Science Media Centre

This article is part of the Foodspin project of Spinwatch.

The Science Media Centre (SMC), based in London, UK calls itself "an independent venture working to promote the voices, stories and views of the scientific community to the national news media when science is in the headlines."

The SMC was originally housed within the Royal Institution (RI). According to the Trustees' Report for the Charity Commission, year ended 31 March 2012, "The SMC was originally set up in April 2002 as a division of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RIGB)... and its financial structure was that of a restricted fund maintained by the RIGB. The RIGB acted as a very successful 'midwife', seeing the SMC grow from two to seven employees, and its funding, via donations, increase from approximately £200,000 to £460,000, in less than nine years."

Susan Greenfield, the RI's former director, described herself as the "midwife" of the initiative, while the support of the former UK science minister, Lord David Sainsbury, has been noted in articles about the SMC.

In 2011 the SMC became independent of the RI and set itself up as a charity and company limited by guarantee.

The UK SMC has spawned a number of sister SMCs in other countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Japan.

People

Staff

Fiona Fox, who was appointed founding Director, is said to be in overall charge of running the Centre and setting its strategic direction together with the SMC's Board. Fox's background, which includes undisclosed links to the Living Marxism network (which eulogises technologies like human cloning and genetic engineering), is mainly in media relations. In 2012 Fox was described on the SMC website as chief executive of the SMC.

Trustees-Directors 2012 -

Trustees

The SMC was registered as a charity on 18 March 2011 and as a company in the same month. As a result a group of six trustees (of the charity) and directors (of the company) were appointed.

The chair (financial year ending 31 March 2012) was Peter Cotgreave. Cotgreave is also Director, Fellowship and Scientific Affairs, of the Royal Society.

These were:

• Dr Peter Cotgreave (chair) - also Director, Fellowship and Scientific Affairs at the Royal Society
• Mr Tom Miller (also Director of Communications, Imperial College London)
• Mr Philip Greenish (also Chief Executive, Royal Academy of Engineering)
• Mr Alexander Denoon (lawyer with a BSc in human genetics who from 1998-2001 was general counsel and company secretary of Biotech Australia)
• Dr Helen Munn
• Mr P L M Davies (treasurer). Marshall Davies is "a retired Director of Boots, an ex-President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and a director or member of a number of pharmaceutical associations and funds." He is a member of the Council of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which in turn calls itself "an independent, non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS)" of the UK government.

Directors

According to the SMC company appointments report from Companies House, obtained 23 November 2012, the directors are:

• Dr Peter Cotgreave | Marshall Davies | Alexander Denoon | Philip Greenish | Tom Miller | Dr Helen Munn

Board 2002-2012 / Advisory Committee 2012 -

In 2002 the SMC appointed aboard to run the organisation along with a 'scientific advisory board'. In 2012 when it became a Charity/Company a new smaller 'board' of Trustees/Directors was constituted, the scientific advisory panel discontinued and a new advisory group constituted including significant numbers of the previous 'board'.

Board (2002-2012)/Advisory Committee (2012 - )
Name of Board Member	Stated occupation	From	To
Melvyn Bragg	Broadcaster, Peer and Controller of Arts at LWT	2002	2002
Kenny Campbell	Editor, Metro	2004	current
Philip Campbell	Editor-in-Chief, Nature	2003	current
Clive Cookson	Science Editor, Financial Times	2002	current
David Cope	Director of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology	2002	2003
Peter Cotgreave	Director of Public Affairs, Royal Society	2002	2011
Carolan Davidge	Director of Press & PR, Cancer Research UK	2005	current
Marshall Davies	Ex-President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society	2012	2012
Alex Denoon	Partner, Lawford Davies Denoon	2012	2012
Paul Drayson	Entrepreneur and ex-Science Minister	2005 2012	2006 current
Louise Dunn	Vice President Communications, GlaxoSmithKline	2012	current
Mike Granatt	Partner, Luther Pendragon and former Director General of Goverment Information and Communication Service	2004	2011
Philip Greenish	Chief Executive, Royal Academy of Engineering	2009	2012
Tristram Hunt	Historian, TV presenter and former advisor to Lord David Sainsbury	2002	2005
Robin Lovell-Badge	Head of Developmental Genetics, MRC National Institute for Medical Research	2007	current
Paul Martin	Science writer and former Director of Communications at Cabinet Office	2002	2003
Tom Miller	Director of Communications, Imperial College London and STEMPRA committee member	2002	2012
Rebecca Morelle	Science and Nature reporter, BBC News Online	2007	current
Helen Munn	Executive Director, the Academy of Medical Sciences	2012	2012
Vivienne Parry	Writer, broadcaster and tabloid journalist	2002	2012
Simon Pearson	Night Editor, The Times	2004	current
Trevor Phillips	Deputy Chair, Greater London Authority	2002	2004
Paul Routledge	Chief political correspondent on the Daily Mirror and former news editor on Observer	2002	2003
Simon Singh	Science writer and broadcaster	2002	current
Andrew Stone	House of Lords	2002	2003
Ceri Thomas	Editor, Today, BBC Radio 4	2009	2012
Adrian Van Klaveren	Deputy Director, BBC News	2002	2008
Bob Ward	Policy and Communications Director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science	2007	current
Alan Winter	Head of Operations - Royal Institution	2002	2008

