Jimmy sez, "Someone leaked the minutes for a meeting of food-packaging executives and chemical industry lobbyists seeking to find ways to keep consumers buying goods laced with bisphenol-A. Attending companies included Coca-Cola, Del Monte, Alcoa and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA)."
Attendees suggested using fear tactics (e.g. "Do you want to have access to baby food anymore?") as well as giving control back to consumers (e.g. you have a choice between the more expensive product that is frozen or fresh or foods packaged in cans) as ways to dissuade people from choosing BPA-free packaging. Attendees noted, in the past, the different associations have had a reactive strategy with the media, with very limited proactive outreach in reaching out to journalists. The committee agrees they need to promote new, relevant content to get the BPA perspective into the media mix. The committee believes industry studies are tainted from the public perspective.
The committee doubts social media outlets, such as Facebook or Twitter, will work for positive BPA outreach. The committee wants to focus on quality instead of quantity in disseminating messages (e.g. a young kid or pregnant mother providing a positive quote about BPA, a testimonial from an outside expert, providing positive video, advice from third party experts, and relevant messaging on the GMA website). Members noted traditional media outreach has become too expensive (they have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars) and the media is starting to ignore their side. The committee doubts obtaining a scientific spokesperson is attainable. Their "holy grail" spokesperson would be a "pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA."
I don't know if these are real or not, though I am inclined to trust ScienceBlogs as a source overall, there's precious little provenance here (on the other hand, the industry association has confirmed that a document like this leaked).
BPA gets attention from industry spinmeisters (leaked minutes)
