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Healthy Home Economist / Archives / Healthy Living / Top 4 Ways Media is Astroturfing Your Health Decisions

Top 4 Ways Media is Astroturfing Your Health Decisions

by Sarah Pope / Affiliate Links ✔

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
  • Cancer: The Most Astroturfed Media Message of All?
  • Recognizing the Signs of Astroturfing

astroturfing

From paid social media trolls who pose as regular people to media reports on a new “wonder” drug, astroturfing has reached a level in our society where it is increasingly hard to separate fact from fiction. 

At every turn, consumers are bombarded with carefully crafted messages on TV, online, and in print that are designed to appear objective and/or widely supported at a grassroots level. The goal is subtle manipulation of public perception and behavior for the benefit of the corporations, industry trade associations, or special interests that fund them.

Becoming a wise and very savvy consumer of information to quickly recognize when you are being played is an essential skill today. It has become critical to accomplish the most basic of tasks such as feeding your family healthy and selecting the most effective, nontoxic medical care when needed.

Author and investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson knows the signs of astroturfing well. She has dealt with them her entire career and is now sharing this knowledge with the world so that the average person can use information as a means of empowerment rather than enslavement.

Cancer: The Most Astroturfed Media Message of All?

Nowhere is astroturfing more aggressive and shrill than in the fight against cancer.

Effective alternative cancer treatments to the cut, poison, burn (aka, surgery, chemo, radiation) standard of care are quickly snuffed out by the FDA, a frequent participant in astroturfed messaging.

Holistic cancer practitioners using successful therapies (even for Stage 4 cancer) have even died under suspicious circumstances in recent months, including the highly regarded oncologist Nicholas Gonzalez MD and medical researcher Jeffrey Bradstreet MD.

Only three days before Dr. Bradstreet was found dead in a river, for instance, federal agents from the FDA raided his research facility to seize a breakthrough cancer treatment called GcMAF.

Other less recognizable forms of astroturfing include the pinkwashing that occurs every October in the United States by a variety of organizations to raise money for “The Cure”. In reality, the money gets funneled exclusively into pharmaceutical industry coffers either directly or via industry funded groups. Unwitting, sincere citizens get sucked into these astroturfing scams with thousands turning out for walks or runs to “Race for the Cure”.

As one example, for fiscal year 2009/2010, not one pink cent from the Susan B. Komen Foundation went into education about how a diet high in sugar and processed foods greatly affects the development and spread of cancer. In addition, Komen refuses to acknowledge nontoxic screening alternatives to mammograms such as thermography even though it is well known that mammograms cause a significant number of breast cancers and also result in misdiagnosis and unnecessary toxic treatment of thousands of women every single year. The astroturfed “research” funded by Komen is for the pharmaceutical industry only. Not a dime goes to any other doctor or organization conducting breakthrough, nontoxic cancer research and therapies that aren’t blessed by Big Pharma.

The truth is, cancer is big business and fueling the public perception that chemo gives the best odds of survival when cancer comes calling is highly profitable for the pharmaceutical industry.

Recognizing the Signs of Astroturfing

Knowing that astroturfing is going on all around us all the time is the very first step to stop being influenced by it. According to Ms. Attkisson:

Astroturfers often disguise themselves and publish blogs, write letters to the editor, produce ads, start non-profits, establish Facebook and Twitter accounts, edit Wikipedia pages or simply post comments online to try to fool you into thinking an independent or grassroots movement is speaking. They use their partners in blogs and in the news media in an attempt to lend an air of legitimacy or impartiality to their efforts.

Ms. Attkisson suggests being on guard for these blatant signs that astroturfing is headed in your direction which include:

  1. Astroturfed messaging nearly always uses inflammatory language like “crank”, “quack”, “nuts”, “pseudo”, “anti-science”, “conspiracy”, or something similar to describe the person or message questioning conventional “wisdom” on a particular topic. This is especially true in social media with paid media trolls posing as regular people.
  2. Debunking of “myths” that aren’t even myths at all is a common astroturfing technique. A claim by SNOPES that something is a myth is no assurance either given that SNOPES always sides on the issues with industry supported groups and corporations that are doing the astroturfing in the first place.
  3. Attacking, controversializing, or even attempting to criminalize the people and organizations exposing wrongdoing rather than directly addressing the wrongdoing itself are hallmarks of astroturfed media stories. It matters little if the source of the story is online, on TV, in a video, or printed in a supposedly respectable newspaper.
  4. Astroturfers reserve all public skepticism for those individuals and organizations who are questioning authority. Astroturfed messaging never expresses any skepticism for the actual authorities themselves.

Ultimately, astroturfing can come from almost any direction, and it is up to you to figure out what is truly authentic information, and what is artificially created with the purpose of maintaining corporate profits, control and/or power (usually it’s all three). Being gullible is a dangerous trait in this day and age, but you can overcome it by being highly observant.

Ms. Attkisson’s compelling 10 minute TED talk is below. I highly recommend taking the few minutes it takes to watch it. Your health may one day depend on it.

