Thought you might be interested in this piece, in the current issue
of /The Nation/ by John Stauber, executive director of the Center for
Media and Democracy, publisher of the /PR Watch/ journal.
peace
mish
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>(This article is available at: www.thenation.com)
> December 27, 1999
>
> Food Fight Comes to America
>
> by JOHN STAUBER
>
>As the international uprising against genetically engineered (GE)
>foods continues to grow, the worst fear of US government and business
>officials is that the commotion abroad will awaken Americans, who unknowingly
>already consume biotech foods being rejected in Europe. The victories of
>their foreign counterparts, meanwhile, are providing fresh
>inspiration for US food
>activists, some of whom have struggled for decades to win media coverage,
>citizen attention and regulatory action. The Food and Drug Administration
>has officially opposed biotech food labeling and mandatory safety
>testing since
>1992 [see Kristi Coale, facing page]. But now that Europeans are forcing
>American companies to segregate and label genetically engineered foods, it is
>much more difficult to claim that the same can't be done in the United States.
>
>Last summer was a watershed event for many US farmers, who planted
>Monsanto's biotech corn and soybeans, only to find them rejected
>abroad. Some are shifting back to traditional varieties, at least until the
>crisis is resolved. Gary Goldberg, CEO of the American Corn Growers
>Association, suggested in November that farmers avoid genetically
>engineered seed corn and try to obtain non-engineered varieties
>before farmer demand depletes supplies of old-fashioned seed.
>
>The US food and biotechnology industries are now in full "crisis
>management" mode, their PR experts and lobbyists working furiously to prevent
>the same kind of defeat suffered on foreign shores. One example is the
>recently launched Alliance for Better Foods, run from the DC office
>of the PR/lobby firm BSMG, which also represents Monsanto and Philip
>Morris, America's largest food company. Monsanto's PR firm
>Burson-Marsteller recently bused 100 members of a Washington, DC,
>Baptist church to stage a pro-GE-foods rally outside an FDA hearing.
>But if events in Europe are any guide, the momentum may have shifted
>to a new alliance of grassroots environmentalists, consumer
>activists and family farmers. The Los Angeles Times noted in October
>that "a storm of protest...has reached US shores, leading some
>experts to predict that agricultural biotechnology could go the way
>of nuclear energy--falling out of favor because of public fears and
>unfavorable economics."
>
>The key to any successful biotech "issue management" campaign is
>repeating simple but carefully chosen messages that can set the terms of the
>debate. This was true with Monsanto's genetically engineered bovine growth
>hormone (rBGH), administered to cows to increase milk output. In the case of
>rBGH, one message was that "the milk is the same." This isn't true, and
>changes in the milk are a reason the drug hasn't been approved by
>Europe or Canada. But the message worked here, where, after a
>furious PR and lobbying
>campaign, the FDA approved the use of rBGH and allowed sales of
>dairy products without consumer labeling. Six years later, Monsanto
>claims that one-third of US cows are in herds injected daily with
>rBGH.
>
>Another simple but effective PR tactic, known as "the third-party
>technique," puts messages in the mouths of independent-seeming
>experts, such as scientists and doctors, whom journalists and the
>public are more likely to
>trust. Besides government "watchdogs" at the FDA and the US Department of
>Agriculture (USDA), such messengers can include former Surgeon General C.
>Everett Koop, the AMA and its prestigious publication Journal of the
>American Medical Association, and the American Dietetic Association. All
>these and more have vouched for rBGH, and we can expect an avalanche of
>similar trusted experts reassuring us about biotech foods in the months
>ahead.
>
>Meanwhile, many right-wing pro-industry groups have launched their
>own PR campaigns against the "fearmongering" of consumer and environmental
>activists. At Thanksgiving, for example, the National Center for
>Public Policy Research faxed to newsrooms a release headlined Activists Attack
>Bio-Engineered Food Despite Benefits to the Poor and the Sick. All
>these tactics would fail, of course, if the media did their job by thoroughly
>investigating and reporting the issue of genetically engineered
>foods, and that is why media management is the number-one goal of
>every PR campaign.
