金錢的科學家一整體綁促進公司友好的科學。

由於科學仍然是它是必要的為了強有力的興趣能嘗試和投票增選的這樣資源，破壞，變形，影響或者買`科學』。  這現在很普遍問題在學報公開辯論，并且有研究審查的小，但增加  公司資助介紹的潛在的偏心的問題。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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