British biotech company Oxitec is
at it again:
Some 6000 transgenic mosquitoes developed to help fight dengue were released in Malaysia on 21 December, according to a statement issued by the country’s Institute for Medical Research (IMR) in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. Just like the first releases ever of the mosquitoes, on the Caribbean island of Grand Cayman in 2009 and 2010, the news came as a surprise both to opponents of the insects and to scientists who support them.
As I said in a previous post, I’d classify myself among “scientists who support them,” so I’m chagrined to see that Oxitec still hasn’t figured out the most basic aspects of public relations. Someone needs to tell these guys that there is such a thing as bad publicity, especially when it comes to releasing genetically modified organisms into the wild. Indeed, the Malaysian experiment has given the company another black eye:
[Medical entomologist Bart] Knols worries that surprises such as the releases in Grand Cayman and Malaysia may erode public trust and provide anti-GM groups with ammunition. The two Malaysian groups, for instance, issued a statement yesterday saying they were “shocked … we condemn the apparently secretive manner in which the trials have been conducted.” Helen Wallace of the advocacy group GeneWatch UK says the lack of communication does little to instill confidence in Oxitec.
Oxitec executives respond that they got the necessary permits, so they weren’t doing anything illegal. That’s hardly the point. When you’re blazing a brand-new technological trail, and you know full well that vocal opponents of the new technology are trying to stop you, the only appropriate response is a large-scale public relations campaign. Open the doors to your labs. Call local radio and TV stations and offer to do interviews. Take out an ad in the paper. Run a blog and talk about the schedule for your activities: what you’re doing, where, and why. Be specific, and be impossible to ignore.
It doesn’t matter if your opponents are irrational, uninformed, or driven by their own hidden agendas – all distinct possibilities in this case. If the technology’s foes can credibly assert that you’re doing secret experiments on the public, you lose.
Please, Oxitec, get your PR game together.
How does a company with two dozen employees and maybe $10 million USD in annual revenue put on a “large scale public relations campaign” exactly?
It’s really not that hard. Nearly anyone can post a press release to PRNewswire, and absolutely anyone (with no budget whatsoever) can put up a blog and make a few phone calls to the local media outlets where they’re doing business. A little effort would go a long way in this case.
Also, bear in mind that Oxitec is collaborating with the Gates Foundation, which is not the least bit shy about PR.
They did just that with the Cayman release which was 500 times larger than the Malaysian release:
http://www.oxitec.com/2010/11/oxitec-mrcu-press-release/
And they have the standard corporate PR website including numerous pages on safety like these:
http://www.oxitec.com/our-research/safe-use/
and
http://www.oxitec.com/our-research/safety-and-regulation/
among others
Finally, it appears that the local media was notified and that they worked with local authorities to involve the Cayman population:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/11/gm-mosquito-trial-strains-ties.html
I doubt the Gates Foundation gets involved in details of daily operation like this in the projects they fund.
The real problem is the ability of a fickle media to ply the public’s emotion against its inadequate science knowledge. It is doubtful that any lab or small company could properly preempt the gaze of Sauron’s Eye and it is very expensive to try. In light of what some corporations and governments get away with, it is impossible to even predict what the media will focus on in any given news cycle so I think that in this particular case, Oxitec did what they should have done. It is just that their luck ran out when it came to the PR roulette.
No, the real problem here is Oxitec. The release you link to about the Cayman experiment came out after it had already been done. Also, read the comments below the Science article you cite, and look up additional discussions elsewhere, and you’ll see that the PR and outreach Oxitec did on Grand Cayman was downright obtuse. They didn’t even mention that these were transgenic mosquitoes in most of their public discussions, which is really the crux of the matter.
As for the Gates Foundation, Oxitec’s failure to inform them of the Grand Cayman release was also a serious faux pas, as the Science article notes. It could seriously damage other Gates-funded initiatives, and it seems the Foundation isn’t too pleased about the way it was handled.
I don’t hesitate to blame the reporters when it’s appropriate, but in this case blame lies squarely with the company. Luck has nothing to do with it.
Good points.
Furthermore, following up on some other links, I found this document which suggests that Oxitec neglected some of their regulatory obligations in the Cayman project before their Malaysian release:
http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/pageDocuments/I5G5KXD2L3.pdf
Also, the Cayman MRCU agency’s PR is in question.
So I need to retract my previous statement, “Oxitec did what they should have done”.
Thanks for taking the time to educate me on this topic.