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Industry Reporters Predict Biotech PR Hurdles Over the Next 10 Years
by Debbie Strickland
originally printed in BIO News -- Aug/Sep 2003
When asked what they thought the next 10 years would bring for biotechnology, a group of BIO 2003 journalists didn't mention clones, genetic discrimination or designer babies. "Science fiction sometimes makes better newspaper stories, so I was surprised they didn't want to talk about germline gene therapy, cloning and such," said Dan Eramian, BIO's vice president for communications and moderator of the journalist panel, "Biotechnology and the Public: The Next 10 Years."
Instead the reporters focused on the potential for agricultural biotechnology mishaps, intellectual property conflicts, and a backlash against rising drug prices and the industry's African health initiatives.
Reporters said they fully expect to see more incidents in which agricultural biotechnology products unapproved for human consumption drift into the food supply chain, with perhaps more serious consequences than in the past.
"At some point we're going to have a biotech emergency, a 9/11," said Elizabeth Weise of USA Today. "Something bad is going to happen, and it's not going to be something that sounds bad . . . but something that actually does hurt people."
For the industry such an event will be an historic crossroads, she said. "It's my guess that how we come out on the other side of that is going to be based upon how the industry and regulatory system deal with what happens in that instance."
Philip Brasher, an Associated Press veteran who now covers biotechnology for the Des Moines Register, sees similar potential for flare-ups in the fields. "One of the things that strikes me about this business of agricultural biotechnology in particular is it's got a lot of scientists and a lot of farmers involved, and a lot of them are doing things that they've never done before or are not necessarily accustomed to doing, and that's where I think the challenges or the risks lie with biotech now and into the future."
Brasher claimed that, although federal agencies have been tightening rules for field trials of experimental crops, "with agricultural biotechnology the regulatory system is literally in many aspects made up as we go along. . . . If there's a problem, they'll have to come up with new rules."
Brasher, however, was less concerned about accidents with novel technologies than with the more prosaic challenges posed by widespread use of existing crops, such as increasing resistance to the pesticide (Bt) and herbicide (glyphosate) that have made those crops so successful. He cited a recent study showing about one-fifth of Bt corn farmers are violating requirements to set aside acreage for non-Bt corn in order to combat insect resistance. Moreover, weeds resistant to glyphosate-used on the 74 percent of U.S. soybeans that are genetically modified to tolerate the herbicide-are already appearing, he said.
"The challenge in both cases is simply overuse of the technology," Brasher said. Much as the public expects industry to create new antibiotics as old ones become ineffective due to overuse, so too are farmers planning to "use it until it doesn't work anymore . . . The assumption is that something else will come along that will take its place."
Give Consumers A Carrot-That Cures Cancer
Sally Garner, a producer for CBS, predicted journalists and the public will increasingly want to see tangible consumer benefits from biotechnology. "Where is the carrot that cures cancer? We're still waiting to [see] that big breakthrough when it comes to food and agriculture."
That curative carrot may come, but it could prove very expensive, said another panelist, Geeta Anand of the Wall Street Journal. "One of the big challenges that the industry already faces but that's going to become larger is going to be explaining pricing," she said. "We're going to see really exciting cancer treatments come to market but many of them will cost $20,000 a year, and many of them will be used together, so all of a sudden the cost of treating one person's cancer for one week could become $100,000."
Anand said the industry's approach to pricing conflicts will have to be substantive: "It's not going to be enough in the future to try to deal with criticism of high prices by running a television ad showing all the lives saved by drugs. The biotech and pharmaceutical industry is going to be called on to do more than that. . . . I'm hearing people talk about how the industry itself is going to have to rethink the way they do drug development to try and produce drugs more cost effectively."
The related matter of patent protection is also going to come under increasing scrutiny, said Paul Elias of the Associated Press. "It's a huge issue. It's going to involve price pressures in the U.S., how we get AIDS drugs into Africa, [and] farmers in the developing world and their access to biotech crops. How the industry responds to that-and I think it's still trying to figure it out as well-is going to be a compelling story as we go forward."
Want Better Coverage? Talk to Reporters
Not surprisingly, the reporters said the secret to handling crises and criticism is to talk to reporters. "Openness is going to be a key to your success, because the more open you are the more quickly the story goes away," said Elias.
Weise agreed that responding to inquiries in an "informative way" deflates stories quickly. She cited as a model the approach of University of Illinois officials last winter after transgenic pigs' offspring were mistakenly sold into the food supply chain. "They were incredibly open about what happened. When I called them and said, 'Hey, this is going on,' they said, 'Okay, we've got this many pigs, this is what happened, this is where they went. This many were going to renderers, this many were incinerated.
"At first I thought I was talking to someone who doesn't realize he's not supposed to talk to the press, because one gets so used to talking to people who are terrified of talking to the press and who, therefore, don't say anything, which unfortunately means that then we end up with [a situation in which] the only people who are willing to really talk about what's going on or make a supposition about what's going on are the [anti-biotechnology] activists."
Added Eramian, "After ten years of doing this panel, the bottom-line message from ten sets of reporters has been the same: Honesty and candor are still the best policies. It's important for industry leaders to understand the media is not against the technology, and that it's our job to help them communicate to the public."
Africa Benefits Inflated?
Washington Post reporter Justin Gillis said one thing the industry is talking too much about is the potential for biotechnology to address health and nutrition problems in Africa.
"The industry has been far too overaggressive," said Gillis. "We've seen it all through the convention. It's become so woven into the industry's spiel that it's a relentless assault almost of 'We should all love biotech and we should all particularly love ag biotech because it's going to feed Africa.'"
During the convention, BIO hosted a media brunch with a global health theme, and President Bush spoke about the need to lower trade barriers to agricultural biotechnology products in Africa as a means of fighting hunger.
Gillis argued that benefits should come before the messages: "The industry would be much better served to do it and then talk about it," he said.
Otherwise, the industry risks breeding cynicism about its "intentions and truthfulness and accuracy," he said. "The potential solution for that, if there is one, is to get some real accomplishments on the ground and then talk about them."
Debbie Strickland is BIO's director of publications.
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