David Miller, 28 May 2008 

How it Worked

Almost all the scientists quoted in criticism of the study were linked to the industry in one way or another.  In some cases this is easy to discover, but in others the links required further research.

The salmon farming industries in Scotland, British Colombia (Canada) and the US, were at the helm of the spin machine.  The key organisations involved were Scottish Quality Salmon (SQS), Salmon of the Americas (SOTA) and the Society for Positive Aquaculture Awareness (SPAA) based in British Colombia in Canada.  Unbeknownst to the public in the UK and throughout the world, and to many journalists, these organisations formed a nexus of interest and action which effectively minimised the story and eliminated the public issue.  They operated in tandem with PR agencies, governmental and regulatory bodies (such as the Scottish Executive and the Food Standards Agency) and even the British Queen’s property management organisation, the Crown Estate.

The best science money can buy
 
As the story broke the international media carried quotes from a variety of university based scientists, such as Dr Charles Santerre. He commented that he ‘strongly believe[s] that all the data we have today suggests that everyone should be eating more farmed salmon’. He also stated ‘I would calculate 6,000 people getting cancer over their lifetime, that’s an approximation, versus potentially saving the lives of 100,000 individuals every year’.  These and other statements from Santerre were reported in a wide variety of media including The Times (London), The Daily Telegraph (London), Scotland on Sunday (Edinburgh) and the Press and Journal (Aberdeen).³¹   Santerre was also quoted in the Los Angeles Times and on ABC News.³² 

Further scientific testimony came from Stephan Safe, Michael Gallo, and Philip Guzelian. Gallo said that, ‘as a professor of public health, I would never tell anyone to limit their intake of salmon.’ Philip Guzelian was quoted in an SQS media release and referred to as ‘Professor of Medicine and Head, Section of Medical Toxicology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center’.  He criticised the findings of the study saying that the levels of PCBs found in salmon were ‘not known to be of a level harmful to humans.’³³ 

Given their status as academic scientists these sources were likely to be treated as credible by the media and within hours the industry was citing their comments in the press as evidence of scientific dispute.³⁴ But how independent were they?

Santerre was described in the press as Purdue University’s ‘Associate Professor of Foods and Nutrition and an expert in the detection of PCB’s’. There was no reference in these reports to the fact that Santerre was being paid as a consultant by Salmon of the Americas.³⁵ Santerre was taken on on 1 January 2004 specifically to combat the publicity on farmed Salmon. Nor did the press report that Gallo is a regular pro-corporate commentator. In the 1990s he was listed in an ‘expert’ directory circulated to journalists by the Chemical Manufacturer’s Association, the American Crop Protection Association and the American Plastics Council. The directory was issued following the release of Our Stolen Future – a publication that warned of the adverse health effects on humans of chemicals such as PCBs in the environment.³⁶

Stephen Safe and Philip Guzelian also appeared in this directory.  Safe ‘’believes a link between PCBs and cancer is mythical.  In 1997 he dismissed environmental concerns as ‘chemophobia’ fed by ‘paparazzi science’ in an editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine.³⁷ His comments excited controversy when the editorial was published as he neglected to disclose grant receipts of $150,000from the Chemical Manufacturers Association.³⁸ 

Like Santerre, Safe was described in media coverage by his academic title as ‘Professor and Director of the Centre for Environmental and Genetic Medicine, Institute of Bioscience and Technology, Texas’.³⁹  PR Watch has identified Safe as a ‘usual suspect’ regularly appearing as a scientific expert ‘in a variety of anti-environmental, pro-industry forums’.⁴⁰  

The merry-go-round of scientists lending their voice to industry causes continues with Guzelian, previously a paid consultant to Philip Morris (worth $100,000 a year),⁴¹  who has appeared regularly in court as a ‘long term "expert-witness" on behalf of corporations with a history of dioxin and other toxic polluting emissions’.⁴² Guzelian is a member of the advisory council of the Atlantic Legal Foundation (ALF) with a ‘mission’ to ‘advance the rule of law by advocating limited, effective government, free enterprise, individual liberty and sound science’.  ALF aims to ensure that ‘courts apply correct legal and scientific principles in those cases in which scientific and other expert testimony is offered’.⁴³  ALF has received funding from Chevron, DuPont, Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, and Texaco and prominent conservative philanthropic foundations.⁴⁴

Guzelian is also (along with Santerre and Safe) a ‘scientific adviser’ to the American Council on Science and Health, a corporate front group funded by corporations including Nestle, McDonalds, Coca Cola, Monsanto, Exxon Mobil, Pfizer and many others.  ACSH exists to downplay risks associated with the products of its funders.