Scientific Advisory Panel 2002-2012

From 2002-2012 the SMC had a 'Scientific advisory panel'. It was abolished when the SMC was separated organisationally from the Royal Institution. In registering as a company and a charity the SMC appointed a number of Trustees/Directors, which replaced its Board and then created a new Advisory Board which was made up of a number of figures from its previous board but none from its Scientific advisory panel. The panel was notable for the concentration of Oxbridge and the two London colleges. Of the sixteen member there were five from Oxford, and University College London, two from Imperial college and one from Cambridge.

The Science advisors served from 2002 to 2012 with the exception of Richard Sykes who joined in 2003. They were as follows:

• George Alberti Department of Diabetes and Metabolism, University of Newcastle
• Peter Atkins Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford
• Mike Brady Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford
• Richard Catlow Director of the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory and Department of Chemistry, University College, London
• Susan Greenfield Director of The Royal Institution of Great Britain and of Pharmacology, University of Oxford
• Julian Hunt Department of Space and Climate Physics, University College, London
• Brian Johnson Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
• Steve Jones Department of Biology, University College, London
• David King Chief Scientific Advisor to H. M. Government; Head of the Office of Science and Technology
• John Krebs Food Standards Agency and Department of Zoology, University of Oxford
• Chris Leaver Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford
• Chris Llewellyn-Smith Former Provost and President of University College, London, and former Director General of CERN
• Bill McGuire Benfield Hazard Research Centre, University College, London
• Richard Sykes Rector of Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London
• Simon Wessely Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London
• Robert Winston Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, and Hammersmith Hospital NHS Trust

Corporate donations

Despite its close links with the RI, the SMC describes itself as 'an independent venture'. Prior to its launch, Greenfield said she hoped to get money for the project 'from the trade unions' (Financial Times, Jan 30, 2001), but that never materialised and most of the SMC's funding is via corporate donations. Funders with biotech interests include AstraZeneca, DuPont, Monsanto, Pfizer, PowderJect, and Syngenta.

Controversy and criticism

Within a matter of months of its launch the SMC was already embroiled in controversy over its activities. On the issue of genetically modified (GM) foods, it stood accused of operating 'a sort of Mandelsonian rapid rebuttal unit', and of employing 'some of the clumsiest spin techniques of New Labour'.

These claims arose out of allegations of a 'secret campaign to discredit' a BBC drama relating to GM crops. The connections of the director of the SMC to the Living Marxism network, and the SMC's funding, have also attracted critical comment. The SMC provides a link from its home page to the Progress Educational Trust as a "source of information about assisted conception and genetics", a body which has made Fiona Fox an adviser and has other links to the LM network through current and former staff.

Dr David Miller of the Stirling Media Research Institute is amongst the SMC's critics. He is quoted in an article in The Guardian as saying:

The Science Media Centre (SMC) is... not as independent as it appears. It was set up to provide accurate, independent scientific information for the media but its views are largely in line with government scientific policy. The SMC made much of its charitable status, yet its charity number is the same as that for the Royal Institution (RI); in other words, it is almost synonymous with the RI. Similarly, its independence was supposed to be guaranteed by the fact that no more than 5% of its funding comes from any one source; yet 70% of its funding comes from business, which could be said to have similar interests. The SMC has since had the ac.uk removed from its email address after complaints that only academic institutions that were not corporately funded were entitled to this were upheld.

