Fw: Beware: P.R. Implants in News Coverage ~ Re-post

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----- Original Message -----

From: " ilena rose " <ilena@...>

Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 3:58 PM

Subject: Beware: P.R. Implants in News Coverage ~ Re-post

> There's a very widely spread PR piece being reposted now on the Newsgroup

> ... (see links below) written by ph Nocero ... it was one of

> Dow's/BMS's finest works from the mid 90's in attempting to change public

> perception on the silicone litigations.

>

> Here is an excellent article that disucsses the PR coverage for implants

> from 1996.

>

>

> Subject: FAIR article from Jan/Feb 1996 ~ Excellent

> Date: 2000/06/03

> Newsgroups: alt.support.breast-implant

>

>

> ~~~ This is the whole FAIR article (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) from

> early 1996. After getting back in touch with it, I remembered what an

> excellent a job did. She also has a talk show and apparently speaks

> out on this issue on radio, too. It's a great one to pass to journalists

> still under the MediaSmokescreen.

>

> Beware: P.R. Implants in News Coverage

>

> By Flanders

>

> EXTRA! January/February 1996

>

> In 1985, Charlotte Mahlum received silicone breast implants manufactured

by

> Dow Corning. One ruptured, leaking silicone into her breast, body and

skin.

>

> Ten years later, the 46-year-old former coffee-shop waitress wears

diapers.

> She has been diagnosed with incontinence, hand tremors, atrophy in one

foot

> and brain lesions. She can no longer work; her husband has to clean up

after

> her. And on October 28, eight men and women voted unanimously in a Reno

> courtroom that Dow Chemical was at least partly responsible for her

rapidly

> declining health.

>

> For five weeks, the Nevada jurors listened to testimony showing that Dow

> Corning's colleagues at Dow Chemical had hidden what they knew about the

> hazards of liquid silicone. Dow Chemical didn't sell the implants, but

they

> controlled a subsidiary that marketed Dow Corning's worldwide. Dow

Chemical

> didn't test the implants, but they'd tested the fluid inside them. The

> plaintiff's lawyers produced documents showing that Dow Chemical had known

> since the 1950s that the silicone that makes up 85 percent of the liquid

> inside Dow Corning's implants could migrate to the liver, the lung, the

> brain. They knew the gel could affect the immune system and damage the

> nerves--but they didn't tell.

>

> Dow produced medical studies in its defense, but under cross-examination

it

> emerged that some had devastating flaws. Others had been abandoned or

> destroyed. A rheumatologist who recommended " aerobic conditioning " for

> Mahlum admitted receiving three-quarters of a million dollars from implant

> manufacturers during two and half years. He testified as he had in five

> other cases--that breast implants were not making the plaintiff sick.

>

> The jury believed otherwise, and ordered Dow Chemical to pay out $14.2

> million in punitive damages. Mahlum said she hoped her victory would " send

a

> message " to others about corporate responsibility. But the message that

the

> media sent about the trial was very different.

>

> Corporate Woes

>

> When women implanted with silicone began to come forward with their health

> problems, manufacturers like Dow Corning faced a serious legal and

financial

> threat. Although media reporting stressed the corporation's " woes " over

the

> women's (see EXTRA!, 4-5/92), when the FDA declared a moratorium on most

> implants in 1992, the word got out that powerful companies had made

profits

> from products that posed a risk to women's lives.

>

> In the three years since, Dow Corning and the others pumped millions into

> research and public relations--and they've turned all that around.

>

> A massive advertising campaign and media effort promoted several myths.

One

> was that rising numbers of breast implant cases were evidence--not of

> damaging products--but of greedy plaintiffs and their lawyers. " Implant

> Lawsuits Create a Medical Rush to Cash In, " headlined a New York Times

story

> by Kolata (9/18/95). Kolata ignored the fact that, when nervous

> manufacturers agreed to a global settlement with implanted women in 1994,

> they set the shortest registration deadline they could get away

with--hence

> the " rush " of women who wanted to join.