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Category: Healthy Living
Sarah Pope

Sarah Pope MGA has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2002. She is a summa cum laude graduate in Economics from Furman University and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of three books: Amazon #1 bestseller Get Your Fats Straight, Traditional Remedies for Modern Families, and Living Green in an Artificial World.

Her four eBooks Good Diet…Bad Diet, Real Food Fermentation, Ketonomics, and Ancestrally Inspired Dairy-Free Recipes are available for complimentary download via Healthy Home Plus.

Her mission is dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. She is a sought after lecturer around the world for conferences, summits, and podcasts.

Sarah was awarded Activist of the Year in 2010 at the International Wise Traditions Conference, subsequently serving on the Board of Directors of the nutrition nonprofit the Weston A. Price Foundation for seven years.

Her work has been covered by numerous independent and major media including USA Today, ABC, and NBC among many others.

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Reader Interactions

Comments (15)

  1. jocelyn

    Apr 13, 2016 at 11:47 am

    The exact reason why I don’t usually believe in rubbish stuff I see posted on Facebook every single day. If a claim does not have enough credible scientific studies to back it up, then I’m sorry. I won’t believe any word you say.

    Reply
  2. Phyllis

    Apr 12, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    You forgot to mention the increased occurrence of breast cancer among women who have had abortions. This is another piece of information that is suppressed by the media. I am curious whether you will post my comment because you yourself may disagree.

    Reply
  3. MJ Fitzgerald

    Apr 9, 2016 at 9:37 pm

    Sarah, thank you for this article. It’s a lesson I have been trying to get my 20 something daughter to understand. I have always called it misdirection. In my research for a natural cure for Basal Cell Carcinoma
    I have seen a lot of this as you call it “astroturfing”! I also live in the Tampa area (50 yrs.), when a doctor from Moffitt Cancer Centers backed up a treatment I found, I was overjoyed. Two sides agreeing! Whoo! Less than a week in and already I see a difference.

    Reply
    • Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist

      Apr 10, 2016 at 12:55 pm

      I have been pointing out examples of astroturfing to my children since they were very little. Instead of throwing out the TV entirely (which I think is counterproductive and can backfire later big time), we used it as a tool to analyze (in a fun way of course) how media seeks to control and use people for a specific profit motive. I am happy to say that they spot it in a heartbeat and point it out to me now! Protecting your children from exploitation by media propaganda or any other source that seeks to manipulate their perceptions and control their behavior in one way or another as they become young adults (particularly with regard to how they spend their money) is one of the best lessons you can ever teach them.

  4. eliz

    Apr 8, 2016 at 12:00 pm

    Excellent guidelines. Thank you Sarah and Sharyl.

    A little something I like to say (usually silently) to the deceiver after discovering that I’ve been deceived is “I can forgive you, but I can never trust you again”.

    That thought helps prevent the heart from hardening, and provides the release needed to move forward.

    Reply
    • Sarah

      Apr 8, 2016 at 12:01 pm

      Love it! My little saying is “trust but verify” :)) No need to become hardened and cynical. Just do your homework.

  5. Mysl-eko-logicznie.pl

    Apr 8, 2016 at 4:56 am

    I would recommend not to put any links to wikipedia anymore. I.m not doing that on my blog either. I use my polish national site for any definitions needed.

    Reply
    • Sarah

      Apr 8, 2016 at 9:56 am

      I don’t link to wikipedia. Especially not for health info as it is totally dominated by industry-speak. Here’s one egregious example: https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/coconut-oil-blackballed-by-wikipedia/

  6. Paula Stratton

    Apr 8, 2016 at 12:37 am

    Thank you for your informative site and all your hard work to get out viable info. I just wanted to address the comment about Cuba and the cure they were supposed to share with the U.S. regarding a vaccine for liver cancer, well, guess what? They don’t have one. Guess Cuba is astroturfing too.

    Reply
  7. Jan

    Apr 7, 2016 at 7:09 pm

    Thank you Sarah! Very important information. Isn’t it crazy and sickening?

    Reply
    • Sarah

      Apr 7, 2016 at 10:44 pm

      The same as it’s always been I suppose .. just more pronounced now and in your face because of technology. Just being aware of it makes it quite easy to ignore though 🙂 Just roll your eyes and move along! LOL

  8. KarenLA

    Apr 7, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    When president Obama went to Cuba there was a report that Cuba had a non-invasive, cute for several types of cancer that was quite cheap. Apparently being isolated for 60 years had some benefits. One of the types of cancer was breast cancer. I was waiting for the media to grab on to it and it is gone, dead silence.

    Reply
    • Sarah

      Apr 7, 2016 at 10:46 pm

      Don’t expect that to make it to the USA! Anything that works and is cheap or unpatentable, forget about it.

  9. Flossie

    Apr 7, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    Sarah — You’ve inadvertently added an “N” to Ms. Attkisson’s last name. (Delete this message if you like.)

    Reply
    • Sarah

      Apr 7, 2016 at 2:21 pm

      Yes, I discovered this shortly after I clicked the “publish” button. Thanks for the heads up!

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