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TechnoratiAn ad campaign encouraging pregnant women to eat seafood is a case study in industry-driven 'research.'
Like small boats in an unending squall, U.S. consumers are buffeted from all sides with information about what kind of food to buy and why it's good -- or bad -- for them. In such a convergence of advertising, news and constant marketing, timely and accurate information is crucial for those who want to make healthy and affordable choices.
That's why it was so disturbing when a group called the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition released a report recently encouraging pregnant women to increase their consumption of fish despite the well-known risk of mercury and other contaminants commonly found in certain seafoods.
For years, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have advised women who are pregnant, might become pregnant or are breast-feeding to eat no more than 12 ounces weekly of any type of fish or shellfish that could be high in mercury, a potent neurotoxin. And because of the harm that mercury contained in fish such as shark, swordfish and tuna poses to the developing nervous systems of fetuses and infants, the greater scientific and medical community has been united in echoing this message.
Scientists and doctors feel strongly about underplaying the threat of mercury and other contaminants, such as PCBs, in seafood. In fact, a group of medical and public health professionals last year publicly protested a series of ads in major publications, paid for by the farmed-salmon industry, that touted the health benefits of farmed salmon for pregnant women and their unborn babies. After a Federal Trade Commission investigation of the ad campaign, the industry group instituted stricter advertising review policies.
But it's hard to stop a powerful, if troubling, marketing strategy once commercial interests take over. The National Fisheries Institute, the main trade association for the fishing industry, paid the travel expenses of the researchers who generated the report for the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition and gave each of them honorariums of $1,000 to $1,500.
In addition, as reported by National Public Radio, the effort to publicize the report was subsidized by a $60,000 grant from the National Fisheries Institute. Further, Bloomberg News reported that the institute is a client of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, and one of the firm's employees serves as vice chairman of the coalition.
Such facts suggest ethical lapses in financing the report; worse, material used in its preparation was flawed. The key study it cited to undermine warnings about mercury-laden fish consumption was an analysis, published this year in the medical journal Lancet, of data gathered in 1992 by the University of Bristol about local children whose mothers ate fish while pregnant. Yet that study's methodology and conclusions were subsequently challenged in the Lancet by experts with New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection and Maine's Department of Health and Human Services.
And finally, the researchers who developed the report for Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies didn't bother to vet its decidedly contentious findings and advice with the coalition's wider membership before public release. Members such as the March of Dimes and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists subsequently said they stood by the earlier FDA and EPA guidelines, essentially disavowing the report and its recommendations.
The misleading report is a classic example of industry-driven marketing under the cloak of scientific research. Fortunately for consumers, however, the FDA and EPA have just repeated their strong stance on the dangers posed by overconsumption of certain fish, which should help derail the effort to promote sales over children's health.
Not all fish are equal in nutritional benefits. And the selective repackaging of science, combined with slick marketing to sell more fish to pregnant women and women of childbearing age, show the height of corporate irresponsibility. This is one fishy marketing scheme that consumers should throw back.
Andrea Kavanagh directs the National Environmental Trust's Pure Salmon Campaign, a global effort aimed at improving salmon aquaculture practices.
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
9 Comments so far
Show AllBBBunnyIII, that's more than a random thought. My high-school-teacher friend tells me that he's worked in several schools and the ones where the kids have poorer diets, especially when they eat junk food for breakfast and lunch, guarantee that they also have higher rates of ADD and short-attention spans. The schools where the kids had better diets, they did better as students. Of course, there were some other factors, but he's convinced that a large part of the problem of "is our children learning" has to do with diet, particularly with poorer schools getting money from snack food and soda manufacturers, and then putting their vending machines all over the hallways.
This is how far we've come; when I was going to school, you couldn't even buy a Coke on campus, and potato chips, snack cakes, and McDonald's hamburgers and fries were out of the question. Today, vendors of junk food practically own the schools.
Unfortunately, flawed scientific reports are regularly released in order to ensure Corporate profits. People believe them all too easily. Ever hear, "Smoking is not really bad for you" or "Global warming isn't really happening?" This creates the appearance that objective scientific method is flawed and leads to a distrust of science in general. This helps to create an obedient unreasoning and apathetic public, who listens to the conservative media and does not question the propaganda because it is just plain common sense.
Economic Inertia
The effects of industry 'lobbying' reminds us that it is ALSO a voluntary inertia on their part. Profits over the commonweal as usual. When food fish are 90% depleted and moreover laced with toxins like mercury ...there were still be those who profits are based on the continued consumption of these last remaining stocks.
What is most sad and scary is that once more people are thrown into confusion by Orwellian corporate spin and left not knowing what is truth. Not even about the wholesomeness of the food they eat.
The truth may be profits but this capitalistic system could have green profits and healthy profits. Profits made by helping rather than hurting aren't bad just because someone gets rich. It's when profits are made by hurting people that it becomes a sin.
Thanks for this article clarifying another episode of raw Orwellian spin brought about by corporate interests. But if people are left to find the truth for themselves when the information they are fed is misleading?
What about the inertia building up in that? Maybe like the lead used in roman pipes and powdered lead used as make up powder etc. we have ingested so many toxins from our daily chemical soup that we are all feeling the subtle deliterious effects as a people (who all eat the same crap and drink the water etc.) as was theorized about them?
Now there's a thought...
Anything with a name like the "National Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition" you just know has to be a big corpo 'astroturf' front group. These insidious liars, who apparently sold themselves for $1,500 bucks, should be required to view photos of kids born without limbs, or born dead, due to poisoning in the womb. Better yet, take the to a hospital and have them see what they've had a hand in perpetuating in the flesh.
This is where health nazism and the "war on obesity" leads.
It's always a sure bet that a Republican administration will have appointees approved by industry and the proverbial "Chamber of Commerce" at FDA, EPA, CDC, Labor, Commerce, Treasury, and everwhere else. There is a cure for this: Not having a Republican president! (Anyone have an idea how this is done?)
Salmon from Canada are, for the most part, farmed and dangerous. How to tell the difference? If the sign says "Atlantic Salmon" or "Scottish Salmon" or colour added. Farmed salmon are not only dangerous for people, they are causing the destruction of wild salmon on both coasts in Canada, as well as in Scotland and Norway.
I wish that Andrea had added that even today Japan has a mercury problem due to contaminated fish. We cannot allow ourselves to forget Minamata disease!
What else is new? You know something reeks besides bad fish when the acting head of consumer protection(an ex-industry shill) advocates further reduction in ability to detect product abuse and protect consumers.
Sell Fish is what conservatives are encouraging us to be.