The Stirling Connection

Back on the other side of the Atlantic, on 16 January 2004 the Scotsman ran the headline: ‘Claims of unsafe fish run contrary to the facts, say scientists’. The authors of the article, Gordon Bell and Douglas Tocher from the University of Stirling’s Institute of Aquaculture,  stated that ‘the research study claiming links between consuming farmed salmon and risks to health through dioxins and related chemicals are, in our opinion, grossly unfair and misrepresentative of a product which is both nutritious and healthy’.  This was because ‘In 2002, we at the Institute of Aquaculture at the University of Stirling undertook a wholly independent study to measure dioxins and PCBs in Scottish farmed salmon’.⁴⁵  

That statement is interesting for three reasons.  First like industry and government bodies, it misrepresented the study in Science by alleging it was about ‘risks to health through dioxins’.  It was not.  Second, it implied that the Stirling study had been intended explicitly to study levels of dioxins (and dioxin like PCBs) – which it had not. Third, the claim that the Stirling study was ‘wholly independent’ merits scrutiny.

To take the latter claim first, the funding for the Stirling study came from a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)-LINK Aquaculture initiative.  NERC is a public research funding body, but ‘Link’ schemes mean that 50 per cent of the funding comes straight from industry. In this case from BioMar Ltd., EWOS Innovation, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Marine Harvest (Scotland) Ltd., Skretting, The Highland Council and Uniq Prepared Foods (Annan) Ltd.  

Marine Harvest and Skretting are subsidiary companies of Nutreco, a global food and animal nutrition company (in 2006 they were swallowed up by Panfish).  Nutreco are major players in the farmed salmon industry, as they point out on their website: ‘A major proportion of salmon and poultry products are put on the market through the company’s own marketing and distribution channels under the company’s own labels’.⁴⁶  Skretting is a salmon feed company operating in Norway, Chile, the UK and Ireland.  Marine Harvest, as previously mentioned, was the world’s largest aquaculture company as well as producer and provider of farmed salmon. EWOS is primarily an aquaculture feeds company as are Uniq Prepared Food and BioMar.   

The study is therefore not independent in the sense that it is part funded by industry.  But what is it that the industry were interested in?  It transpires that the research was part of a range of studies being carried out at Stirling on the substitution of natural fish oil based foods by alternatives such as vegetable oils and other sources.  The reason for this is the dramatic increase in fish farming is putting pressure on natural feedstuffs - making the industry unsustainable, in other words.  

It transpires that the study undertaken in 2002 was not, as Bell and Tocher wrote in their article, ‘to measure dioxins and PCBs in Scottish farmed salmon’⁴⁷ but initially sought to look at the effects on farmed salmon of using vegetable oil feeds.  The end result was entitled ‘Dioxin and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Scottish farmed salmon: effects of replacement of dietary marine fish oil with vegetable oils’⁴⁸ and the report’s content is mainly concerned with dioxin levels.

So, although their research was presented as independent, as investigating organic contaminants and as examining the same contaminants as in the paper in Science, in reality the study was partially corporate funded, was conducted to evaluate the potential use of vegetable oil as fish feed and was focused on a different class of chemicals that the original study. These scientists at best face a serious conflict of interest, and at worst might appear to be acting as spin doctors for the industry which part-funds their work.

The Forces at Work

The use of scientists by industry is not new, and nor was it the only technique used to undermine the paper in Science.  The campaign by the industry was co-ordinated across borders, oceans and time zones. The three main organisations involved were Scottish Quality Salmon, Salmon of the Americas and the Society for the Positive Awareness of Aquaculture in British Colombia.  We will examine each in turn, starting in British Colombia in Canada.

The Society for the Positive Awareness for Aquaculture

The Society for the Positive Awareness for Aquaculture (SPAA) was an important element in a complex web of pro-industry lobbyists and communications actors.  The SPAA presents itself as a ‘grassroots’ initiative.⁴⁹ In fact it is a front group for the salmon farming industry. The SPAA website states its purpose is ‘to challenge the myths and misinformation surrounding the salmon farming industry worldwide’.⁵⁰ 

SPAA staff at the time included Laurie Jensen, and Leanne Brunt, both of whom were current or former aquaculture industry employees. Jensen, President of the SPAA, is also Vice President and Sales Manager for AKVASmart Canada.  AKVASmart is ‘the world’s leading supplier of fish farming and information technology and also competence to the aquaculture industry’,⁵¹  operating in Australia, Canada, Chile, Norway and Scotland. ’.  

