Difference between revisions of "Fallon Currie Consulting"

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{{Template:Lobbying_Portal_badge}}
 
{{Template:Lobbying_Portal_badge}}
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[[Fallon Currie Consulting]] is a PR/lobbying firm.  
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[[Fallon Currie Consulting]] calls itself "an international marketing consultancy with offices in London and Switzerland".<ref>[http://www.fallon-currie.com/about.htm About], Fallon Currie Consulting website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref> It has set up websites, presented as information services for the public, which give positive messages about the controversial food additives aspartame and MSG (see below).
  
 
==Reassuring the public about the safety of aspartame==
 
==Reassuring the public about the safety of aspartame==
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In 2000 it set up a website, [[Aspartame Information]] (http://www.aspartame-info.com), to give information to the public about the controversial artificial sweetener [[aspartame]].<ref>[http://www.who.is/whois/aspartame-info.com/ REGISTRY WHOIS FOR ASPARTAME-INFO.COM], WhoIs?, accessed 23 March 2010. Screengrab [http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Image:Aspartamewhois.jpg here]</ref>
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In 2000 Fallon Currie set up a website, [[Aspartame Information]] (http://www.aspartame-info.com), to give information to the public about the controversial artificial sweetener [[Aspartame|aspartame]].<ref>[http://www.who.is/whois/aspartame-info.com/ REGISTRY WHOIS FOR ASPARTAME-INFO.COM], WhoIs?, accessed 23 March 2010. Screengrab (taken 23 Mar 2010) [http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Image:Aspartamewhois.jpg here]</ref>
  
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In 2009 [[Ailbhe Fallon]], managing director of Fallon-Currie, who described herself as a spokesperson for Aspartame Information, told FoodNavigator.com that a reassurance about the safety of aspartame from the [[EFSA]] "came as no surprise".<ref>Sarah Hills, [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/EFSA-finds-no-reason-to-alter-aspartame-ADI EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI], FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref> EFSA's assurance came in response to a study by the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the European Ramazzini Foundation (ERF) published in June 2007 by Soffritti et al. The study's authors concluded that their results confirmed and reinforced their first experimental demonstration of aspartame’s multipotential carcinogenicity at a dose level close to the human ADI (acceptable daily intake). They also suggested that carcinogenic effects are increased when lifespan exposure to aspartame begins during foetal life.<ref>Soffritti, Morando, et al., [http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1289/ehp.10271 Life-Span Exposure to Low Doses of Aspartame Beginning during Prenatal Life Increases Cancer Effects in Rats], Environ Health Perspect (2007). 115:1293-1297. doi:10.1289/ehp.10271</ref><ref>Sarah Hills, [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/EFSA-finds-no-reason-to-alter-aspartame-ADI EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI], FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>  
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In 2009 [[Ailbhe Fallon]], managing director of Fallon-Currie, who described herself as a spokesperson for Aspartame Information, told FoodNavigator.com that a reassurance about the safety of aspartame from the [[EFSA]] "came as no surprise".<ref>Sarah Hills, [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/EFSA-finds-no-reason-to-alter-aspartame-ADI EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI], FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref> EFSA's assurance came in response to a study by the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the European Ramazzini Foundation (ERF) published in June 2007 by Soffritti et al. The study's authors concluded that their results confirmed and reinforced their first experimental demonstration of aspartame’s carcinogenicity at a dose level close to the human ADI (acceptable daily intake). They also suggested that carcinogenic effects are increased when lifespan exposure to aspartame begins during foetal life.<ref>Soffritti, Morando, et al., [http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1289/ehp.10271 Life-Span Exposure to Low Doses of Aspartame Beginning during Prenatal Life Increases Cancer Effects in Rats], Environ Health Perspect (2007). 115:1293-1297. doi:10.1289/ehp.10271</ref><ref>Sarah Hills, [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/EFSA-finds-no-reason-to-alter-aspartame-ADI EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI], FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>  
  
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In a statement to Foodnavigator.com, an EFSA spokesman said:  
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The EFSA concluded that the findings did not provide sufficient evidence to call into question their classification of aspartame as safe for human consumption.<ref>Sarah Hills, [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/EFSA-finds-no-reason-to-alter-aspartame-ADI EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI], FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref> In a statement defending aspartame to Foodnavigator.com, an EFSA spokesman said:  
 
:Most of the lymphomas and leukaemias reported in the study appear to have developed in rats showing signs of chronic respiratory disease rather than being caused by their treatment with aspartame.
 