In a critique of the SMC in Nature journal, the science policy journalist Colin Macilwain said the SMC "offers the media a clearing house for scientific briefings and packaged quotes from scientists" and commented on plans to set up a Science Media Centre in the US:

The London SMC's narrow approach to risk assessment — if you want to hear about the risks of nuclear power, say, just ask your local nuclear engineer (see Nature 471, 549; 2011) — sits happily with the prevalent ethos of British journalism. This was, of course, immortalized by the otherwise-obscure poet Humbert Wolfe: “You cannot hope / to bribe or twist, / thank God! the / British journalist. / But, seeing what / the man will do / unbribed, there's / no occasion to.”

Macilwain goes on to question whether the SMC is even needed in the UK, given that

the British press — led by the BBC, which treats the Confederation of British Industry with the deference the Vatican gets in Rome — is overwhelmingly conservative and pro-business in its outlook. It is quite unperturbed by the fact that SMC sponsors include AstraZeneca, BP, Coca-Cola, L'Oreal, Monsanto, Syngenta (as well as Nature Publishing Group) but not a single environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) or trade union.

Genetic modification

The SMC describes itself as 'working to promote the voices, stories and views of the scientific community to the news media when science is in the headlines' (emphasis added). It also says it's in the business of 'pro-actively promoting a spectrum of scientific opinion ' (emphasis added).

This language is derived from a Consultation Report on its role, published by the SMC in March 2002 and said to have been the result of wide consultation with leading scientists, science communicators and the media. The topic of GM comes up repeatedly - almost 20 times in a report which in full only runs to around 30 pages including appendices.

Revealingly, the report notes that 'the majority of people consulted - including many of those who helped establish the initiative... reminded the SMC team several times that the impetus for the initiative came from people who are concerned about improving the image of science and renewing public trust in it. They also pointed out that the impetus for the Centre emerged from a strong consensus that media coverage of such issues as GM and BSE had been "bad for science".'

In a Financial Times article published a full 15 months earlier, the emphasis is similar, the role being planned for the Centre would be to help 'sceptical and impatient journalists' get their stories right on controversial issues such as 'animal research, cloning and genetically modified food'

In an article co-authored by Greenfield in The Independent, we are also given a clear account of the motivation behind the Centre:

The reduction of a complex branch of biological engineering to "Frankenstein food" was typical of media hopelessly ill equipped to discuss scientific progress rationally. And into the vacuum stepped big business. What inflicted the greatest damage on GM science was that the case for the defence was fronted by the bio-tech groups Monsanto and AstraZeneca.

If this suggests the SMC's role is to replace the biotech industry as the champions of GM, then the SMC's Consultation Report contains a more reassuring quote from Greenfield:

The SMC is unashamedly pro-science but it is also independent of any particular agenda. That means the SMC will provide access to the wide spectrum of scientific opinion on any one issue. We can provide an anti-GM scientist and a pro-GM scientist...

This chimes in precisely with the SMC's promotion of itself as being 'free of any particular agenda within science' and and as striving 'to promote a breadth of scientific opinion - especially where there are clear divisions within science' (emphasis added).

Yet the SMC has never provided the views of anything remotely resembling an anti-GM or even a GM-sceptical scientist in any of its press releases on GM stories, which are typically made up of a list of quotes from what appear to be a range of scientists - but which are all supportive of GM. By contrast it has been happy to host the press launch of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC) - the public relations campaign for GM foods set up by the biotechnology industry. Similarly, it regularly included comments from Stephen Smith, when he was the head of the ABC and of the biotech company Syngenta Seeds UK, along with those of other 'scientists' in its GM-related press releases. The comments it includes in these are invariably supportive of GM or are critical of research raising questions about GM, and some of the comments come from scientists with significant but undeclared conflicts of interest. For example, in more than one of its press releases those who are part of industry-funded lobby groups, like the scientists who work with CropGen, are presented as simply a 'Reader in Ecology' or a 'Visiting Professor of Biology' without any mention of their lobby-group affiliations. By contrast, in the SMC's Consultation Report the SMC not only does not hesitate to identify one of these scientists as 'Professor Vivian Moses, Chair of CropGen', but only identifies him as such.

Greenfield, when the director of the Royal Institution, was on the Advisory Board of the mostly industry-funded Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC). Together with the SIRC, Greenfield, on behalf of the RI, co-convened a Forum which laid down guidelines for the media - guidelines which had largely originated with the Royal Society - and which called for the establishment of a secret directory of 'expert contacts' with whom journalists should check out their science stories prior to publication.