Jensen reportedly claims the ‘SPAA is a non-profit society receiving no funding from the industry’⁵² though the SPAA website notes that membership is open to ‘any individual or corporation interested in promoting the positive awareness of aquaculture’⁵³ The online membership form advertises a corporate membership rate of $250 and notes that the benefits of membership include ‘recognition as a corporate sponsor’.⁵⁴   Jensen’s role as a sales manager for AKVA Smart tends to undermine her protestations.  According to one report of an SPAA event:

Ms. Jensen also claims that she is a ‘working environmentalist,’ a phrase lifted years ago from the anti-environmental campaign of the forest industry. …. Apparently the belief is that being a ‘working environmentalist’ is good, as opposed to all other environmentalists who, by inference, are non-workers and therefore bad. I found the working environmentalist phrase from Ms. Jensen to be slightly hypocritical however, based on a letter printed in the Campbell River Mirror back in March, in which she writes: ‘I once considered myself to be an environmentalist. However, I no longer consider myself an environmentalist the way I used to. The current BC-based environmental groups… have mostly turned into eco-terrorist groups and (have) paid protestors against anything that is resource based and economic. They have waged a campaign of misinformation and harassment against the aquaculture industry. They are using the same tactics against aquaculture as they did against logging and mining. I only hope that they don’t have the same level of success. I guess a bully is still a bully no matter what you want to call yourselves. I pray for discernment as I look for the truth. No more will these groups get my support.’⁵⁵

First Dollar
Both Jensen and Leanne Brunt of the SPAA are active in an organisation called First Dollar. The registrant of the SPAA internet domain name (www.farmfreshsalmon.org), Rudy Vandermey, is also a member of First Dollar.⁵⁶   According to its website First Dollar exists:
to challenge misinformation and counter the misinformation and boycotts directed at BC resource industries and families, to educate British Columbians about the connection between resource industries and the service industry they generate, to encourage participation of resource workers and supporters throughout resource based communities, to facilitate networking outside and within all sectors of resource industry and to provide social networking and support’⁵⁷

First Dollar also claims to be a ‘grassroots’ organisation.⁵⁸ Part of its mission is to ‘encourage individuals and companies in resource based communities to educate the public and the media about the importance of resource industries to the entire province’.⁵⁹

In Brunt’s campaigning with First Dollar, she is portrayed as a self sacrificing single mother supporting local industry, whose energy and drive attract media attention most ‘ordinary’ citizens couldn’t.  The Vancouver Sun reported a dispute in the BC area over closure of a local mill in July 2004:  ‘Resource towns fight back against arriviste rock stars’⁶⁰  It noted that performers Neil Young and Randy Bachman played a fundraising concert to support emissions testing from the mill and the assessment of dangers posed to the local environment and community.  According to the Vancouver Sun, unlike the celebrities, ‘Ms. Brunt doesn’t have a publicist – not many single moms working in aquaculture do’.⁶¹   The fact is that Brunt is herself a professional publicist.  In addition to being the founder of First Dollar and founder and Vice President of the SPAA, she is also employed by the PR firm Greenspirit Strategies Ltd and is internal communications manager for Panfish Canada.  Panfish is a Norwegian based multinational and the biggest fish farming company in the world.⁶²  The First Dollar website is registered to Leanne Brunt and the contact email is her Panfish account, suggesting something more than a grassroots initiative.⁶³

Greenspirit Strategies

Brunt is listed as a ‘senior consultant’ at Greenspirit⁶⁴, a ‘communications consulting firm that delivers strategic planning for sustainability issues.’⁶⁵   Greenspirit was set up by Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace who has become a full time campaigner for industry interests. After leaving Greenpeace in the mid 1980s, Moore ventured unsuccessfully into the salmon farming business.  Now he makes a living writing, speaking and campaigning on behalf of the logging, aquaculture, nuclear and GM industries.⁶⁶

