(from AltHealthNews.com)
This section memorializes the Father of Spin, Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud. Learn more at the Museum of Public Relations, or for a darker view, at Doors of Perception. Or read about him at Wikipedia.
Bernays, who made bacon a fashionable breakfast food on behalf of pig farmers, who championed women's rights to smoke in public (while being paid by Lucky Strikes), and who made radios a highbrow item (for Philco) said, "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society."
Bernays's job was to reframe an issue; to create a desired image that would put a particular product or concept in a desirable light. Bernays described the public as a "herd that needed to be led." And this herdlike thinking makes people "susceptible to leadership."
Bernays never deviated from his fundamental axiom to "control the masses without their knowing it." The best PR happens with the people unaware that they are being manipulated.
Bernays pioneered the use of third-party "unbiased" organizations to champion or denegrate a position, depending on who was paying him. He created hundreds of "foundations" and "agencies" to support his positions -- all of which were funded by the big corporations he was shilling for.
You can see his hand in the stories presented here. Note the use of an "expert" from a "unbiased" (and usually unknown) agency in all of them, and in most of them, the use of a emotionally-charged denigrating phrase, like "scientific poppycock" or "junk science" when an alternative (not controlled by the big corporations) product or therapy is discussed.
It is in his dubious honor this section is presented.
• "Soy needs more study," says Agency for Healthcare Research Quality
• "Cellulite therapies have no health benefit, do not help you lose weight," says unnamed spokeswoman for the Medical Research Council
• "Americans getting fatter," says Trust for America's Health; Dr. Campbell of the UK's National Obesity Forum concurs
• Trust for America's Health says "540,000 Americans will die in bird flu pandemic"
It was right about here I had to prove to myself and to you that Bernays' vision is still going strong. The Trust for American Health, the group that keeps issuing all these statements about health that the press reports as news, is funded by a number of major foundations, including the Joyce Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Palmer Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The latter, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is the "foundation" arm of the Johnson & Johnson Co. -- you know, the guys that sell a zillion dollars worth of medical supplies to hospitals, and another zillion dollars of Band-Aids to consumers.
In an interesting turn of events, the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) came out today against the Trust's report last week saying American's were getting fatter. The CDC says it may be true, but that the Trust's numbers are misleading and statistically invalid -- in effect, meaningless.
