Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Conference, Rotorua, 16 October 2009
Symposium on commercial sponsorship of psychiatrist education
Nicky Hager
I would like to set the scene for today’s discussion of pharmaceutical company sponsorship by looking at the whole range of tactics used by corporations and industry lobby groups to gain political and commercial advantage. I hope that examples from other spheres will illuminate the issues that you face.
We live in a one-person, one-vote democracy, with remarkably accessible politicians, Select Committees anyone can talk to, freedom of speech and freedom of information laws, yet we can all see that on many issues large companies and business lobbies have far more influence than an ordinary citizen or, in many cases, even all citizens combined. This talk is about how it is that companies achieve this influence.
There are of course exceptions — for example controversial moral issues such as the so-called anti-smacking bill or issues in which individual politicians or citizen lobby groups take a persistent interest — but on most policy and lawmaking the business lobbies have an immense influence over any decisions, large and small, that affect their commercial aims. It is so normal, and also so diffuse, that it is easy not to notice what is going on.
Companies are of course part of our society and contribute in many positive ways. But they also contribute in negative ways — including naturally putting their interests ahead of the public interest — and that it why they put a lot of effort into avoiding restrictions on their activities, finding political allies and trying to marginalise their critics.
If we don’t understand how this all works, we don’t actually understand how our society and political system works.
I study this area of politics. The story of how commercial enterprises have influence within a democratic society is about the cumulative impact of a range of public relations and other tools designed to influence decision makers. These tools include:
* Funding paid “experts” to speak in the media. A classic example of this is the paid voices from the finance sector (bank economists, merchant bank spokespeople etc) who are regularly treated as independent commentators on economic issues in the media but who are paid to promote policies that favour their employers.
* Then there are corporate media campaigns. We think of corporate communications people writing press releases or annual reports, but on many issues there is sophisticated media management to define and shape issues. An example is climate change policy in New Zealand, where there was years of media debate about the Labour Government’s planned carbon tax. Nearly all the news coverage was attacked the carbon tax and, ground down by too much bad publicity and alarming economic impact reports, Labour eventually dropped the plan. Some researchers looked at the case and found that well over 90% of the press was indeed anti-carbon tax but then traced much of it back to a vigorous media campaign being orchestrated from inside a Wellington PR firm. Guess who was (invisibly) funding much of the effort? The coal industry, which of course was concerned about climate change policies.
* Next there are advertising campaigns that allow well-resourced corporations and lobbies to influence the public and Government directly. Examples are (again) the coal industry’s nationwide billboards promoting the need for coal (when climate change worries were heightening) and the Auckland roading lobby. Direct messaging to the public can also be done through newspaper ads and direct mail campaigns.
* Corporate people defend their work by saying they’re just helping their companies to have their say. However another major part of this type of PR campaign is attacking opponents and trying to stop them having a say. An example of this was the Wellington law firm Chen Palmer which, paid by British American Tobacco, persistently targeted public health researchers who were working on smoking issues in a way that intimidated them and distracted them from their work. There are numerous similar stories.
* Meanwhile, these companies cultivate and support favourable researchers by providing helpful funding, travel opportunities and conferences.
* Controversial corporates routinely seek community or professional groups as “third parties” to repeat and give credibility to their messages publicly. When groups can’t be won, fake scientific and community groups have become a favourite tool. These are the suspiciously well-funded groups that spring up to support large developments (Mothers for More Motorways-type groups) or to defend unpopular corporations (such as smokers’ rights groups). Just recently you may have seen news stories where big US private health companies were planting people in town meetings with words to shout against Obama’s public health plans.
* Also, when necessary, well-resources interests can hire lawyers to put pressure on planned or existing government policies by threatening judicial review and other time-consuming legal challenges. This has been seen with again Chen and Palmer and British American Tobacco.
There are sophisticated PR, market research and lobbying companies specialising in all these tactics. Their most preferred approach is to campaign invisibly, like Real Estate Institute on capital gains tax.
Frequently the lobby groups present themselves publicly as independent and/or science-based. In New Zealand we had the Life Sciences Network that became the main pro-genetic engineering lobby while declining to explain where much of its funding came from. It was highly effective at both cultivating allies and attacking its opponents.
Note the name “Life Sciences Network”. When something like genetic engineering becomes controversial or unpopular, the first thing the PR people do is change the language and organisations’ names. Similarly, the former head of Life Sciences Network went on to head the gambling lobby in New Zealand, a group called….. The Charity Gaming Assn. Who could be against charity?
