Turf wars
What is astroturfing? The definition depends on one’s trade: if one happens to be a landscape gardener or a football coach, astroturfing is nasty, plasticky artificial grass, as opposed to the genuine variety which smells nice when cut and feels soft underfoot. Astroturf is not approved by The Soil Association and may be chock full of parabens to boot.
If one is in PR, astroturfing is the name given to a fake grassroots movement. Astroturfing can be a powerful lobbying tool, making a company’s message appear to spring from the mouths of concerned citizens. Big Pharma is a fan and the US health insurance lobby have even used astroturfing to defeat plans for healthcare reform. It’s a handy thing, then.
…and if one if a homeopath? What would a homeopath want to do with unnatural substances and the ways of Big Pharma?
Judging by the actions of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, quite a lot: a letter which fell into the hands of Gimpy exposed their plans to recruit fellow travellers to attend a series of public consultations and lobby for the multi-million pound homeopathy industry voice their desire for NHS homeopathy a bit louder than any genuine patients who may turn up to request proper medicine.
The consultations are Local Involvement Networks (LINks), and according to the Department of Health “the role of LINks is to find out what people want, monitor local services and to use their powers to hold them to account.”
The role of LINks is to serve patients. It is not to give industry a new mouthpiece. Likewise, LINks are not the tools of a trade body set up to sustain the market for unproven woo, nor should they be treated as such. If there was a genuine demand for state-subsidised woo there would be no need to create a fake grassroots movement as a genuine one would have sprung up naturally. Organically, if you like… but this is one case where the woo lobby don’t want to keep things organic.
Should we be outraged? This blogger thinks not: by adopting the tactics of Big Pharma, the homeopaths are taking an if-you-can’t-beat-em-join-’em approach, and joining them is precisely what they have done. They have aligned themselves with their allopath brothers and exposed themselves as Just Another Industry, with just another product to peddle.
Best of all, they’ve done a cack-handed job of it. The woo merchants are attempting to run before they can walk, using the same methods as Big Pharma but with none of the skill and subtlety, and – most crucially of all – none of the discretion required. A good Pharma PR firm would have coordinated an attack carefully, aiming well below the radar. They would not have let their missiles fly straight into the hands of Gimpy.
Homeopaths, please don’t give up. This PR lark is harder than it looks, but after a few more amusingly clumsy mistakes you should eventually get the hang of it. If you need any tips you can always email this ex-flack at elisa@biggerpills.com, and you can rest assured that she honestly would never publish your questions or expose you to ridicule on her blog.
er, are you currently unemployed? do you do this teenage hobby at your work place? or are you a teenager? in any case, it sounds like you have a lot of growing up to do.
who, these days, can afford to be as time-wasting and that naive at the same time?
“lobby for the multi-million pound homeopathy industry”
see
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WXX-4FYX2J5-6&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid%20%20=10&md5=8c50eb96477600284dd516664bbb2f1d
I feel the best answer to your questions would be the PR’s mantra: “I am not the story”. I write as someone with experience of working in PR and I use this blog to comment on PR activity, both good and bad. The blog is not about me.
Astroturfing is a morally questionable tactic at the best of times, requiring discretion if it is not to be exposed. The example in this post shows how such a tactic can backfire, and suggests that the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital’s PR team have much to learn.
As for the link to the paper, I note it was published in the journal Homeopathy. As this is a journal seeking for homeopathy to be taken seriously, one could accuse the publisher of publication bias, so I would need to see a paper published in a more respected journal before passing judgement- you would be welcome to link me to a paper from Nature, if you can find one.
I also note that the publisher of Homeopathy happens to be Elsevier, a publisher known to have engaged in morally questionable PR practices before now. These include running the imprint Excerpta Medica- described as “a strategic medical communications agency” on its official site- to publish fake journals promoting clients’ products.
One last bit of PR advice: ad hominem attacks should be avoided as there are better ways to confront critics. If you would like to support homeopaths, whose cause you are clearly passionate about, I would recommend that you volunteer to help them with their PR activity. They clearly need all the help they can get.
Dear Pill,
I am not a PR person, nor would I ever wish to be. I am not supporting just Homeopathy, I am supporting common sense, where it appears absent, only to be replaced by hysteria and received opinion. “Ad Hominem attacks”, as you call them, are sometimes a necessary way to make people sit up, as you did.
The article being published by Homeopathy does not make the study void, only your bias does that in your head. Not the magazine is the story, it is the study published through it (your mantra, I believe).
I am sure those scientists would be happy to publish it through you, but than you would not qualify, nor be interested in doing this, because, well, why?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier
Respected Elsevier publishes a whole lot more than just so called ‘fakes’ (the Australian Merck case?) and Homeopathy, you can find the long list here:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journal_browse.cws_home
Cherry-picking aspects of Elsevier perhaps?
Why did you write this piece?
Where did you get your facts from? Gimpy? You know s/he is a publisher, who could be accused of publication bias, something you apparently do not approve of.
Did you read the letter? Where does it say it was written by a PR team?
I think you find there is no PR team, as resources go into treatment at the Hospital. I might be wrong, but I have not come across one.
Would you be interested to volunteer?
I believe The League of Friends of RLHH have written this letter, which is not the same
as the RLHH. Look it up.
And what exactly is wrong with “empowering local citizens” (As Gimpy complaints)? Whatever ‘local citizens’ are. Did you not know that the RLHH has been part of the NHS ever since the NHS started to exist? You do not have to go there, but why do you feel the need to prevent those, who do wish to go there and are being helped?
I would recommend against ad hominem attacks as they generally backfire and make the accuser look bad. Note that I posted a polite response to your comments and avoided making any personal remarks about you. Ad hominem attacks are never necessary: I am not interested in your age or employment status, just in what you have to say on the subjects you are passionate about. Note that I was happy to publish your comments, and that I even fixed a broken link in your first post so readers could access the homeopathy study and judge for themselves.
The Wikipedia article you posted lists many other controversies Elsevier have been involved in- this goes beyond homeopathy.
I wrote this piece because I feel strongly about the use of astroturfing, to push any agenda- note that I mentioned examples from pharmaceutical companies above, and I am certainly not biased in their favour.
You seem familiar with Gimpy’s blog, and if you read my comments on the related article there you will see that I have no problem with empowering citizens: if enough of them want access to NHS homeopathy, they will attend LINks consultations of their own accord and the outcome will indicate a genuine high demand. What I do have a problem with is interest groups- any interest groups- mounting campaigns to skew the outcome in their favour.
Homeopathy itself is not the issue here.