The January 2004 crisis saw Greenspirit update an earlier report to criticise the Hites study and attacked the tactics used by environmentalists against the aquaculture industry. This report, ‘Issues in Aquaculture, Farmed Salmon, PCB’s, Activists and the Media: Framed Salmon: Updated to provide commentary on the well-publicized January 9, 2004 Science (Vol.303) study of PCB levels in farmed and wild salmon’,⁶⁷  was commissioned by the SPAA. It stated that:

‘The salmon farming industry is being subjected to a host of allegations related to environmental sustainability and human health and nutrition...it seems clear that these findings form part of the larger effort by activists to damage the reputation of the salmon aquaculture industry by using food-scare tactics that have no basis in scientific fact.⁶⁸  

Patrick Moore’s own introduction claims that activists will continue to run campaigns of misinformation against the farmed salmon industry.  Moore champions trust in what he calls ‘real experts and scientists’.  In his opinion, inferred from the scientific references in the report, it is clear that Patrick Moore’s ‘real’ experts are those who - like him - are paid by industry.

The input from British Columbia was a classic use of the third party technique, the PR ruse of creating and marshalling fake ‘grassroots’ organisations to create the impression of widespread support for industry interests.  Laurie Jensen recounted in an aquaculture industry presentation in July 2005 how her ‘small group of dedicated individuals were able to initiate change and promote the positive awareness and education of Aquaculture in British Columbia.’⁶⁹

Salmon of the Americas fake websites

In January 2004 the main fish farming lobby group in the Americas, Salmon of the Americas, launched several fake web-sites to direct web traffic towards their own website.  Domains such as www.pcbfarmedsalmon.com, www.pcbsalmon.com, and www.pcbsinsalmon.com, were used by SOTA to offer ‘concerned consumers a biased interpretation of fact and fiction about farmed salmon and PCBs.’⁷⁰

All the web domain names had been registered on 26 August 2003 by Steve Bleezarde of a company called Market Action.⁷¹   Market Action is a PR firm headed by Alex Trent, the Executive Director of Salmon of the Americas.  Both organisations are based in offices on Nassau Street (194 and 209) in Princeton, New Jersey. Market Action was hired by Salmon of the Americas in July 2003 just after SOTA was created by amalgamating the North and South American salmon farmers associations.⁷²  The websites were taken down in early 2005 when they had served their purpose.⁷³   The fact that they were registered in August 2003 suggests that the industry was prepared for the eventuality of criticism over four months before the publication of the paper in Science.

For instance, www.pcbsalmon.com ‘instructs readers not to worry too much about the toxins in farmed salmon because "PCBs and similar compounds are so widespread in the environment that they are in the air we breathe, the water we drink and swim in, and the foods we eat.... [T]hey are virtually impossible to avoid"’.⁷⁴   All the websites featured links to the others, as well as to the Salmon of the Americas website, but nowhere did any of the sites indicate that they were run by the industry, a classic deceptive PR technique.

This is the scond part of a three part article. Part three will follow on Spinwatch. The full article can be found in Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy 

