How_the_FSA's_citizens'_jury_was_fixed/Monsanto_PR_agency_involvement_revealed

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_How_the_FSA's_ " citizens'_jury " _was_fixed/Monsanto_PR_agency_involvement_reveale\

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> " GM_WATCH " <info

> Wed, 21 Jul 2004 21:02:05 +0100

 

>

> GM WATCH daily

> http://www.gmwatch.org

> -------

> If anyone's in any doubt over why there has been so

> much delight over the news of the planned departure

> of Sir John Krebs from the Food Standards Agency,

> they need only consider the extraordinary lengths to

> which the FSA under Krebs has gone to betray the

> interests of consumers which it is charged with

> representing and protecting.

>

> In a particularly controversial move during the UK's

> official Public Debate over GM foods, the FSA

> operated its own separate " consultation " exercise ON

> GM, run entirely independently of the steering group

> which had been set up to oversee the debate and to

> ensure fairness and balance.

>

> One of the FSA's main consultation exercises was a

> three-day " citizens' jury " on GM foods. This, as you

> will see from the item below, was operated without a

> further critical level of oversight. In

> contravention of standard practice for citizens'

> juries, no panel of stakeholders was assembled to

> oversee balance and fairness in the jury process.

>

> Why not?

>

> According to senior staff at the FSA, this was

> unnecessary because the FSA is itself an independent

> agency. Yet the FSA and its Chairman are regarded in

> many quarters as extremely biased in favour of GM

> foods. Krebs has, for instance, dismissed criticisms

> of GM foods as 'shrill, often ill-informed and

> dogma-driven' while the FSA's own consumer committee

> has described the FSA's literature on GM as 'biased'

> in favour of GM.

> http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=73 & page=K

>

> But the FSA did not act alone in relation to the

> " Citizens' Jury " , it had commissioned experts to run

> the jury for it. These experts came from a divsion

> of PR firm Bell Pottinger. According to a Bell

> Pottinger letter obtained by a national newspaper,

> the company states that it works for " Monsanto and

> genetic engineering of food " . Bell Pottinger also

> has links that go to the very heart of the Blair

> Government.

>

> The comments below taken from a report from the

> Policy Ethics And Life Sciences Research Institute

> (PEALS) of the University of Newcastle make clear

> just how skewed an exercise the FSA's " citizen's

> jury " was. It was this which led to the result that

> the FSA hyped to the media that 9 of the 15 members

> of the jury had backed GM foods. The FSA was

> subsequently found to have deliberately suppressed a

> unanimous verdict of its " citizens' jury " opposing

> the commercial growing of GM crops in the UK.

>

> 1.THE APRIL 2003 FOOD STANDARDS AGENCY " CITIZENS'

> JURY "

> 2.Bell Pottinger, David Hill and Monsanto

> ------

> 1.THE APRIL 2003 FOOD STANDARDS AGENCY " CITIZENS'

> JURY "

> [extracted from a report by the Policy Ethics And

> Life Sciences Research Institute (PEALS)

> http://www.gmjury.org/downloads/report.pdf ]

>

> During April 2003, the FSA commissioned what it

> called a " citizens' jury " from a division of the

> public relations firm Bell Pottinger plc (also known

> as Chime plc). In contravention of standard practice

> for citizens' juries, no panel of stakeholders was

> assembled to oversee balance and fairness in the

> jury process. Senior staff at the FSA stated that it

> was itself an independent agency and had been

> advised by Bell Pottinger that no such oversight

> panel would be necessary.

>

> A major disadvantage of not having drawn on a broad

> range of interest groups for oversight of the jury

> process became apparent when the question was set

> for the jury to consider. This was announced by the

> FSA as 'Should GM Food be Available to Buy in the

> UK?'

>

> One of the witnesses to the jury immediately

> objected to this question, commenting that 'with a

> question like that I can predict a " yes " verdict

> without even needing to give evidence'. Not only was

> this question open to the accusation of being

> skewed, like some opinion poll surveys, towards

> getting a particular answer, but it is likely to

> have severely limited the scope the jurors had to

> discuss a range of issues relating to the links

> between GM technologies, the food system and farming

> that they - rather than the FSA – might have thought

> were pertinent. Citing advice from Bell Pottinger,

> the FSA 'disagreed that it is good practice to allow

> jurors to set their own agenda'.