* Getting closer to our subject today, another major tool of influence is election donations. In New Zealand the alcohol industry has been funding parties and gaining influence for the last century; currently it funds nearly all political parties. The tobacco industry funds National and some small parties. The fishing industry is a major donor, as is the gambling industry, banks, pornographers and others. Almost always the donations are not publicised since both sides know it doesn’t look good.
* Then there are corporate gifts…. a kind of low level corruption where politicians and other target people of influence are given free tickets to big sports games, concerts and cultural events — often in the corporate box with free drinks and food — provided by Telecom or the tobacco industry or the alcohol industry etc. When the guests are people who are involved in decisions about telecommunications or tobacco or alcohol the motives are obvious.
Some industries are more aggressive than others – generally the more controversial they are, the more they have to hide or the more negative externalities of their business, the more resources go into these tactics.
All the techniques I’ve mentioned so far are also used by the pharmaceutical industry around the world.
Last but not least in the routine techniques of influence is sponsorship in its many guises. The usual goal is cultivating strategic allies.
First, a story from my profession. A debate arose in the parliamentary Press gallery because alcohol companies were offering free drinks — and lots of them — for all its parties. The principle was crystal clear: their job was to report on and scrutinise all issues including alcohol laws and industry influence in an independent and critical way. Should they be accepting free gifts from this obviously vested interest? I’ll tell you what happened soon.
One motive for sponsorship is to try to improve a damaged reputation. Thus McDonalds native tree planting (when being attacked about rainforest clearance); The Warehouse sponsoring the (ineffectual) Zero Waste Campaign (to cover for being a record breaking producer of packaging and waste), British American Tobacco funding the Keep New Zealand Beautiful campaign.
But the main purpose is to influence specific groups.
* Encouraging favourable research: There are documented examples (in my book Secrets and Lies) of a logging company co-opting helpful ecologists in this way. It was fighting an unpopular cause (logging native forests) with most ecologists and scientists against it, so it used a generous sponsorship budget to favour ones whose work suited it, funding studies that helped it publicly and suppressing results that didn’t help it.
It’s been the same with climate change — selective funding of climate sceptics (in particular by the oil industry) has helped waste 20 years time so far on claims of “disputed science”.
The joint approaches of favouring some researchers and scientists and punishing others has an impact in many areas of science.
Similarly, look at pub “charity” lists which ignore most needs in communities but lavish money on the heavy-drinking male sports.
And see McDonalds, again, using sponsorship for low-cost marketing: paying trivial sums for school road crossing jackets which means McDonalds logos displayed on jackets outside every school morning and afternoon all over the country. And the PR papers I was leaked about an Australian Bank that kept getting bad media publicity about its record profits in New Zealand. The PR company’s proposed solution: sponsoring an award on finance reporting at the Qantas Media Awards.
There are 1000s of other examples. It is all pretty obvious and tawdry.
Lastly, what happened with the parliamentary journalists and the alcohol industry sponsorship? I am pleased to report that the chair, secretary and treasurer of the press gallery — three of the more thoughtful political reporters in the country — all took the principled position: no gifts from organisations they had a responsibility to scrutinise on behalf of the public. They also argued that they were well enough paid to buy their own drinks. They put it to the vote…. and … they lost. Most of the parliamentary journalists voted against them. All three resigned in protest, replaced by the intellectual giants from offices such as Private Radio, who had led the charge for free drinks.
The moral of this story is that the issues of sponsorship and influence you are considering here are happening all over the place all the time. It’s an effective and low-cost method for big companies to develop strategic allies.
To conclude:
Congratulations to RANZCP for addressing this issue. I suggest there are three questions you might consider:
First, why are they giving you the free air tickets, the gifts and the expensive meals? What do they think they’ll get in return?
Second, does it reduce the credibility of your profession with the public to be accepting money and favours from companies with a commercial interest in influencing your prescribing decisions and research ?
Third, do you actually need the money? Some sectors of society are naturally more susceptible to corporate money for the simple reason that they are they are hard up or desperate. Do you really need pharmaceutical industry sponsorship?
Finally, when, as I hope you will, you decide to stop accepting sponsorship, please explain very carefully and publicly why you did it — and in that way offer leadership for all the other types of groups currently compromising themselves in this way.