NOTES

31.  Lexis-Nexis search on ‘Farmed salmon and Santerre’ from 8th January 2004 to 20th January 2004.
32.  Medical, health and food safety experts advise reading past the headlines in the new news about farmed salmon. Salmon of the Americas, 10 January 2004 http://www.salmonoftheamericas.com/topic_01_04_press.html
33.  ‘Don’t jeopardise health by cutting out salmon respected US scientists direct vehement criticism at flawed salmon study’ SQS news release 9 January 2004,  http://www.scottishsalmon.co.uk/mediacentre/releases/2004/090104.asp
34,  Ibid.
35.  Edwards, R. ibid.
36.  Dowie, M. ‘Gina Kolata What’s Wrong With the New York Times’s Science Reporting?’ The Nation 6 July 1998 http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Gina-Kolata-Dowie6jul98.htm 37.  From an editorial written by Stephen Safe for the New England Journal of Medicine, 337, 1303-4 (1997) Cited in  Frank van Kolfschooten ‘Conflicts of Interest (Financial) and Bias’ Annie Appleseed Project 28 March 2002 http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/conofinfinbi.html
38.  Ibid.
39.  Reynolds, J. ‘Salmon still on the menu for top chefs’ The Scotsman , 10 January 2004. http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1080&id=31592004
40.  Stauber, J. and Rampton, S. ‘The Junkyard Dogs of Science’, PR Watch Vol 5. No. 4. 1998, http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q4/dogs.html
41.  Tobacco documents online, http://tobaccodocuments.org/profiles/guzelian_philip.html
42.  ‘Public Health Expert Testifies to Unacceptable Health Risks from Utah Incinerator’ Chemical weapons working group, 31 July 1996 http://www.cwwg.org/PR_07.31.96TOCDF.html
43. The Atlantic Legal Foundation http://www.atlanticlegal.org
44. Sources for the preceding paragraph: ALF Annual Report, 1994; ALF, "Our Philosophy", 2004 cited in Exxon Secrets Fact sheet on the ALF, http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=16
45.  Bell, G. & Tocher, D.  
46.  Nutreco website http://www.nutreco.com
47.  Bell, G. & Tocher, D. Claims of unsafe fish run contrary to the facts, say scientists The Scotsman, (16 January 2004)
48.  Bell, G. et al.  Dioxin and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Scottish farmed salmon: effects of replacement of dietary marine fish oil with vegetable oils 2004, pre-publication copy of paper supplied by Bell.
49.  Positive Aquaculture Awareness ‘NDP leader’s call for BC farmed salmon boycott flies in the face of new evidence that shows eating salmon can help prevent Alzheimer’s’ News Release, 7 September 2004, http://www.farmfreshsalmon.org/images/PDFS/090704Salmonboycott.pdf
50.  Society for the Positive Awareness of Aquaculture http://www.farmfreshsalmon.org
51.  AKVASmart http://www.akvasmart.com
52.  Asper, C. ‘The Stamp on The Back of my Hand’ Watershed Watch, August 2003  http://web.archive.org/web/20031207151507/http://watershed-watch.org/ww/cottus_asper.html
53.  http://www.farmfreshsalmon.org/D136.cfm?open27=27
54.  http://www.farmfreshsalmon.org/images/PDFS/MembershipFormsversion3.pdf
55.  Asper, C. ‘The Stamp on The Back of my Hand’ Watershed Watch, August 2003  http://web.archive.org/web/20031207151507/http://watershed-watch.org/ww/cottus_asper.html
  56. http://www.samspade.org/t/whois?a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.farmfreshsalmon.org%2F&server=magic;  http://www.firstdollar.ca/view.cfm?page=16
57.  First Dollar http://www.firstdollar.ca/about.cfm
58.   http://www.firstdollar.ca/
59.  http://www.firstdollar.ca/about.cfm
60.  ‘Resource towns fight back against arriviste rock stars’ Vancouver Sun, Saturday, July 24, 2004 http://willcocks.blogspot.com/2004/07/resource-towns-fight-back-against.html
61.  Ibid.
62.  http://www.greenspiritstrategies.com/D80.cfm ; http://www.panfish.no/newsread/news.asp?docid=10115&wce=regions
63.  http://www.samspade.org/t/ipwhois?a=www.firstdollar.ca
64.  http://www.greenspiritstrategies.com/D80.cfm
65.  http://www.greenspiritstrategies.com/D81.cfm
66.  For more details see http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Patrick_Moore
67.  Issues in Aquaculture, Farmed Salmon, PCBs, Activists, and the Media, 15 January 2004 http://www.farmfreshsalmon.org/reports.cfm
68.  Ibid.
69.  Jensen, L. ‘Mobilizing the grass roots: the ripple effect’, Presentation to Aquaculture Canada, 2005, 3-6 July 2005, St John’s Newfoundland, Monday 4th July. http://www.aquacultureassociation.ca/ac05/abstracts/awareness.htm
70.  Johnson, G. Don’t be Fooled: The Ten Worst Greenwashers of 2003, Boston: The Green Life. http://web.archive.org/web/20050204001827/http://www.thegreenlife.org/dontbefooled.html#Salmon
71.  with the exception of www.salmoncolor.com registered on 2 September 2003.  Market Action’s one page website is  http://www.mktact.com/  
72.  As reported by Fishlink, an industry information service, Vol. 8 No. 1, 7 July 2003 http://www.imhooked.com/fishlink/070703.html
73.   To view the content of the sites as they were, see the Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.pcbfarmedsalmon.com ; http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.pcbsalmon.com; http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.pcbsinsalmon.com ; http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.farmedsalmonpcb.com;
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.salmoncolor.com
74.  Johnson, G. Don’t be Fooled: The Ten Worst Greenwashers of 2003, Boston: The Green Life. http://web.archive.org/web/20050204001827/http://www.thegreenlife.org/dontbefooled.html#Salmon