:Most of the lymphomas and leukaemias reported in the study appear to have developed in rats showing signs of chronic respiratory disease rather than being caused by their treatment with aspartame.
  
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:Moreover the increased incidence of mammary tumours in female rats reported in the study was not found in the previous ERF study, in which much higher doses of aspartame were tested.<ref>Sarah Hills, [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/EFSA-finds-no-reason-to-alter-aspartame-ADI EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI], FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
 
:Moreover the increased incidence of mammary tumours in female rats reported in the study was not found in the previous ERF study, in which much higher doses of aspartame were tested.<ref>Sarah Hills, [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/EFSA-finds-no-reason-to-alter-aspartame-ADI EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI], FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
  
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===History===
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==Reassuring the public about the safety of MSG==
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In 2000 Fallon Currie set up a website, the [[International Glutamate Information Service]]<ref>[http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Image:Glutamate.orgwhois.jpg International Glutamate Information Service WhoIs?], WhoIs? accessed and screengrab taken 23 Mar 2010</ref> (http://www.glutamate.org/) to provide the public with information on the controversial food flavouring ingredient, [[Monosodium Glutamate|monosodium glutamate]] (MSG).
  
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===Activities===
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The website states:
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:Our goal is to provide you with accurate and up-to-date information about glutamate (MSG). There is information about the discovery and taste of glutamate, the role it plays in our food and our bodies and its nutritional benefits.<ref>[http://www.glutamate.org/ Latest science], International Glutamate Information Service website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
  
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==Views==
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The message is positive and reassuring about the safety of MSG, with featured articles (as of 23 March 2010) such as "Scientific review shows no link between MSG and development of allergic reactions or asthma" and "Savoury taste can help lower blood pressure".<ref>[http://www.glutamate.org/ Latest science], International Glutamate Information Service website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
  
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==Affiliations==
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The scientific review claiming to show no link between MSG and allergic reactions or asthma contradicts a 1995 report from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), an independent body of scientists, which found that people with severe, poorly controlled asthma may suffer temporary worsening of asthmatic symptoms after consuming MSG.<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20080223134823/http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/msg.html FDA and Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)], FDA Backgrounder August 31, 1995, version placed in web archive Feb 23 2008, accessed in web archive 23 Mar 2010</ref> 
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And the positive study mentioned by the International Glutamate Information Service as giving rise to the headline about blood pressure is on glutamic acid, a naturally occurring ingredient in vegetables as well as MSG, not on MSG itself.<ref>[http://www.glutamate.org/ Latest Science], International Glutamate Information Service website, accessed 23 March 2010</ref>
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==Sponsoring debate on reporting of medical stories==
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Fallon Consulting sponsored a [[Guild of Health Writers]] debate in 2005 called "Standards in Medical Journalism Are Putting the Public's Health at Risk".<ref>[http://www.healthwriters.com/sponsors/past.php Past sponsors], Guild of Health Writers website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref><ref>[http://www.healthwriters.com/events/review.php?id=92 Guild of Health Writers Debate Wednesday, 16 February 2005 6.30pm], Guild of Health Writers website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref> According to the Guild's website, featured speaker [[Niall Dickson]] "criticised the ‘cartoonism of science’ which not only scared people - but in the case of the controversy over [[MMR]] also had the potential to kill people".<ref>[http://www.healthwriters.com/events/review.php?id=92 Guild of Health Writers Debate Wednesday, 16 February 2005 6.30pm], Guild of Health Writers website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref> The Guild's website does not mention if Dickson had anything to say about reported mortalities from the MMR vaccine itself.<ref>[http://www.whale.to/a/mmr449.html Families win lawsuit over MMR vaccine], The Japan Times, March 14, 2003, accessed 3 Mar 2010</ref>
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And the Guild's website page on the debate quotes [[Raymond Tallis]], Professor of Geriatric Medicine at Manchester University, as follows: "'There’s sufficient garbage being produced to undermine the work of good journalists,' he said. Medicine, he said, was reduced to breakthroughs and scandals, and in the case of the crisis over BSE, he said there was ‘a juvenile preference for conspiracy theory over data’."<ref>[http://www.healthwriters.com/events/review.php?id=92 Guild of Health Writers Debate Wednesday, 16 February 2005 6.30pm], Guild of Health Writers website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref> It is unclear as to which aspect of the BSE crisis Tallis believes is a "conspiracy theory". There is no mention of the false reassurances of safety from government and the food industry - and the culture of secrecy that meant the public were not kept informed - at the heart of the BSE crisis.<ref>[http://www.cfoi.org.uk/pdf/bsesecrecy.pdf BSE and Secrecy: Implications for the Freedom of Information Bill], Campaign for Freedom of Information, November 10, 2000, accessed 24 Mar 2010</ref>
  
