U.S.
Food and Drug Administration
FDA Consumer magazine
November-December 2002
Table of Contents
By Mary-Margaret Richardson
My question was simply about directions for a newly purchased product. I dialed the customer service number, and was immediately met with an automated menu of choices, none of which offered the promise of actually answering my question. Since I selected none of the options, my call was terminated.
A day or so later I needed to confirm an airline reservation. Again dialing the toll-free number I got what I thought was a person. Wrong. A robot with a human voice was asking me questions. I didn't provide the responses the robot wanted. In a burst of annoyance I sputtered "HELP." Instantly a human being responded! She answered my questions but, more importantly, provided me with the password. "Just say 'agent,'" she said. "You may have to say it a couple of times but it will get you to a person."
Needing information from the FDA, I dialed the local office seeking the public affairs specialist. You guessed it--I got a menu of options! I selected the option for PAS. The phone mail gave me instructions on leaving a message. I tried saying "PAS" several times to the automated attendant. That was not the password here. I left a message and a PAS called me back later.
What could I possibly want to know that the Internet could not answer? Pages and pages of information are available. Click. It's done. Or what did I want to know that I couldn't learn from the national news sources that provide us with the latest information 24/7? Actually I wanted to know what the FDA was doing in my local community. That takes a real person.
I remembered the "good old days" when I was a "consumer affairs officer," the title they gave us before public affairs specialist. There was no Internet, no home page, no cell phones. News interviews were done on film the day BEFORE an interview was going to air; no instant satellite feeds.
Before I retired three years ago, I said in an interview that technology was one of the greatest tools that the public affairs specialist had. Today, I'm wondering if technology could replace the public affairs specialists? Has technology made them obsolete?
The FDA's public affairs program has always been about the public's right to know. The challenge of the PAS is to tell the public about the FDA and to tell the FDA about the public. Consumer consultants, the first FDA public affairs specialists, began that long history of person-to-person contact. They worked diligently capturing public opinion, reporting it to the FDA, and providing valuable information for the FDA's public education programs. Their successes were rewarded, and challenges increased.
Later, the charge became to assess the needs in their communities and to devise FDA educational programs to meet those needs. Many programs ran only on ingenuity and creativity. Budgets were small to none.
In the early days of public affairs programming, I believe we were somewhat naïve. We assured people that they were safe because the FDA was there. Toward the end of my FDA career, I knew that this couldn't be the message anymore. Life is more complex and uncertain. Advances in both science and technology increase the challenge and the risk of the message. We now know that no one government agency, industry or person can provide total safety. But we can continue to provide credible information to assist persons in making their own decisions.
The various crises of the past were as serious in the public's mind as are those facing us today. But they pale in the light of shifting priorities, which have changed dramatically since 9/11. Tampering was the issue; now it is terrorism. Food additives, product recalls, unsafe products, microwave oven radiation, and X-rays were the issues. Food safety meant basic sanitation rather than bioterrorism, genetically altered foods, E. coli, and other issues.
The trust Americans place in the FDA to provide credible information is in large part, I think, reflected through the work of the public affairs specialists, who are often recognized widely in local communities. Citizens believed that there was a voice of calm and reassurance in the face of crisis situations. The PAS, then and now, has the obligation of being the truth-speaker. That voice is as necessary today as it ever was.
Public affairs specialists made obsolete by technology? I certainly hope not. Give me a public affairs specialist over a robot any time!
Mary-Margaret Richardson retired from the FDA after nearly 30 years as a public affairs specialist.