Sense about Science

"Science"  Sense about Science   (Gatekeeper, Lobbyist)
Formation	2002
Founder	•  Dick Taverne •  Bridget Ogilvie
Headquarters	London,  England
Interests	vaccine,  GMO,  asbestos,  Big Chemical,  Big Food,  Big Pharma,  electrosmog,  EMF,  Spiked
Sponsored by	AstraZeneca, BP, GlaxoSmithKline, Imperial College London, Pfizer, Reed Elsevier, Unilever, Vodafone, Wellcome Trust
Membership	•  Tracey Brown •  Shaoni Bhattacharya •  Ulrika Björkstén •  Jonathan Brüün •  Mike Conradi •  Michael Fitzpatrick •  Paul Garner •  Paul Hardaker •  Robin Lovell-Badge •  Wim van Saarloos •  James Wren •  Lesley Yellowlees •  Janice Taverne •  David Schley •  Nita Pillai •  Munkhbayar Elkins •  Maricarmen Climént •  Tushita Bagga •  Sameh ElBadry •  Camilla Arvidsson •  Peter Knight
Lobbyist and scientific gatekeeper organization created by advertising executives.

Sense About Science is a lobbyist and scientific gatekeeper organization based in London with an affiliate in New York. Presenting itself as a trustworthy arbiter, it works to "tip the scales toward industry "

Own words

"Sense about Science is an independent charity that promotes the public interest in sound science and evidence. We engage and mobilise people to pursue high standards of evidence in public life." Since its founding, Sense about Science has influenced UK public opinion about such subjects as alternative medicine, genetically modified food, bird flu, chemicals and health, electrosmog, vaccination, weather and climate, nuclear power, and the use and utility of peer review.

History

Sense about Science was founded in 2002 by Dick Taverne, Bridget Ogilvie and others. It was created just in time for the UK's official public debate on genetic modification. Within months it had begun to promote its point of view on GM crops to parliamentarians and the media, and had raised funding. Taverne wrote:

Organic farming is a billion-pound industry. To question claims made by the organic lobby is not just akin to doubting the virtues of motherhood, but to reveal indifference to the poisoning of the nation and the fate of the planet, perhaps even to be guilty of corruption by American multinationals and of support for George Bush. If people are worried about the effect of pesticides in farming on wildlife or human health, they should promote pesticide-resistant GM crops, which reduce their use.

In the 1990s, Taverne' s consulting company, PRIMA Europe, helped British American Tobacco improve relations with its investors and beat European regulations on cigarettes. Taverne himself worked on the investors project: In an undated memo, PRIMA assured the tobacco company that "the work would be done personally by Dick Taverne," because he was well placed to interview industry opinion leaders and "would seek to ensure that industry’s needs are foremost in people’s minds."

During the same decade, Taverne sat on the board of the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, which claimed Philip Morris as a client. The idea for a "sound science" group, made up of a network of scientists who would speak out against regulations that industrial spokespeople lacked the credibility to challenge, was pitched to Philip Morris in a 1994 memorandum.

Activities

It hands out a prize, awarded jointly by Sense about Science and the journal Nature.

Powerbase has a good overview of its lobbying for GMOs.

In 2016 Tracey Brown published a piece in the Guardian arguing that "It’s silly to assume all research funded by corporations is bent", where she lamented that what she called "the '‘who funded it?' question" is too often asked by "people with axes to grind."

In 2021, it launched a guide to help science communicators to have conversations with individuals who buy into coronavirus conspiracy theories. The guide was written in partnership with conspiracy theory expert Professor Peter Knight from The University of Manchester.

People

Board and some staff as of February 2025.

One of the trustees, Michael Fitzpatrick, has a longstanding involvement with the LM network and its predecessor, the Revolutionary Communist Party. Sense About Science directors Tracey Brown and Ellen Raphael worked for the London-based PR company Regester Larkin until shortly prior to joining Sense About Science and are also part of the libertarian network which includes LM, Spiked, and the Institute of Ideas, to all of which Brown and Raphael have contributed. The domain name for the Sense About Science website - senseaboutscience.org.uk - was registered by Rob Lyons, the web master for Spiked. Brown and Raphael are also key players in another of the network's front groups, Global Futures. The phone number for Global Futures was the same as that for Sense About Science - see screengrabs, right.

Funding

Funding, includes historic funding.GE Healthcare. Powerbase has an extensive list of historical funders.

 

Sponsors

Event	Description
AstraZeneca	London-based British-Swedish multinational Big Pharma company that produced a COVID-19 jab
BP	Multinational oil company implicated in the 1953 Iran Coup.
GlaxoSmithKline
Imperial College London	A UK college, highly funded by the Gates Foundation, which played a central part in the COVID-19 deep event by creating hysterical spreading models
Pfizer	A multinational big pharma company. Made a killing during COVID
Reed Elsevier	Large publisher with a 7-7 connection
Unilever	Multinational specialized in providing people the illusion of choice in local supermarkets. Targeted by Operation Gladio-agents in the Netherlands with blackmail.
Vodafone	British multinational telecommunications company.
Wellcome Trust	4th wealthiest charitable foundation in the world

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References

This page imported content from Powerbase on 02.02.2025.
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