 
==People==
 
==People==
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*[[Ailbhe Fallon]], managing director<ref>Sarah Hills, [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/EFSA-finds-no-reason-to-alter-aspartame-ADI EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI], FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
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*[[Emma Eggleton]] Account Executive at Fallon Currie Consulting, October 2001 — April 2004 (2 years 7 months) <ref>LinkedIn [http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/emma-eggleton/17/7A6/576 Emma Eggleton], accessed 24 March 2010 </ref>
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*[[Ailbhe Fallon]], managing director (as at 23 Mar 2010)<ref>Sarah Hills, [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/EFSA-finds-no-reason-to-alter-aspartame-ADI EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI], FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
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*[[Jamila Jones]] - former marketing executive at Fallon Currie Consulting<ref>[http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Image:Jamilajoneslinkedin.jpg Jamila Jones], LinkedIn, screengrab taken 23 Mar 2010</ref>
 +
 
 
==Funding==
 
==Funding==
  
 
==Clients==
 
==Clients==
  
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==Publications, Contact, Resources and Notes==
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*[[LycoRed]], a company specialising in "nutrient fortifications"<ref>[http://www.lycored.com/web/content/newsExpansion.asp?NewsID=107 LycoRed in Europe - Creating innovative nutrition], Oct-27-2005, LycoRed website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
  
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===Publications===
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==Affiliations==
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*[[Associate Parliamentary Food and Health Forum]], member in 2009.<ref>Associate Parliamentary Food and Health Forum [http://www.fhf.org.uk/members Members], Accessed 24 march 2010</ref>
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==Contact==
  
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===Contact===
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:Address (UK): Fallon Currie Consulting, 29 Bressenden Place, London SW1E 5DD<ref>[http://www.fallon-currie.com/about.htm About], Fallon Currie Consulting website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
  
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:Address:
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:Phone (UK): + 44 20 7630 6070<ref>[http://www.fallon-currie.com/about.htm About], Fallon Currie Consulting website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
  
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:Phone:
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:Email:
  
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:Email:
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:Address (Switzerland):Fallon Currie Consulting, Postfach 96, 6318 Walchwil, Switzerland<ref>[http://www.fallon-currie.com/about.htm About], Fallon Currie Consulting website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
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:Phone (Switzerland): + 41 41 758 0362<ref>[http://www.fallon-currie.com/about.htm About], Fallon Currie Consulting website, accessed 23 Mar 2010</ref>
  
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:Website:
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:Website: Unusually, the firm's website is password protected and not open to the general public. http://www.fallon-currie.com/
  
 
===Resources===
 
===Resources===
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[[Category:Lobbying]]
 
[[Category:Lobbying]]
 
[[Category: Food Industry lobby groups]]
 
[[Category: Food Industry lobby groups]]
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[[Category: Food lobbyists and PR consultants]]
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[[Category: Food lobbyists and PR consultants]][[Category:Public relations firms]]

Latest revision as of 13:18, 24 March 2010

Twenty-pound-notes.jpg This article is part of the Lobbying Portal, a sunlight project from Spinwatch.

