Trust Us, We're Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future

You might call me the "aging hippie mom" wondering when and if my teenaged son would *ever* get passionate about, and see, some important truths of what is happening in the world today. He's a great kid, but frankly he's pushing eighteen and I had given up hope of his ever "seeing the light" if he didn't by now -- the "light" in this sense meaning a lot of the truths that were important to me at his age and that are pressingly important more and more for the world at large. A huge *spark* happened when he read some articles on thedoctorwithin.com, especially an article that cited this book. When he said, "I'd like to get that book," I was happily astounded in his interest and purchased him a copy as soon as I could. He's been reading it now for weeks and several times has commented on how much he appreciates the book, has used facts from the book for arguments in his high school debate class (with great results -- he won the debate "hands down") -- and better yet, he is now "turned on" to learning more. Shoot, because of this book, "Trust Me, We're Experts" my son has also gotten turned on to reading again for the first time in years. Said so himself! When he saw my fresh-off-the-press copy of "Our Toxic World: A Wakeup Call" by Doris J. Rapp., M.D., sitting on the coffeetable -- where before I would have gotten from him a distinterested "Hum," he said, "I'd like to borrow that book sometime!" WOW. It's today's youth that will gain the mantle and have to deal with this world and all the problems of corporate greed/control. I strongly feel that becoming aware of the kinds of things this book delineates is a very, very hopeful sign for our future and the future of this planet. This book is a radical TURN-ON, and for that I give it a big two hands up! (Hey, he's even gaining interest in organic food now!)

...and only half of what you see. That's how an old friend paraphrased some public figure many years ago. And this book makes that statement far less cynical.While "Toxic Sludge is Good for You" by the same authors was a fine book, this is somewhat of an evolution. It's even better.So, let's see, you may have been impressed with the findings of a study that has been in all the major daily newspapers and network news. After all, the findings were applauded by the Association for Warm Cuddly Chemicals, they were endorsed by your favorite authors, and, after all, what would we do without the wonderful products available that were the subject of the study?What the trusty newspapers and networks didn't tell you is that the aforementioned association--the list of such front organizations will boggle your mind--is a front for the manufacturers of the chemicals making up the product they're endorsing, and the "study" written up by professional PR flacks. (I took a writing course six years ago in which the instructor, who claimed to be well-informed, was astonished when I told her the percentage of column inches in the most well-read newspapers in the US have been composed by PR "professionals.")As the structure of a text means a lot to me, this is one I endorse on that ground too. It starts with a history of the public relations industry. Of course, Edward Bernays--an old New Deal liberal, incidentally--was PR's patron saint. The authors dissect the PR process brilliantly. For instance, PR professionals have their consultants to call upon. I was amazed and amused by the process our favorite software manufacturer used to minimize the allegations of monopoly. One of the "consultants" called upon was a former Supreme Court nominee who has vigorously argued against antitrust laws. Once hired by the corporation, though, he issued a 7,000 word tirade against federal prosecutors in favor of the company. Various other politicians, also getting paid by the company, were also enlisted as spokespeople for the company. Shocked, huh? There's a valuable analysis of how industry has taken the route of "risk analysis" rather than a principle of precaution, i.e., go for it because the consequences are likely minimal vs. let's wait until we find the product is safe before we release it. Industry pushes the former, though you think they--and we--would learn what with the number and amount of settlements in law suits against drug manufacturers, for example. In addition to that level of commentary, the text reminds the reader of the perils of things like global warming. These are items industry goes out of its way to deny. After all, were we to face the consequences of our excess consumption, we might buy less! Oh, and there?s lots in the text to be learned about bovine growth hormone and its manufacturer/promoter. You'll learn a lot about things we've been prodded to take for granted. A further complication of our perception is that there is a genre of commentator that a f