>

> Another notion promoted by reporters was that corporations, not women,

were

> in trouble. Dow Corning, the biggest corporation in the class-action

> implants case, filed for bankruptcy in May 1995--and in no time at all the

> manufacturers enjoyed " most favored victim " status in the press.

>

> " A company has, I think, been driven out of business, " Chavez

> announced somberly on CNN & Company on the day of the filing (5/15/95).

" All

> that's twisted about America's tort system was capsulized in a single

> moment...when Michigan's hugely successful Dow Corning Corp. filed for

> Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, " the Detroit News, Dow Corning's local

> paper, editorialized ( " The Triumph of Greed, " 7/9/95).

>

> On the verge of an effort to bust the paper's own unions, the News

postured

> as the friend of the working family: The editorial featured a Dow Corning

> worker's son " who's taken to asking, 'Dad, are you gonna lose your job?' "

>

> Actually, Dow Corning's profits were soaring. Shortly after the News

> editorial stories appeared, the company's CEO reassured investors

(Chemical

> Week, 7/19/95): " Dow Corning recently completed the best quarter in the

> company's history and the demand for our silicone technology remains

strong

> worldwide.... The Chapter 11 process is specifically designed to allow a

> company to conduct its normal business operations while it resolves its

> financial disputes. "

>

> A Defense Centerpiece

>

> By far the biggest myth sold by the corporations to the media was the

notion

> that scientific studies had disproved suffering women's claims.

>

> In May 1995, Dow Corning took out full-page ads in a dozen national

papers.

> Two years after discontinuing the product but just as several implant

> trials--including the Mahlum trial--were due to start, Dow Corning's ad

> promised: " Here's what some people don't want you to know about breast

> implants. " Studies at " prestigious medical institutions " like Harvard

> Medical School, the Mayo Clinic, the University of Michigan and Emory

> University showed " no link between breast implants and disease. "

>

> What Dow Corning failed to mention was that implant manufacturers had

funded

> several of the studies. In fact, Dow Corning's general counsel testified

in

> the company's bankruptcy case that Dow Corning bankrolled implant research

> solely " to provide the epidemiological data necessary to defend against

> allegations of breast implant plaintiffs. " As the counsel put it, " These

> studies were intended to be a centerpiece of Dow Corning's generic

defense. "

>

> Some studies, like the ones at Emory University and at Michigan, were

> directly funded by Dow Corning. Others, like the Mayo Clinic study, were

> made possible by grants from a foundation whose chair has admitted that it

> acted as a " facilitator " delivering the manufacturers' funds (Legal

> Intelligencer, 10/30/95).

>

> As of 1995, Dow Corning had donated $5 million to $7 million to Brigham

and

> Women's Hospital (Harvard's partner in its research), and three of the

> Harvard study's six authors were either paid by implant manufacturers for

> other research or had agreed to act as experts in litigation on the

> company's behalf.

>

> The manufacturers' influence over the research was not so subtle--Dow

> Corning was given a chance to " review " at least some of Harvard's study

> questionaires before they were mailed to participants. And according to

Dow

> Corning's General Counsel, " Each external scientific study that Dow

Corning

> funded was only after consulting with legal counsel to determine its

impact

> on the breast implant litigation. "

>

> Limited Research

>

> The Harvard and Mayo studies didn't assess whether women with silicone

> implants were healthy. Instead, they looked at groups of women with and

> without implants, and compared the incidence of certain connective tissue

> diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, because connective

> tissue-type symptoms kept cropping up in court.

>

> In her story (6/13/95), Kolata quoted a consumer advocate, Dr. Sydney

> Wolfe of Public Citizen's Health Action Group: " Wolfe says these studies

are

> tainted by the money of their corporate sponsors and are too small in

scope

> to be definitive. " But she didn't tell her readers about the specifics of

> the funding. And she didn't mention that the studies' authors themselves

> shared Wolfe's concerns.

>

> The Mayo and the Harvard study authors write clearly about the limitations

> of their research. The " classic " connective tissue diseases they were

> looking for usually occur in only 2 to 4 people per 100,000. Of the 87,501

> registered nurses studied by Harvard, only 1 percent had silicone breast

> implants. In the Mahlum trial it emerged that only 11 of those had been

sent

> the one set of questions that permitted them to register an array of

> undiagnosed symptoms and signs.

