$50 Million (1st Year
Cost) Biotech Ad Campaign
Attempts to Shape
U.S. Attitudes Toward Modified Crops
Scott Kilman / Wall Street Journal 4apr00
The crop-biotechnology industry, wounded by a backlash in Europe, is launching an advertising campaign aimed at preventing the same thing from happening in the U.S.
The world's seven biggest life-sciences companies, including DuPont Co., Monsanto Co. and Dow Chemical Co., are contributing $50 million for the first year of the campaign, which is called "good ideas are growing."
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Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), is the primary biotech trade association representing more than 900 biotech organizations. BIO's
new director Until recently he was a scientist with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), working on a crucial study of how regulators would oversee the hundreds of new organisms industry is frantically creating. He abruptly left NAS, with little warning, for the position at BIO, in what BIO bills as “A key role in representing the agbiotech industry on domestic policy and international trade issues.” BIO is the primary biotech trade association representing more than 900 biotech organizations. NAS officials were informed only a few days before Phillips’ departure, and would not have let him work on the project had they known. It was a breach of their conflict of interest rules. Biotechnology thrives despite many similar stories. |
The campaign, which is slated to run at least three years, includes print and television advertisements as well as a Web site, www.whybiotech.com .
The campaign's first ad began running yesterday on network television. The spot, called "Promise," is 60 seconds of soft-focus pictures illustrating what the industry calls the benefits of biotechnology: higher crop productivity, less reliance by farmers on synthetic pesticides, and healthier food.
The spot was created by advertising firm BSMG Worldwide, a unit of True North Communications Inc., of Chicago.
Most Americans have yet to rank genetically modified food as a top issue, which gives biotechnology executives time to shape public attitudes. But the level of concern in the U.S. is growing.
The majority of food in the typical supermarket now contains ingredients from genetically modified corn, soybeans, potatoes and tomatoes. A Gallup Organization poll of 1,039 adults released in October found 68% want labels disclosing genetically modified ingredients, even if it means a higher price for food. Two bills have been introduced into Congress to require GM labels, and the Food and Drug Administration held hearings on the idea late last year.
Antibiotech activists, who worry that genetic engineering might have unintended effects on the environment, were quick to poke fun of the industry campaign. "The biotechnology industry just isn't aware that the more people hear about biotechnology, the more concerned people get," said Charles Margulis, a representative of the European environmental group Greenpeace.
It took about a year of internal debate for the biotechnology industry to work up the courage to launch the campaign. The last big public-awareness effort on behalf of biotechnology was mounted by Monsanto in 1998 in Europe, where it backfired in spectacular fashion.
Monsanto decided to promote biotechnology to the European public because a soybean plant it had genetically modified was flooding into the region's supermarkets. Europe depends on American soybeans for protein, and many U.S. farmers had switched to Monsanto's new seeds.
But European consumers figured that Monsanto couldn't be trusted to tell the truth about the safety of genetic engineering since the company had the most to benefit from its public acceptance. The company's efforts ended up feeding resentment about the growing power of American companies in overseas markets.
The European Union banned the import of some types of genetically modified crops and required that food companies put labels on products that contain genetically modified ingredients.
The move is forcing many U.S. food companies to remove genetically modified ingredients from products bound for Europe, which is prompting U.S. farmers to reduce their planting of biotech seed.
The biotechnology industry figures it will have a better chance getting its message accepted in America, in part because surveys suggest that the public here is more accepting of technological change.
The European life-sciences companies backing the advertising campaign in the U.S. include:
Monsanto is the agricultural unit of Pharmacia Corp., Peapack, N.J.
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