How the Media Deceives You About Health Issues

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Think about how many times you've heard an evening news anchor spit out some variation on the phrase, "According to experts ." It's such a common device that most of us hardly hear it anymore. But we do hear the "expert" - the professor or doctor or watchdog group - tell us whom to vote for, what to eat, when to buy stock. And, most of the time, we trust them.

Image: dprogram.net 

Now ask yourself, how many times has that news anchor revealed who those experts are, where they get their funding, and what constitutes their political agenda? If you answered never, you'd be close.

That's the driving complaint behind Trust Us, We're Experts, a new book co-authored by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton of the Center for Media and Democracy.

Unlike many so-called "experts," the Center's agenda is quite overt - to expose the shenanigans of the public relations industry, which pays, influences and even invents a startling number of those experts.

The third book co-authored by Stauber and Rampton, Trust Us hit bookstore shelves in January.

There are two kinds of "experts" in question -- the PR spin doctors behind the scenes and the "independent" experts paraded before the public, scientists who have been hand-selected, cultivated, and paid handsomely to promote the views of corporations involved in controversial actions.

Lively writing on controversial topics such as

dioxin
bovine growth hormone
genetically modified food
makes this a real page-turner, shocking in its portrayal of the real and potential dangers in each of hese technological innovations and of the "media pseudo-environment" created to hide the risks.

By financing and publicizing views that support the goals of corporate sponsors, PR campaigns have, over the course of the century, managed to suppress the dangers of lead poisoning for decades, silence the scientist who discovered that rats fed on genetically modified corn had significant organ abnormalities, squelch television and newspaper stories about the risks of bovine growth hormone, and place enough confusion and doubt in the public's mind about global warming to suppress any mobilization for action.

Rampton and Stauber introduce the movers and shakers of the PR industry, from the "risk communicators" (whose job is to downplay all risks) and "outrage managers" (with their four strategies -- deflect, defer, dismiss, or defeat) to those who specialize in "public policy intelligence" (spying on opponents).

Evidently, these elaborate PR campaigns are created for our own good. According to public relations philosophers, the public reacts emotionally to topics related to health and safety and is incapable of holding rational discourse. Needless to say, Rampton and Stauber find these views rather antidemocratic and intend to pull back the curtain to reveal the real wizard in Oz.

Metro Media: What was the most surprising or disturbing manipulation of public opinion you reveal in your book?

John Stauber: The most disturbing aspect is not a particular example, but rather the fact that the news media regularly fails to investigate so-called "independent experts" associated with industry front groups. They all have friendly-sounding names like "Consumer Alert" and "The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition," but they fail to reveal their corporate funding and their propaganda agenda, which is to smear legitimate heath and community safety concerns as "junk-science fear-mongering."

The news media frequently uses the term "junk science" to smear environmental health advocates. The PR industry has spent more than a decade and many millions of dollars funding and creating industry front groups which wrap them in the flag of "sound science." In reality, their "sound science" is progress as defined by the tobacco industry, the drug industry, the chemical industry, the genetic engineering industry, the petroleum industry and so on.

Metro Media: Is the public becoming more aware of PR tactics and false experts? Or are those tactics and experts becoming more savvy and effective?

Stauber: The truth is that the situation is getting worse, not better. More and more of what we see, hear and read as "news" is actually PR content.

On any given day much or most of what the media transmits or prints as news is provided by the PR industry.

It's off press releases, the result of media campaigns, heavily spun and managed, or in the case of "video news releases" it's fake TV news - stories completely produced and supplied for free by former journalists who've gone over to PR. TV news directors air these VNRs as news. So the media not only fails to identify PR manipulations, it is the guilty party by passing them on as news.

Metro Media: What's the solution for the excesses of the PR industry? Just more media literacy and watchdog organizations like yours? Or should the PR industry be regulated in some way?

Stauber: In our last chapter, "Question Authority," we identify some of the most common propaganda tactics so that individuals and journalists and public interest scientists can do a better job of not being snowed and fooled. But ultimately those who have the most power and money in any society are going to use the most sophisticated propaganda tactics available to keep democracy at bay and the rabble in line.