>

> The bally-hooed Mayo results amounted to no more than that, of 749 women

> with breast implants and 1,498 without, a " specified connective tissue

> disease was diagnosed " in five implanted women and ten controls--an

> identical rate. During the research period, Mayo changed their

> " specifications " to include an extremely rare inherited disease that had

> shown up in the control group only. Without those three cases, women with

> implants would have had a 43 percent higher rate of the specified

diseases.

>

> The National Institute of Health finds that it takes seven to fifteen

years

> or more for silicone-related diseases to show up. Since Mayo's subject

> sample had implants for a mean of seven years, at least half of them were

> well within this latency period. Harvard claimed, impossibly, to have

> included women with 40-year-old implants (silicone implants were not

> marketed before 1962) and the statistics were skewed by the inclusion of

> women whose implants had been in place for as little as 30 days.

>

> The researchers at Mayo concluded (New England Journal of Medicine,

> 6/16/94), " We had limited power to detect an increased risk of rare

> connective tissue diseases.... Our results cannot be considered definitive

> proof of the absence of an association between breast implants and

> connective tissue disease. "

>

> " In all epidemiological studies of rheumatic diseases, diagnosis is a

major

> problem, " the Harvard team pointed out (New England Journal of Medicine,

> 6/22/95). " Our study cannot be considered definitively negative, " they

> wrote.

>

> But just as the research had been designed to boost the manufacturers'

case,

> only the results that served their agenda were promoted to the press.

>

> A second, larger study funded by Dow Corning found a 45 percent to 59

> percent increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis, but the research apppears

to

> have been abandoned in the preliminary stage and the results--marked

> " strictly confidential " --emerged only in court.

>

> P.R. Echoes

>

> The science notwithstanding, in the wake of their ad and outreach

campaign,

> a slew of stories echoed Dow Corning's claims. Alongside their " no link "

> claims about the studies, Dow Corning's advertisements said that

" plaintiffs

> attorneys have spawned a whole new industry from suing implant

> manufacturers, " and the development of " lifesaving devices " like " heart

> pacemakers...and hydrocephalus shunts " was being " slowed down " by

lawsuits.

> The corporations also charged that " plaintiffs' attorneys " were funding

> " state and local candidates, including judges. " The ads announced a

> toll-free number for readers to call for corroborating material. Sure

> enough, within weeks, their claims were being reprinted--for free this

> time--by a willing press.

>

> The New York Times' Kolata (6/13/95) penned " A Case Of Justice Or a

> Total Travesty? Researchers Say Bad Science Won the Day in Breast Implant

> Battle, " in which she gave pride of place to sources who charged that " a

> legal juggernaut can take on a life of its own, independent of hard

evidence

> and bring a large and thriving company to its knees. "

>

> Two weeks later, the L.A. Times editorialized (6/28/95): " Tort lawyers

have

> managed to use anecdotal evidence...to persuade juries that there is a

> causative link. " The Times claimed (wrongly) that the Harvard and Brigham

> and Women's Hospital study " monitored " 87,501 nurses. (Neither Harvard's

nor

> Mayo's researchers examined anyone. The research was retrospective, based

on

> questionaires.)

>

> " Judges and juries have often overlooked rational evidence, " claimed the

> L.A. Times editors. Avaricious lawyers, like bees swarming over a honey

> pot, " were threatening to destroy the women's chances for compensation

from

> the manufacturers global fund. The price of " crucial medical devices " was

> being inflated by the lawsuits.

>

> " Lawsuits Feed Implant Hysteria, " headlined the Detroit News over a

> Kolata-citing op-ed by Young (6/27/95): " Every week it seems there's

> more news about studies that find no link between the breast implants and

> any of the ailments. " Young wrote that Harvard " did not get one penny from

> implant manufacturers " --not mentioning the millions that went to Harvard's

> co-sponsoring institution, or the money paid to individual researchers.