Several reviews below prompted me to read this book. This is not so much a book about pseudoexperts and their opinions, as an expose of the public relations industry and its attempts to deliberately deceive us with "junk science." The authors tell us they "have written this book both to expose the PR strategies used to create many of the so-called experts whose faces appear on the TV news shows and scientific panels, and to examine the underlying assumptions that make these manipulations possible" (p. 4). Along the way, this book becomes a meticulously researched "catalogue of disturbing trends and failures to live up to the promise of an informed, democratic society" (pp. 311-312).Using the theories of Sigmund Freud, Edward L. Bernays, "the father of public relations," believed that "people are not merely unconscious, but herdlike in their thinking" (p.43), and that the public is "irrational and pliable" (p. 208). In his elitist view, Bernays believed that the "average citizen is the world's most efficient censor. His own mind is the greatest barrier between him and the facts. His own 'logic-proof compartments,' his own absolutism, are the obstacles which prevent him from seeing in terms of experience and thought rather than in terms of group reaction" (p. 43). Similarly, major corporations and "snake oil salesmen" alike are using "the mantle of science" not only "to market all kinds of potions and remedies" (p. 222), but to sell us tort reform, cigarettes, genetically-modified foods, and to tell us that global warming, well, that just isn't happening. The same PR industry is labeling anyone who disagrees with its tactics "infantile" (p. 209), "neurotic" (p. 210), or a chicken little. In their book, Rampton and Stauber are to be commended for encouraging us to question the PR spin doctors behind the Oz-like curtains, and to think for ourselves.G. Merritt

Having just finished "Trust Us, We're Experts" I was *astounded* to find the two reviews above saying (essentially) that it was bunk because it was anti-corporate and citing "cases" that the reviewers seem to think help their cause (when they actually just suggest that the reviewers are themselves either paid corporate PR drones or lobotomized "consumers" who abhor anyone actually peering behind the veil of monopoly media and showing that it is mainly about keeping the rabble in line).*****The most important thing about Stauber and Rampton's work from the point of view of a critical review is that it is extensively footnoted and sourced ... don't agree with their positions? Fine -- write a book even half as well sourced and you'll be far ahead of most of what passes for popular scientific literature.****Trust Us, We're Experts does, in fact, seem redundant to parts of "Toxic Sludge is Good for You" -- but that's not too surprising given that the same PR consultant/flacks are giving corporations the exact same advice on how to overcome public participation and avoid any real critical scrutiny.****These two books (and their newsletter "PR Watch") are among the most powerful deprogramming tools available today -- anyone interested in media, democracy, citizenship, public policy formation, or the environment should definitely equip themselves with them or, if only one, then "Trust Us!" because it's the most current.

A lot of people know that the mass media spin stories, people, events, and opinions. But few of us can get an inside look at how the PR and opinion industries work with the mass media. How they use science, social science, and pseudo-science to sell toxic products, to ignore their devastating impacts, and to undermine democracy coldly, deliberately, and cynically. This powerhouse of a book is first aid for those of us weary of all that, but still hoping for a sane, reasonable way to respond and arm ourselves with the real truth.In /Trust Us, We're Experts/, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber continue as America's number one watchdogs of the PR industry. This book gives you permission to smell something stinky in the fishy proclamations of media-hyped experts who are wooing our wallets...even when it's packaged as roses, peddled in big showy bunches and enthusiastically delivered to your door using everything from direct mail to the Internet to letters to the editor of your local newspaper to products carefully and expensively placed in your supermarket. And the book leaves the reader with a sense of passion and hope, rather than feeling defeated. What an accomplishment!/Trust Us, We're Experts/ is meticulous in detail, painstaking in its research, unrelenting in its patient disentangling of complicated issues. Yet it's hugely, easily, fabulously readable, the kind of book I kept quoting portions of out loud to anybody within earshot. The kind of book where you howl aloud on public transit, and people lean over and ask what you're reading, and before you know it, a cluster of folks are engaging in a spontaneous citizen-to-citizen democracy-building session. Just the kind of thing the big PR firms fear, because citizens armed with the truth stop listening to spinmeisters paid handsomely to tell them what and when to buy. What I liked best about /Trust Us, We're Experts/: it's immediate and concrete-not a heady bunch of theory. The authors' examples come from today's news-global warming, genetic engineering of food, big tobacco, pharmaceuticals, Microsoft, and more. Never mind what you've heard about conspiracies or subliminal programming-Rampton and Stauber show how the most powerful engineering of consumer awareness operates right under our noses, but cloaked in wiggle words, misinformation, and outright lies. How can we get clear of the tar-pits of opinion, packaged as fact, that "neutral" "third-party" "experts"have flung us into? Read this book, and you will walk away with a tar-pit-rescue toolkit that the La Brea Coast Guard would envy. I give it five stars, though want Rampton and Stauber to know they're not finished yet, and must keep writing for years and decades to come! Thank you, authors, for this book.Michele Gale-Sinex