Jay Byrne

Jay Byrne is the president of the PR firm V-Fluence. V-Fluence calls itself a public relations, government affairs and issues management strategic consulting group that holds a contract with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), having "provided online analysis, Internet monitoring, website evaluations (including Section 508 compliance), social media outreach support and NGO training to the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and the U.S. Department of State" since 2001, according to the firm's website. V-Fluence uses "proprietary online data-mining and analytics" to "define and positively shape [clients'] online environment." V-Fluence was one of ' O'Dwyer's PR 's "Top 100 PR Firms" in 2007 and in their top 88 healthcare and medical PR firms in 2008. Its clients "include the world's largest corporations and best-known brands, major trade and professional associations, respected non-profit groups, government agencies and leading academic institutions," according to its website.

Byrne has also written for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and is a co-author of the AEI Press book, Let Them Eat Precaution: How Politics Is Undermining The Genetic Revolution in Agriculture. This book, published in 2006, claims that "more nutritious food is now produced with less environmental costs because genetically modified crops require almost no pesticides," according to the AEI website. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pesticide use data analyzed by Charles Benbrook, Chief Scientist at The Organic Center, shows that "compared to pesticide use in the absence of GE crops, farmers applied 318 million more pounds of pesticides over the last 13 years as a result of planting GE seeds."

Clients
Byrne's clients include Syngenta, AstraZeneca, Monsanto, Pfizer, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the American Farm Bureau, Rohm & Haas, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, U.S. Department of State, Washington University in St. Louis, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), The U.S. Department of Energy and PhRMA.

Accusing Blogger of "Hacking" a Publicly Viewable Website
In April 2010, a blogger gained access to a V-Fluence site intended to remain internal, revealing that V-Fluence was monitoring healthcare-related blogs for its client, AstraZeneca. At the time, AstraZeneca's antipsychotic drug Seroquel® was allegedly the subject of "crisis consulting" as it was "facing thousands of lawsuits claiming the company failed to warn patients that a side effect of the drug is weight gain." V-Fluence published a press release accusing a blogger of "hacking" "a v-Fluence Interactive server Web portal used by our Internet content screeners and analysts to code monitoring data" who then allegedly "collected a screen shot of this content for purposes of publicly distributing the data in an attempt to cause reputational damage to our company and clients by name."

The blogger in question, Dennis Rosen, or "Stan" of "Is Something Not Quite Right With Stan - A Mental Health Blog," responded, "[L]et's set the record straight. 'I did not hack into v-fluence.' These accusations published on their web site are complete fabrication by the spin doctors themselves. They left their site door wide open to public viewing, and I simply peered in and have brought their seedy practices to everyone's attention on this blog. . . . I certainly would like 'full disclosure' on how much and what kinds of information has been gathered by your company and how is it being used by your clients."

Rosen quotes Byrne, who "has held senior communications positions at the White House, U.S. State Department, Monsanto Company and for the City of Boston," as saying, "Think of the Internet as a weapon on the table. Either you pick it up or your competitor does - but somebody is going to get killed" (emphasis original).

The website Rosen says he found by "dumb luck" revealed many "annotation groups," or blogs that V-Fluence was monitoring for clients, in this particular case, AstraZeneca.

An article in B-Net Pharma called it a "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" moment for AstraZeneca, and claimed, "Everyone knows pharmaceutical companies monitor bloggers who cover the drug business. But they don’t usually let bloggers see the results of their surveillance, which is what makes this incident so fascinating."

Background
Byrne was Director of Corporate Communications at Monsanto from 1997-2001, chief spokesperson and Communications Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 1993-1997, Communications Director (Midwest) for the 1992 Clinton-Gore Campaign, and has worked for the Clinton Administration and at the Boston Mayor's Office (1987-1991) and as a speech writer for Congressman Joseph Kennedy (1985-1987).

Contacts
v-Fluence 4579 Laclede Avenue, #275 St. Louis, MO 63108 Phone: (877) 835-8362 Web: http://www.v-fluence.com/ Web Contact: http://www.v-fluence.com/contact/

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