>

> Two Texas judges called mistrials in pending implant cases when the ads

> appeared, because they were concerned that Dow Corning's accusations had

> unfairly prejudiced their juries. Some reporters appeared not only to be

> prejudiced by the ads and the materials that accompanied them--but willing

> to quote almost directly from the text.

>

> Dow Corning's package of corroborating documents includes a Manhattan

> Institute " Research Memorandum " in which writer E. Bernstein cites a

> Supreme Court ruling calling on judges to serve as " gatekeepers "

forbidding

> plaintiffs from presenting certain scientific evidence. In breast implant

> cases, " some judges have been loath to exercise their gatekeeper role, "

> concludes Bernstein.

>

> The phrase echoes through the pages of the press. " It is incumbent...on

> judges to take a more active role as gatekeepers, " editorialized the L.A.

> Times (6/28/95). " The presumption of innocence simply doesn't apply to

> corporate America, " wrote the Detroit News (7/9/95): Jurors " tend to act

on

> emotion, " and " many judges remain reluctant to exercise their gatekeeping

> authority. " (7/10/95) Writing about the Mahlum trial in November, the Wall

> Street Journal editorialists concluded (11/8/95): " The judge refused to

act

> as a gatekeeper against pseudo-scientific testimony. "

>

> In The New Republic ( " Tempest in a C-Cup: Are Breast Implants Actually

OK? "

> 9/11/95), New England Journal of Medicine executive editor Marcia Angell

> restoked fears that an embargo on silicone implants posed a " threat to all

> medical devices. " The Journal, which published the Harvard and Mayo

studies,

> is cram-packed with advertisements by medical suppliers (including Dow

> Corning). The litigation surrounding implants, wrote Angell, " will

probably

> affect a wide variety of silicone-containing devices, " such as pacemakers

> and hydrocephalus shunts.

>

> Changed Landscape

>

> " The companies funded science to change the legal landscape, " said

plaintiff

> attorney Geoff White. And it worked, thanks to the press. On one occasion

> when it didn't, the flaks of Dow were outraged. " We are extremely

> disappointed that Redbook decided against all our urging to the contrary

to

> run Spake's article, 'Do Breast Implants Harm Babies?' " the

principal

> of the manufacturer-funded Dilenschneider Group wrote, complaining that

the

> author had gone ahead despite receiving their materials.

>

> " When presented with this same type of evidence and expressions of

concern,

> another news organization, 20/20, elected to abandon its story even though

> it was well into production. You had ample time to do the same. "

>

> For the most part, reporters did prefer the corporation's hand-outs to the

> reality of what was happening in courtrooms, or in the streets. When

> hundreds of women who believe their silicone breast implants made them ill

> gathered in Washington D.C. to call for a consumer boycott of products

made

> by the implant-makers, the New York Times ran a picture of one of the

women

> (9/19/95)--no story--and an 85-paragraph special report (9/18/95) on

> fortune-hunting lawyers who've made millions of dollars egging on

> not-very-sick women to bankrupt thriving companies.

>

> And although Court TV considered Charlotte Mahlum's case in Nevada worthy

of

> live coverage, hardly an article appeared in the national print press

until

> the trial was at an end. Reporters shunned the documents dug up by

Mahlum's

> lawyers, and ignored the testimony that had convinced the jurors. Instead,

> news wire stories focused on the money awarded and its likely impact on

the

> Dow Chemical and future litigation.

>

> Soon, editorials began to condemn the jury, the plaintiff's lawyers, the

> law--even the judge. Anyone but Dow.