Fallon Currie Consulting calls itself "an international marketing consultancy with offices in London and Switzerland".[1] It has set up websites, presented as information services for the public, which give positive messages about the controversial food additives aspartame and MSG (see below).

Reassuring the public about the safety of aspartame

In 2000 Fallon Currie set up a website, Aspartame Information (http://www.aspartame-info.com), to give information to the public about the controversial artificial sweetener aspartame.[2]

In 2009 Ailbhe Fallon, managing director of Fallon-Currie, who described herself as a spokesperson for Aspartame Information, told FoodNavigator.com that a reassurance about the safety of aspartame from the EFSA "came as no surprise".[3] EFSA's assurance came in response to a study by the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the European Ramazzini Foundation (ERF) published in June 2007 by Soffritti et al. The study's authors concluded that their results confirmed and reinforced their first experimental demonstration of aspartame’s carcinogenicity at a dose level close to the human ADI (acceptable daily intake). They also suggested that carcinogenic effects are increased when lifespan exposure to aspartame begins during foetal life.[4][5]

The EFSA concluded that the findings did not provide sufficient evidence to call into question their classification of aspartame as safe for human consumption.[6] In a statement defending aspartame to Foodnavigator.com, an EFSA spokesman said:

Most of the lymphomas and leukaemias reported in the study appear to have developed in rats showing signs of chronic respiratory disease rather than being caused by their treatment with aspartame.
The increased incidence of mammary tumours is not considered indicative of a carcinogenic potential since the incidence of mammary tumours in female rats is rather high and varies considerably between carcinogenicity studies.
Moreover the increased incidence of mammary tumours in female rats reported in the study was not found in the previous ERF study, in which much higher doses of aspartame were tested.[7]

Reassuring the public about the safety of MSG

In 2000 Fallon Currie set up a website, the International Glutamate Information Service[8] (http://www.glutamate.org/) to provide the public with information on the controversial food flavouring ingredient, monosodium glutamate (MSG).

The website states:

Our goal is to provide you with accurate and up-to-date information about glutamate (MSG). There is information about the discovery and taste of glutamate, the role it plays in our food and our bodies and its nutritional benefits.[9]

The message is positive and reassuring about the safety of MSG, with featured articles (as of 23 March 2010) such as "Scientific review shows no link between MSG and development of allergic reactions or asthma" and "Savoury taste can help lower blood pressure".[10]

The scientific review claiming to show no link between MSG and allergic reactions or asthma contradicts a 1995 report from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), an independent body of scientists, which found that people with severe, poorly controlled asthma may suffer temporary worsening of asthmatic symptoms after consuming MSG.[11]

And the positive study mentioned by the International Glutamate Information Service as giving rise to the headline about blood pressure is on glutamic acid, a naturally occurring ingredient in vegetables as well as MSG, not on MSG itself.[12]

Sponsoring debate on reporting of medical stories

Fallon Consulting sponsored a Guild of Health Writers debate in 2005 called "Standards in Medical Journalism Are Putting the Public's Health at Risk".[13][14] According to the Guild's website, featured speaker Niall Dickson "criticised the ‘cartoonism of science’ which not only scared people - but in the case of the controversy over MMR also had the potential to kill people".[15] The Guild's website does not mention if Dickson had anything to say about reported mortalities from the MMR vaccine itself.[16]