The Science Media Centre was to be a new body 'less encumbered by past perceptions' - almost certainly an admission that the Royal Society's reputation had been damaged by allegations of its operating a media rebuttal unit in relation to the issue of GM foods. Sense About Science appears to have been set up for similar reasons. Like the Science Media Centre, the director of Sense About Science was also drawn from the Living Marxism network. Interestingly, in the SMC's Consultation Report the Chairman of Sense About Science, Lord Dick Taverne, was among those who 'argued that the SMC should try to identify spokespeople who could display the same levels of passion and conviction as the campaigning NGOs.'

Human genetics and reproductive technologies

In 2006 the UK Government published a paper detailing proposals for revision of the law on assisted reproduction and embryo research, including proposing the setup of a new body, the Regulatory Authority for Tissue and Embryos (RATE), which would replace existing regulatory bodies (the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, and the Human Tissue Authority).

The Science Media Centre coordinated a response from selected scientists to the proposed revisions of the law on assisted reproduction and embryo research. The responses show a trend of criticising plans to restrict human reproductive technologies. For example, Dr Allan Pacey, British Fertility Society (BFS) Secretary, said, "There is a sense that the Government has been quite conservative and has missed an opportunity to be more radical and forward thinking. As we now work to a very high standards of clinical governance, there’s a good case for regulations being less strict than they were when the laws were first drafted."

Lord Robert Winston, Emeritus Professor Of Fertility Studies at Imperial College London (Hammersmith Hospital), said, "It is highly disappointing that the thinking in the Department of Health is so impoverished that they could not see the need to reduce the regulation of routine IVF, which is no longer an experimental procedure and should not be subject to additional regulation." In fact there are serious and well-recognised dangers attached to IVF treatment.

Dr Stephen Minger, Director of the Stem Cell Biology Laboratory, Kings College London, objected to the ban on non-human (animal) egg cells for human cloning: “Whilst I am happy to see that the Review continues to support the use of donated embryos for stem cell derivation, I am very disappointed that the Government’s position is to ban the use of non-human oocytes [immature egg cells] for the derivation of cloned human embryonic stem cell lines."

James Lawford Davies, a solicitor specialising in reproductive and genetic technology at Bevan Brittan LLP in London who subsequently became a partner in the London-based law firm Lawford Davies Denoon, disagreed with the Dept of Health's suggestion of a ban on the creation of human-animal hybrids for research purposes: "The proposals do little to move forward from the status quo. The HFEA has indicated it could licence the creation of hybrids for research purposes under the existing law, and the Science and Technology Committee said that the law should only be amended to explicitly allow such research. In contrast, the government is suggesting this should be banned – presumably to avoid headlines."

In 2007 the government decided not to go ahead with RATE after all.

Are the SMC experts representing the popular or informed view? Not according to the NGO Human Genetics Alert, which says, "Although food crops, bacteria and animals have been genetically engineered for the last 20 years, there has been a worldwide consensus, embodied in legislation in over 60 countries, that we should not attempt to do the same with human beings. This is because crossing this line would lead inevitably to a future of ‘designer babies’ and a new consumer-driven eugenics."

Human Genetics Alert says the UK is the weak link in the otherwise fairly unified stand against human genetic engineering by governments in Europe: "In Europe, nearly all countries except Britain have signed the Council of Europe Convention on Biomedicine and Human Rights, which prohibits the alteration of the human germ line by any methods. It is extremely unusual for governments around the world to create outright bans on specific scientific techniques, and this underlines the seriousness of the reasons against allowing genetic modification. Any decision to cross this line is a matter for the whole of global society, and it is inconceivable that the UK should be allowed to make this decision on behalf of the rest of humanity."

Funding

The centre states that it is "independent from any single scientific body. To preserve our independence, funding has been sought from a wide variety of sources, none of which have contributed more than 5% of the total running costs (£250,000 per year). Media groups, industry, professional associations and individuals are all taking part in funding the Science Media Centre. "

August 2012

Funders up to August 2012 were:

• Abbott Laboratories | Airwave Solutions | Alcohol Research UK | Alzheimer’s Research UK | Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry | Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) including Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard & Metro | Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) | AstraZeneca | BASF | Bayer Plc | Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) | Boeing | BP International Ltd | Bristol University | British Heart Foundation | British Pharmacological Society | British Psychological Society (BPS) | Cancer Research UK | Cardiff University | Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers | Chemical Industries Association (CIA) | Chilled Food Association (CFA) | Coca-Cola | Colgate-Palmolive Company | CropLife International | Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) | Diamond Light Source | The Drayson Foundation | Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) | EDF Energy | Elsevier BV | EnergySolutions | Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) | European College of Neuropsychopharmacology | Food and Drink Federation | Food Standards Agency (FSA) | The Gatsby Charitable Foundation | GE Healthcare | GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) | Human Tissue Authority (HTA) | Imperial College London | Independent Climate Change Email Review | Institute of Food Science & Technology (IFST) | Institute of Mental Health | Institute of Physics (IOP) | Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine | Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) | Institution of Civil Engineers | Institution of Engineering and Technology (The IET) | Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) | International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) | John Wiley & Sons Inc | King’s College London | L’Oreal UK | Life Technologies | Medical Research Council (MRC) | Mental Health Foundation | Mental Health Research Network | Mental Health Research Network Cymru | Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) Limited | The Met Office | Mobile Manufacturers Forum | Mobile Operators Association (MOA) | Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association | National Grid | National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) | Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) | Nature | New Scientist | Novartis | Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) | Oxitec | Proctor & Gamble | PR Works | The Physiological Society | Queen Mary, University of London | Research Councils UK (RCUK) | Rolls-Royce | Royal Academy of Engineering | Royal College of Pathologists | Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) | Royal Pharmaceutical Society | The Royal Society | Sanofi Aventis | Sanofi Pasteur MSD | SAGE | Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) | Scottish Mental Health Research Network | Siemens Plc | Smith & Nephew | Society for Applied Microbiology (SfAM) | Society for General Microbiology (SGM) | Society for Radiological Protection | Society of Biology | South London and Maudsley NHS Trust Charitable Funds | Springer science+business media | Syngenta | Technology Strategy Board | UCL Institute of Health Equity | UK Cleaning Products Industry Association (UKPCI) | Unilever UK | University College London |University of Bristol | University of Cambridge | University of East Anglia | Wellcome Trust

March 2012

An update of November 2011 added the Mobile Manufacturers Forum to the list of SMC funders.

2010

As of 2010:

Funders include GM firms AstraZeneca, Monsanto UK, Novartis UK, and Syngenta; and nuclear body, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

2007

As of Feb 2007:

• Abbott Laboratories
• AAAS and the magazine Science
• ARM Holdings Plc
• Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) including Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard & Metro
• Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC)
• Association for Science Education (ASE)
• AstraZeneca
• BASF Plc
• Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
• Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• British Computer Society (BCS)
• British Embassy in Washington
• British Geological Survey (BGS)
• British Neuroscience Association (BNA)
• British Psychological Society (BPS)
• BP Plc
• Cadbury Schweppes
• Cancer Resarch UK
• Coalition for Medical Progress (CMP)
• Chemical Industries Association (CIA)
• Chilled Food Association (CFA)
• Chiron Vaccines
• Colgate-Palmolive Company
• Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the European Union (CIAA)
• Copus
• Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC)
• Daily Express
• Department for Trade and Industry (Office of Science and Innovation)
• The Dow Chemical Company
• The Drayson Foundation
• Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC)
• Elsevier
• Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
• Engineering and Technology Board (ETB)*
• Environment Agency
• European Science Foundation (ESF)
• Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF)
• ExxonMobil
• GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
• Human Tissue Authority (HTA)
• Imperial College London
• Institute of Food Science & Technology (IFST)
• Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST)
• Institute of Physics
• Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE)
• Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE)
• Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE)
• Kraft Foods Inc
• Medical Research Council (MRC)
• Merck Sharp & Dohme Limited (MSD)
• The Met Office
• Mobile Operators Association (MOA)
• National Physical Laboratory (NPL)
• Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
• Nature Magazine and Macmillan Publishing Group
• News International Limited
• Nirex
• Particle Physics & Astronomy Research Council (PPARC)
• Pfizer Limited
• The Physiological Society
• Research Councils UK (RCUK)
• RDS
• Rothamsted Research
• Royal Academy of Engineering
• Royal Astronomical Society (RAS)
• The Royal College of Pathologists
• The Royal Society
• The Royal Society of Medicine
• Sanofi Pasteur MSD
• Shell Chemicals Limited
• Siemens Plc
• Smith & Nephew Plc
• Society for Applied Microbiology (SfAM)
• Society for General Microbiology (SGM)
• Syngenta
• Tate & Lyle Plc
• Trinity Mirror Plc
• UCB Group
• UK Cleaning Products Industry Association (UKCPI)
• Unilever
• University of Teesside
• Vodafone Group
• Wellcome Trust
• Wyeth