>

> Mahlum's lawyers " persuaded the jury to punish Dow Chemical, "

editorialized

> the San Diego Union-Tribune (11/2/95.) The Washington Post bemoaned the

> " Silicone Wars " (11/3/95): Ignoring the medical science, the Post wrote in

> an editorial, the Nevada jury " is reported to have expressed distrust of

> studies and to have relied more on its impressions of who was lying. "

>

> Dow's relationship to Corning was merely " that of a large stockholder, "

> claimed Fortune editor ph Nocera in a widely distributed column ( " What

> Did Dow Chemical Do? " New York Times, 11/1/95). Nocera's lead was jocular:

> " The first thing we do...let's kill all the plaintiff's lawyers. " The

breast

> implant litigation, he argued, " has always been about the ability of

> hundreds of plaintiffs' lawyers, acting in concert, to use the threat of

> never-ending lawsuits to make the companies plead for mercy. "

>

> Nocera appeared on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition (11/4/95),

where

> Simon suggested that Dow Corning might be suffering because of its

> past " reputation. " (Dow Corning is part of the conglomerate that

> manufactured Napalm and Agent Orange, and spent years covering up evidence

> of the latter's effects.) " That's right, " agreed Nocera. " You have this

> automatic assumption that's kind of cultural and it comes out of the '60s

> and the anti-war movement that they do bad things. "

>

> To the editors of the Wall Street Journal (11/8/95), the fact that the

jury

> came to their decision after hearing weeks of evidence was irrelevant. In

> " Junk Science and Judges, " the Journal writers charged that trial judges

> were " aiding and abetting the plaintiffs " to force companies to pay out

> " billions in damages despite a mountain of evidence they didn't do

anything

> wrong. " No Journal reporter attended the trial; Dow Chemical's attorney,

> Terzino, was the only individual quoted, and the plaintiff's

> perspective was never mentioned in the piece.

>

> The editorial went on to imply that plaintiffs' trial lawyers' political

> contributions were keeping " plaintiff-friendly " judges in place. (Nevada's

> state counsel wrote a scathing response, but no letter to the editor has

so

> far appeared in print.)

>

> Milking the Press

>

> Instead of sparking public outrage at evidence of a 30-year corporate

> coverup, media reports on Mahlum's victory used the case to fuel a

political

> drive for tort reform. (SIDEBAR??) Out of startling defeat, Dow Chemical

was

> able to snatch what could amount to an invaluable victory if liability law

> is changed. As Geoffrey White, one of Mahlum's lawyers put it: " The

verdict

> is nothing in comparison to the positive publicity the companies are

> getting. They're milking this for all it's worth. "

>

> And the press is the cow.

>

> " The press have bought hook, line and sinker the notion that there's no

> evidence, " said Wes Wagnon, an attorney whose been prosecuting medical

> product liability cases including implants since 1977. " In fact, every

time

> they go into court there's plenty of evidence. "

>

> By failing to examine the court records, and the evidence it reveals,

> journalists have become captives of corporate P.R. Not only do they accept

> the corporate-funded research as the only " real " science, but also adopt

the

> implant manufacturer's preferred framing of the story: The question for

most

> journalists covering the story is not whether women's health is at risk

> whether a corporation is being treated unfairly. Businesses like Dow

benefit

> from a " presumption of innocence " ; there is no media presumption that a

> product ought to be proven safe before it is put into a woman's body.

>

> Dow Corning is not the first instance of a wealthy company that sought

> refuge from litigation in bankruptcy court; the strategy emerged in the

> 1980s, when s Manville evaded asbestos claims and A.H. Robins escaped

> responsibility for damage caused by the Dalkon Shield intrauterine device.

> And products like the Dalkon Shield, the drug DES and toxic shock-inducing

> tampons show that there is also a history of corporations profiting from

> products that damage women. (It remains to be seen whether the

silicon-based

> Norplant contraceptive will join this list.)

>

> The FDA took silicone implants off the market in 1992 because the

> manufacturers could not establish that they were safe. Now journalists,

> spoon-fed a diet of corporate " junk science, " have rushed to vindicate the

> corporations. In the process, they have convinced perhaps millions of

women

> that the implants have been proven safe. And that's junk journalism.

>

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

--

> [ Jan. '96 | FAIR

>

> Here are the links to the Nocera PR articles being posted:

>

>

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9713e020.0201080539.614f506c%40posting.

goog

> le.com

>

>

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9713e020.0201080541.1261f8dd%40posting.

goog

> le.com

>

>

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9713e020.0201080543.57922787%40posting.

goog

> le.com

>

>

>