There are some specific legislative steps that could be taken without stepping on the First Amendment. One is that all nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations - charities and educational groups, for instance - should be required by law to reveal their institutional funders of, say, $500 or more.

That way when a journalist or a citizen hears that a scientific report is from a group like the American Council on Science and Health, a quick trip to the IRS Web site could reveal that this group gets massive infusions of industry money, and that the corporations that fund it benefit from its proclamations that pesticides are safe, genetically engineered food will save the planet, lead contamination isn't really such a big deal, climate change isn't happening, and so on.

The public clearly doesn't understand that most nonprofit groups (not ours, by the way) take industry and government grants, or are even the nonprofit arm of industry.

Source: oawhealth.com

Even the New York Times is Now Rejecting Monsanto GMO Science

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by Jon Rappoport
This isn’t a leak. It isn’t a timid flow. It’s a flood. I’m talking about about the criticism of Monsanto’s so-called science of genetically-engineered food.

Image: Raw For Beauty

For the past 20 years, independent researchers have been attacking Monsanto science in various ways, and finally the NY Times has joined the crowd.

But it’s the way Mark Bittman, lead food columnist for the Times magazine, does it that really crashes the whole GMO delusion. Writing in his April 2 column, “Why Do G.M.O.’s Need Protection?”, Bittman leads with this: “Genetic engineering in agriculture has disappointed many people who once had hopes for it.”

As in: the party’s over, turn out the lights.

Bittman explains: “…genetic engineering, or, more properly, transgenic engineering – in which a gene, usually from another species of plant, bacterium or animal, is inserted into a plant in the hope of positively changing its nature – has been disappointing.”

As if this weren’t enough, Bittman spells it out more specifically: “In the nearly 20 years of applied use of G.E. in agriculture there have been two notable ‘successes,’ along with a few less notable ones. These are crops resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide (Monsanto develops both the seeds and the herbicide to which they’re resistant) and crops that contain their own insecticide. The first have already failed, as so-called superweeds have developed resistance to Roundup, and the second are showing signs of failing, as insects are able to develop resistance to the inserted Bt toxin — originally a bacterial toxin — faster than new crop variations can be generated.”

Bittman goes on to write that superweed resistance was a foregone conclusion; scientists understood, from the earliest days of GMOs, that spraying generations of these weeds with Roundup would give us exactly what we have today: failure of the technology to prevent what it was designed to prevent. The weeds wouldn’t die out. They would retool and thrive.

“The result is that the biggest crisis in monocrop agriculture – something like 90 percent of all soybeans and 70 percent of corn is grown using Roundup Ready seed – lies in glyphosate’s inability to any longer provide total or even predictable control, because around a dozen weed species have developed resistance to it.” Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup.

Just as the weeds developed resistance and immunity to the herbicide, insects that were supposed to be killed by the toxin engineered into Monsanto’s BT crops are also surviving.

Five years ago, it would have been unthinkable that the NY Times would print such a complete rejection of GMO plant technology. Now, it’s “well, everybody knows.”

The Times sees no point in holding back any longer.
Of course, if it were a newspaper with any real courage, it would launch a whole series of front-page pieces on this enormous failure, and the gigantic fraud that lies behind it. Then the Times might actually see its readership improve.

Momentum is something its editors understand well enough. You set your hounds loose on a story, you send them out with a mandate to expose failure, fraud, and crime down to their roots, and you know that, in the ensuing months, formerly reticent researchers and corporate employees and government officials will appear out of the woodwork confessing their insider knowledge.

The story will deepen. It will take on new branches. The revelations will indict the corporation (Monsanto), its government partners, and the scientists who falsified and hid data.

In this case, the FDA and the USDA will come in for major hits. They will backtrack and lie and mis-explain, for a while, and then, like buds in the spring, agency employees will emerge and admit the truth. These agencies were co-conspirators.

