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Seniors Need to Check Website Sponsors Before Buying
the Message
Obesityscam.com is sponsored by restaurants, food
companies
By Tucker Sutherland, editor
April 21, 2005 – America’s public relations
industry has learned a quick and easy way to sway public opinion by
setting up quick and easy Websites that at first appear to be an
unbiased presentation of information about a topic. On closer
inspection, and sometimes a little deeper research, senior citizens can
learn the real point of view of the messages.
These sites normally have names that appear as
consumer protection sites. A good example is “obesityscam.com.” The
banner on the home page clearly shows this site is sponsored by the
Center for Consumer Freedom. With a Web address like that and a
sponsoring organization that certainly sounds like it represents
consumers, we might easily assume their information is unbiased and an
effort to protect consumers.
A closer look at the “About Us” link, however,
tells us this:
“The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit
coalition of restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together
to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices. The
growing cabal of "food cops," health care enforcers, militant activists,
meddling bureaucrats, and violent radicals who think they know "what's
best for you" are pushing against our basic freedoms. We're here to push
back.”
Now that we know the sponsors are restaurants and
food companies, we might take a different view of the information they
present.
Virtually all of the information is aimed at
debunking claims that there is a problem with obesity in America. They
say, for example, “Today's scientifically superior study further
demonstrates that the Center for Consumer Freedom's long-standing
criticism of the CDC's obesity scaremongering was well-founded.”
This quote is from their lead story that attacks
the Centers for Disease Control for not denying the obesity epidemic
they had earlier declared. It is certainly true that the CDC made errors
in their earlier claim of 400,000 deaths a year due to obesity. And, it
has certainly provided a window of opportunity for those who are trying
to sell us fatty foods to get off the defense and go on the attack.
Here are some of their headline stories from the
site by restaurant and food companies:
> New Study
Crushes CDC's Obesity-Death Statistic
> CCF To CDC: Stop Stonewalling
> The Economic Cost Of Hyping
Obesity
> Final Fatties Flunk Government's
BMI
> Obesity Researcher Faked Data
> Life Expectancy: Another Obesity
Myth Debunked
You are not getting an unbiased view of the obesity
on this site. You are getting the view of companies who want you not to
worry about obesity and to gobble down more and more of the food they
sell.
Frankly, I think the restaurant industry has the
right to tell their side of the story. But, I don’t think it is right to
attempt to make fools of senior citizens and others by disguising the
information source – in this case the obesityscam.com Website – as some
type of independent consumer site.
Their defense, of course, is that in the “About Us”
section they do disclose that the sponsoring organization is made up of
“restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together.” They
could not resist another attempt a fooling us by adding “consumers”
among their sponsors. We really have to question if these consumers are
independent consumers, or consumers who also have close ties to the
industry groups.
We have used the obesityscam.com Website as an
example in this report, but they are only that – an example. This same
scam technique is now being widely used on the Internet by many, many
industries, companies and special interest groups.
Before any of us accept information presented as
unbiased from a Website we do not know, we need to check for information
on the site sponsors.
There are more of these deceptive sites on the Web
every day. Just look closely.
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