>

> It is possible that the facilitation of the FSA jury

> by Bell Pottinger counteracted what appears to be a

> rather loaded exercise, but the FSA has not yet made

> its video archive publicly accessible, so it is

> difficult for others to know what went on in the

> sessions. There has been no evaluation report

> published to date, or re-convening of the jury that

> might have allowed them evaluate the process, and

> their impact on policy, themselves.

>

> Given that the more open technique of jury framing

> used in the GM Jury has now been used successfully

> on numerous occasions, we recommend it should no

> longer be standard practice for citizens’ juries to

> be given a one line question such as the one given

> to the FSA citizens' jury. We also believe that it

> is misguided for any organisation

> organising a jury process to believe itself so

> independent that it can forgo the transparent

> oversight mechanism that a multi-stakeholder panel

> provides.

> ------

> 2.David Hill and Bell Pottinger

> http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=177

>

> David Hill is Tony Blair's chief media spokesperson,

> replacing Alistair Campbell who stood down during

> the scandal over the death of government weapons

> expert Dr David Kelly. Hill's long-term partner is

> No 10 media advisor Hilary Coffman.

>

> Up until Hill took over as Blair's chief 'spin

> doctor', he was a senior executive at Bell-Pottinger

> Communications and managing director of its

> subsidiary Good Relations Ltd. At Good Relations he

> was a public relations advisor to Monsanto.

>

> According to the Mail on Sunday, Whitehall insiders

> say that Hill 'has always been able to boast to

> clients that he has direct access to No. 10'

> (Kinnock's man is new Campbell, Aug 3, 2003).

> Parliamentary written answers show Monsanto had far

> more success at winning audiences with government

> ministers after Hill's arrival. in his first two

> years with Bell Pottinger (1997-1999) GM food firms

> met government officials or ministers 81 times and

> Monsanto was welcomed into the agriculture and

> environment departments 22 times. (They couldn't be

> closer to Blair, Daily Mail, February 13, 1999)

>

> Jack Cunningham was amongst the government ministers

> Monsanto met when he was chair of the cabinet

> committee on GM. Jack Cunningham's special adviser

> for 6 years, Cathy McGlynn, went on to join Bell

> Pottinger.

>

> According to an article in The Observer, Bell

> Pottinger states 'in a letter obtained by The

> Observer that it works for " Monsanto and genetic

> engineering of food " . The lobbying firm also states

> that it can exploit the contacts of Cathy McGlynn

> - " who previously worked with Jack Cunningham, as his

> special adviser, when he was Agriculture Minister " ,

> and David Hill, former " chief spokesperson for the

> Labour Party " . The latest revelations come exactly a

> year after The Observer exposed how some lobbying

> firms had hired former aides to Labour Ministers in

> order to get favours from the Government for their

> corporate clients.' (Monsanto's lobby firm pays key

> MP)

>

> Prior to joining Bell Pottinger, Hill was Labour's

> director of communications (1991-1997). When Hill

> left his post to join Bell Pottinger and represent

> Monsanto, he was replaced by Mike Craven who went on

> to found PR firm Lexington Communications, which has

> amongst its clients Novartis and the lobby group

> ABC, established to promote GM by Monsanto along

> with Bayer CropScience, BASF, Dow Agrosciences,

> Dupont and Syngenta.

>

> There have been a number of concerns over the close

> links between Bell Pottinger and influential Members

> of Parliament. Two reports in The Observer revealed

> that Peter Luff MP, in addition to being chairman of

> the Commons Agriculture Select Committee, was also

> in the pay of Bell Pottinger. According to the

> Observer, he had not made this apparent to his

> fellow committee members even when they were working

> on a report on GM (Monsanto's lobby firm pays key

> MP; Resign call over MP's link with GM food firm ).

>

> There was also concern over another Bell Pottinger

> employee, Stuart Bell MP, in his role as the

> government's representative on the Church

> Commissioners at a time that they were discussing

> the use of Church of England land for GM crop

> trials. (Church MP in GM row, Daily Express, 8

> August 1999)

>

> Bell Pottinger is part of Chime Communications. Its

> chairman Lord Tim Bell was a PR advisor to Margaret

> Thatcher. Bell was knighted by Thatcher and given a

> peerage by Blair. His clients have included Chile's

> General Pinochet, South Africa's National Party, and

> Milosevic-led Yugoslavia.

>

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