>
>As its ultimate weapon, industry has successfully lobbied into law
>"agricultural product disparagement" statutes that give them new powers to sue
>people who criticize their products. The first such lawsuit was filed in Texas
>against Oprah Winfrey and her guest Howard Lyman for the crime of
>airing a public debate on mad cow disease and its risks in the
>United States. A jury ruled in Oprah's favor, prompting her to crow
>that "free speech rocks." The reality
>is that her case is on appeal, and she has spent more than $2 million thus far
>in legal bills that she will never get back. Food-disparagement
>statutes survive
>intact in Texas and twelve other states, and this shot across the
>bow of the media has already had a chilling impact on coverage of
>other food controversies.
>
>One of the smartest moves by Monsanto in the rBGH fight was hiring
>Carol Tucker Foreman, an influential and well-connected Democratic insider
>and lobbyist. Previously, Foreman had been the executive director of the
>DC-based Consumer Federation of America and then, under President Jimmy
>Carter, an Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. Soon after her stint
>at USDA she
>launched her own DC lobby firm with many corporate clients. While paid by
>Monsanto to lobby for rBGH, Foreman also coordinated the Safe Food Coalition,
>whose members include a number of big Washington-based nonprofits such as
>Consumer Federation of America and the Center for Science in the
>Public Interest. Running the coalition allowed Foreman to maintain dual
>identities as both a consumer advocate and a corporate food
>lobbyist. Earlier this
>year Foreman left her lobby firm and returned to the Consumer Federation
>of America, where she now says she favors labeling genetically
>engineered foods.
>
>Another major Washington food lobbyist is Michael Jacobson, the
>executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an
>advocacy group dubbed "the food police" by industry for its
>attention-getting news conferences against unhealthy fats and sugars
>in the American diet. When it comes to biotech foods, however, CSPI
>has been less vigilant, failing to oppose
>Monsanto's rBGH during the long struggle over its approval. Jacobson now frets
>that mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food sold in
>supermarkets, as called for in a bill introduced in November by
>Representative Dennis Kucinich, could kill a goose he hopes will lay
>genetically engineered golden eggs such as "increased yields,
>reduced toxins, increased nutrient levels, and modified fatty acid
>composition."
>
>If inside-the-Beltway groups like CSPI and CFA are conflicted and
>unlikely to lead the charge to gain mandatory safety testing and consumer
>labeling of GE foods, who is? A broad array of seasoned activists
>has been fighting this battle for a long time, among them author
>Jeremy Rifkin, attorneys with the Center for Food Safety, the Rural
>Advancement Foundation International-USA, the National Family Farm
>Coalition, the Council for Responsible Genetics, Consumers Union
>(publisher of Consumer Reports) and the Union of Concerned
>Scientists. In meetings this year a number of these
>organizations and others formed the Genetic Engineering Action
>Network, which is united around four objectives: mandatory safety
>testing of GE foods, mandatory consumer labeling if they pass safety
>tests, long-term industry liability to cover unforeseen problems and
>an end to the domination of food and agriculture by "supermarket to
>the world" companies.
>
>No one involved in the US fight expects it to be quick or easy. Says
>Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association, "We have to do what
>Europe and Japan have done--build a powerful organized movement of farmers,
>consumers and environmental activists who will target and boycott
>companies." Recently the FDA held three public hearings on genetically
>engineered foods. Critics call them staged events and dog-and-pony
>shows, but they have provided a media forum for advocates of safety
>testing and labeling.
>The activists want biotech foods off the market entirely until a
>rigorous system of health and ecological testing has been devised. Like their
>colleagues in Europe, they are promoting the Precautionary
>Principle--the common-sense maxim of "looking before you leap"--as
>the basis for public policy. Adherence to the Precautionary
>Principle would obviously have dire consequences for companies whose
>bottom-line profits depend on selling as many biotech foods as
>quickly as possible, but it seems a minimal level of protection
>against the inevitable unforeseen consequences of genetically
>engineering the world's food supply.
>--------------
>
>John Stauber is executive director of the Center for Media &
>Democracy and founder of PR Watch, a quarterly journal that investigates
>corporate and government propaganda (www.prwatch.org). He is
>co-author of Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! and Mad Cow USA, both
>published by Common
>Courage.
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