Monsanto's PR Firm, Burson-Marsteller, Hires a "Progressive" Group
in Chicago to Help Fight the Anti-Biotech Movement

A Publication of the Center for Media & Democracy
Vol. 6, No. 4 / Fourth Quarter 1999
<www.prwatch.org/>

Engineering Opinions on Engineered Foods

Monsanto and Burson-Marsteller Hire a Consumer Organizer

Executives at the Burson-Marsteller PR firm are saying as little as possible
about their pro-biotech PR campaign for the Monsanto company. Jerry
Morrison, a longtime consumer and labor organizer who now runs a firm called
the Strategic Consulting Group, says he didn't even know Monsanto was the
end client when B-M hired him in early November to pitch local groups about
the merits of genetically modified foods.

Morrison has especially close ties with Citizen Action of Illinois, the
state's leading consumer organization. In 1998, he ran the successful U.S.
congressional campaign of Jan Schakowsky, a member of the Citizen Action
board of directors who is well-known as a Chicago consumer advocate.
Morrison's wife serves on the Citizen Action board, and his business
partner, Bob Creamer, is Schakowsky's husband and was Citizen Action's
executive director prior to resigning last year under a cloud related to his
handling of the organization's finances.

Morrison was hired in conjunction with public hearings that the Food and
Drug Administration has scheduled as part of its "Biotechnology in the Year
2000 and Beyond" program. In Chicago, a hearing was held on Nov. 18, with
some environmentalists complaining that they received very little advance
time to register. The FDA initially booked a room with seating of only 100,
and some people say when they called they were told the roster was already
full. After the number of people wanting to speak surpassed 500, FDA moved
the hearing to a larger venue.

Morrison readily admitted that B-M has hired him to meet with farmers,
unions, consumer and "faith-based" groups to counter what he describes as
"environmentalist public hysteria" about biotech foods.

"I've been a union organizer, a community organizer," Morrison said. "I'm
not going to have my credentials questioned by these folks. On most issues I
work with environmental groups. I disagree with them on this issue.
Burson-Marsteller has approached me to work with them on a number of other
issues in the past and I declined because I disagreed with them, but I agree
with them on this issue."

In fact, Morrison's liberal credentials appear to be precisely the reason
he was hired. PR Watch interviewed several activists who disagree with
Morrison's position but declined to be quoted on the record. "I'm a friend
of Jerry's," explained one, who said he is "pissed off" at his decision to
work for Burson-Marsteller. Morrison's connections, he said, make it easier
to stifle organized consumer opposition to biotech foods. "It may not mean
that Citizen Action goes out and says they're fine," he said. "It may just
mean that they're silent, and that can be worse."

Both Morrison and Burson-Marsteller have been cagey about the details of
their work. Morrison told O'Dwyer's PR Services that he coordinates his work
with B-M's Chicago office, but refused to give the name of the person he
reports to. John LaSage, B-M's Midwest Region Chairman, said he wasn't aware
that Morrison had been hired. Peter Himler, B-M's executive vice president
for media relations, even refused on Nov. 11 to confirm that Monsanto was a
client. However, the New York Times reported on Nov. 12 that Monsanto
"recently retained Burston-Marsteller . . . at an annual cost of millions of
dollars."

Direct Impact, a subsidiary of B-M specializing in "grassroots PR," has
also been involved in trying to get pro-industry testimony at the FDA
hearings.