And once the story unravels far enough, the human health hazards and destruction wreaked by GMOs will take center stage. All the bland pronouncements about “nobody has gotten sick from GMOs” will evaporate in the wind.

It won’t simply be, “Well, we never tested health dangers adequately,” it’ll be, “We knew there was trouble from the get-go.”

Yes, the Times could make all this happen. But it won’t. There are two basic reasons. First, it considers Big Ag too big to fail. There is now so much acreage in America tied up in GMO crops that to reject the whole show would cause titanic eruptions on many levels.

And second, the Times is part of the very establishment that views the GMO industry as a way of bringing Globalism to fruition for the whole planet.

Sources: Raw For Beauty

Jon Rappoport

Pro-Monsanto Propaganda Being Pushed on Futurama

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If you wanted to reach an audience of smart, hip young people, how would you do it? If you wanted to convince the young, energetic idealists that something was a good idea, how would you target them?

One way to reach such a group would be through a fast-paced funny bit of “light entertainment” geared towards a slightly geeky, intelligent, and witty teen and young adult audience.  A simple animated television program.

Take the show Futurama, for example.

Aired at different points on Fox, the Cartoon Network, and Comedy Central, this show is from the creators of the iconic pop culture hit, The Simpsons.

Often messages that are destined to change our perceptions are subliminal.  Not so with the recent episode, Leela and the Genestalk. (Aired on Aug 7, 2013) Subtlety is NOT really what they’re going for here.

Synopsis: 

After a rare condition causes Leela to grow tentacles, she stumbles upon a secret genetic engineering facility.

In this particular episode, the major character is Leela.  She contracts a horrible genetic condition called “squidification” that causes her to erupt with tentacles all over her body.  There is no cure – her only option is to live with the tentacles or to have repeated surgeries (very expensive ones) that provide temporary freedom from the tentacles, although they will soon grow back.

This could go either way.  It could be a moral tale about the questionable ethics of genetic engineering.  It could be a distinct lesson about how all of these horrible genetic malfunctions keep occurring in humans.  It could be a fable about how GMOs have gone wrong and how our food supply has become irrevocably tainted. It could be a treatise on the illnesses that have been linked to the consumption of GMOs or the horrible environmental costs.

Or it could be one giant advertisement for the biotech industry, portraying them as heroes and the saviors of mankind and planet earth.

Here are a few references – let me know if these sound familiar:

Momsanto :

A” floating genetic-engineering facility. It floats because if it were on the surface its experiments would be illegal.” (source)

Collasus: 

“Because Mom considers ordinary beans tiny and pathetic, Momsanto spliced elephant D.N.A. into their chromosomes for added heft.

Thanks to Leela’s D.N.A. sample, the beanstalks started to have suction cups to keep them from collapsing. This unlocked a cheap, abundant source of nutrition for the world’s starving masses, which should make Mom a much richer woman.” (source)

Earth:

(One world government, military and currency)  Earth’s government is a planet-wide democracy … Although frequently invaded by Alien forces, Earth seems to be a military power to be reckoned with… Zapp Brannigan is responsible for protecting the world from various alien invasions as well as expanding Earth’s territorial claims…. Much like American money, Earthican currency depicts presidents…. (source)

In the episode, Leela and the Genestalk, Leela is very much against genetic modifications and DNA experiments.  She even tries to destroy the facility. In the end, wrapping things up in a warm and fuzzy fable-style ending, she changes her mind when she discovers that her “squidification” can actually be cured by…you guessed it…genetic engineering.  Because Leela’s tentacles and the DNA thereof have helped to modify the giant beanstalks that Mom is creating to “feed the world”, Mom rewards her by curing her squidification.

Well, gee.  Maybe genetic engineering isn’t so bad after all.

It’s pretty clear that the makers of Futurama have sold out and Monsanto was the highest bidder.