And the Guild's website page on the debate quotes Raymond Tallis, Professor of Geriatric Medicine at Manchester University, as follows: "'There’s sufficient garbage being produced to undermine the work of good journalists,' he said. Medicine, he said, was reduced to breakthroughs and scandals, and in the case of the crisis over BSE, he said there was ‘a juvenile preference for conspiracy theory over data’."[17] It is unclear as to which aspect of the BSE crisis Tallis believes is a "conspiracy theory". There is no mention of the false reassurances of safety from government and the food industry - and the culture of secrecy that meant the public were not kept informed - at the heart of the BSE crisis.[18]

People

Funding

Clients

  • LycoRed, a company specialising in "nutrient fortifications"[22]

Affiliations

Contact

Address (UK): Fallon Currie Consulting, 29 Bressenden Place, London SW1E 5DD[24]
Phone (UK): + 44 20 7630 6070[25]
Email:
Address (Switzerland):Fallon Currie Consulting, Postfach 96, 6318 Walchwil, Switzerland[26]
Phone (Switzerland): + 41 41 758 0362[27]
Website: Unusually, the firm's website is password protected and not open to the general public. http://www.fallon-currie.com/

Resources

Notes

  1. ↑ About, Fallon Currie Consulting website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  2. ↑ REGISTRY WHOIS FOR ASPARTAME-INFO.COM, WhoIs?, accessed 23 March 2010. Screengrab (taken 23 Mar 2010) here
  3. ↑ Sarah Hills, EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI, FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  4. ↑ Soffritti, Morando, et al., Life-Span Exposure to Low Doses of Aspartame Beginning during Prenatal Life Increases Cancer Effects in Rats, Environ Health Perspect (2007). 115:1293-1297. doi:10.1289/ehp.10271
  5. ↑ Sarah Hills, EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI, FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  6. ↑ Sarah Hills, EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI, FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  7. ↑ Sarah Hills, EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI, FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  8. ↑ International Glutamate Information Service WhoIs?, WhoIs? accessed and screengrab taken 23 Mar 2010
  9. ↑ Latest science, International Glutamate Information Service website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  10. ↑ Latest science, International Glutamate Information Service website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  11. ↑ FDA and Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), FDA Backgrounder August 31, 1995, version placed in web archive Feb 23 2008, accessed in web archive 23 Mar 2010
  12. ↑ Latest Science, International Glutamate Information Service website, accessed 23 March 2010
  13. ↑ Past sponsors, Guild of Health Writers website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  14. ↑ Guild of Health Writers Debate Wednesday, 16 February 2005 6.30pm, Guild of Health Writers website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  15. ↑ Guild of Health Writers Debate Wednesday, 16 February 2005 6.30pm, Guild of Health Writers website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  16. ↑ Families win lawsuit over MMR vaccine, The Japan Times, March 14, 2003, accessed 3 Mar 2010
  17. ↑ Guild of Health Writers Debate Wednesday, 16 February 2005 6.30pm, Guild of Health Writers website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  18. ↑ BSE and Secrecy: Implications for the Freedom of Information Bill, Campaign for Freedom of Information, November 10, 2000, accessed 24 Mar 2010
  19. ↑ LinkedIn Emma Eggleton, accessed 24 March 2010
  20. ↑ Sarah Hills, EFSA finds no reason to alter aspartame ADI, FoodNavigator.com, 22-Apr-2009, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  21. ↑ Jamila Jones, LinkedIn, screengrab taken 23 Mar 2010
  22. ↑ LycoRed in Europe - Creating innovative nutrition, Oct-27-2005, LycoRed website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  23. ↑ Associate Parliamentary Food and Health Forum Members, Accessed 24 march 2010
  24. ↑ About, Fallon Currie Consulting website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  25. ↑ About, Fallon Currie Consulting website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  26. ↑ About, Fallon Currie Consulting website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
  27. ↑ About, Fallon Currie Consulting website, accessed 23 Mar 2010
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