Previous funders (prior to Feb 2007):

• Allied Domecq
• Beeson Gregory
• BBC Worldwide
• British Energy Plc
• British Land Plc
• British Transplantation Society Council
• Conoco (UK) Ltd
• Conoco-Phillips
• Co-operative Group (CWS) Limited
• Dixons Group Plc
• The Drayson Foundation
• DuPont (UK) Ltd
• Eli Lilly & Company
• JH Ritblat Charitable Trust
• Lever Faberge
• Merlin Biosciences
• Northern Foods
• The Posen Foundation
• PowderJect
• QinetiQ
• Rathbones
• Regenesys
• Royal College of Physicians
• Science Council
• Simon Best
• Tesco Limited

March 2002

Sponsors of the SMC listed in a SMC Consultation Report of March 2002 are:

Beeson Gregory | BP-Amoco | British Energy | The British Land Company | Conoco | Co-op | Dupont | EPSRC | Merlin Biosciences | Pfizer | The Posen Foundation | PowderJect | Royal College of Physicians | The Science Council | Smith & Nephew | The Society for General Microbiology | Tate & Lyle | Tesco | Trinity Mirror PLC | Dr David Moore | Dr Geoff Andrews

Communicating risk to the public

The SMC published a leaflet, "Communicating Risk in a Soundbite", in circa 2002. It calls the leaflet:

a guide for scientists, doctors and engineers preparing for a broadcast interview, and is the result of a meeting between top scientists and journalists in July 2002. They assessed the best ways to explain risks via the broadcast media, and suggested a whole host of examples. It is not meant to be a definitive 'best practice' guide - we simply want to offer a choice of effective ways of answering questions about safety and risk.

Note that the guide is intended for use in situations where risks are perceived to be much higher than they actually are. It is not intended to help cover up significant risks or threats to public health.

Members of the public who read the advice given in the guide may well find it alarming as it actually seems to be about minimising risk in the eyes of the media and thence the public. Examples of possible questions and ideal answers include the following:

Q Is it risky?

A ‘Not very. The benefits outweigh the risks.’ The interviewer then has little choice but to ask you about the benefits.

A ‘It is a very small risk. So small that I believe it is safe.’

A ‘To most people, safe doesn’t mean ‘no risk’, it means ‘negligible risk’ – so I believe that this is safe.’

A ‘Whether or not something is safe will always be a matter of weighing up the risks and the benefits – no-one has ever proved that something is safe.’

A ‘Nothing is completely risk free – but we can assess all the evidence and decide that something is safe enough.’

Q Will investment make it safer?

A ‘If we plough money into reducing these tiny risks, then for every one person it benefits 1000’s of others may suffer because the money has had to be diverted from somewhere else.’

The guide appears anti-scientific in its advice to avoid admitting a lack of knowledge about risks:

Don’t say, ‘These risks are unquantifiable’ or ‘unknown’.

Try, ‘It’s difficult to say, because ...’, or, ‘At the moment it’s not absolutely clear, but we’re trying to find out by doing X, Y and Z.’

Participants in the meeting that gave rise to the guide include people who have developed a reputation for reassuring the public about risky, controversial, or unpopular technologies such as MMR vaccinations and genetically modified food. They include:

• Prof Sir Colin Berry
• Pallab Ghosh
• Dr Evan Harris

Articles about the SMC

• Kate Benson, Reporting on Evidence Requires More Than Spin, Reporting on Health member blog, The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships, February 19, 2013.
• Curtis Brainard and Ron Winslow Science media centers & the press, part 3: Can a SMC work in the US? Columbia Journalism Review, June 21, 2013.
• GMWatch, How independent is the Science Media Centre and its experts?, 24 Sept 2012, acc 9 Nov 2012
• Colin Macilwain, Two nations divided by a common purpose, NATURE 483, 247 (15 March 2012), acc 9 Nov 2012
• George Monbiot, Invasion of the entryists, first published in The Guardian, Dec 9 2003, acc 9 Nov 2012
• Andy Rowell, Science Media Centre Accused of Pro-Nuclear Bias, 22 January 2008
• Science Media Centre, Consultation report, March 2002

Contact details

Address: 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE

Website: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/

Tel: +44 (0)20 7611 8300

E-mail: smc@sciencemediacentre.org