Selling out is the compromising of integrity, morality, or principles in exchange for personal gain, such as money. (source)

I wonder what the going rate is to have a subtle brainwashing message inserted into an entire episode of a popular TV show viewed by a couple million people these days? This isn’t the first time Monsanto got airtime on the show.  In the episode called “The Butterjunk Effect”  the butterfly derby contests were held at the “Monsanto Yokel Dome” and Monsanto is the sponsor of the “Goofy Gopher’s Revue” at Luna Park.

Television is a very effective medium to change perceptions because of the very way it works on the human brain.  Melissa Melton of Truthstream Media  wrote:

Type ‘television’ and ‘low vibrational energy’ into a search engine, and it’ll quickly return the fact that watching a lot of TV is like undressing your mind and submerging it into a bath of negative energy. TV effectively numbs the left side of your brain and renders you helpless to your right brain which is incapable of decoding and critically analyzing the information being presented to you. Essentially, you go on ‘auto-pilot’.

Thus, everyone is put into a hypnotic state that author Wes Moore says, “produces highly functional, mobile ‘bio-survival robots.’” There’s a reason he dubbed television an “opiate of the masses“.

TV programs us. We tune in, drop out and stop asking questions.

Some of Krugman’s more interesting conclusions from his 1969 TV brainwave research include:

• “Internal Alpha responses can be stimulated by appropriate external rhythms or frequencies.”
• “The time may come when the mass media may create special programs to help people modify certain attitudes or behavior.”
• “This means that passively learned material has an important ‘advantage’ which some have also associated with so called subliminal perception, extrasensory perception, or hypnotism.”
• “For early education there may be an opportunity to accept the fact that many children fidget in class, and that this interference with their attention is not to be blamed on parents, teachers, or the child. Mild drugging of these children, or training in relaxation through Alpha driving, may be dramatically helpful to their educational achievement.” [Emphasis Added]
• “For public television there may be an opportunity to accept without shame the fact that it has taught violence to an entire generation. The clear store of television violence is not that a new generation is more violent but that the new generation knowsmore violence. The political consequences of this may yet be what some would call ‘good’ (e.g., pacifist).” [Emphasis Added]
• “It is possible that the relaxed and successful character of passive learning can be enhanced by the artificial induction of Alpha rhythm, this with the aid of a flickering light.” [Emphasis Added]

Your brain on TV, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a basic form of mind control. (source)

Melton’s article provides links to an alarming amount of research that has been done for just this purpose – to change the perspective of the audience.  To brainwash you, to control your perceptions and to provide your opinions for you. (Check it out HERE – it’s an absolute must-read!)

Monsanto already deploys social media warriors to attack those who criticize them. They have created a propaganda website to provide “GMO Answers.”  This company that wants to appear so benevolent hired an army of deadly mercenaries and is rumored to have even purchased the security company itself.

With this in mind, is it any surprise that the most vilified company in the world today might use popular entertainment as a tool for targeting young people in the hopes of enhancing their tarnished corporate reputation?

Thank you to Dawn for bringing this episode to my attention!

About the author:

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio.

Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

- See more at: http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/futurama-pimps-out-young-audience-to-monsanto-08142013#sthash.PTzUks1N.dpuf

Monsanto is The Reason Why The Media Can Legally Lie to Us

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Image: Millions against Monsanto Oregon

This is a MUST see video clip that reveals how Monsanto and News Corporations operate to suppress the truth. Monsanto shows it's influence in the media with this case. This set the precedent for "news" media to literally get away with lying to our faces and have no legal repercussions.

Source: Raw For Beauty

They break it down on the legal level on this RT video:

Alternative Medicine Finally Goes Mainstream (VIDEO)

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For many of our readers, the miracles of alternative and natural health are commonly known, but for many that get their information from television only aren't as fortunate. The mainstream media has refused to acknowledge this growing field of study and the wonderful uses of natural and alternative health due to their massive advertising profits generated by Big Pharma ads....until now. Chris Wark, Stage 3 colon cancer survivor who refused chemo tells his story on Ricki Lake.

Chris Wark on Ricki Lake Part 1



Chris Wark on Ricki Lake Part 2