Believe Me; Toxic Sludge is Good for You

Mmm Sludge. Delicious?

I’m going into public relations as my specialization, so it was a relief to see the down falls to the public relations industry. I honestly found this book to be direct and straight-forward; I didn’t have to go all loopy with observations in trying to understand what was being said.

When talking about the tobacco industry, I could not help but think of the movie Thank You for Smoking. The spokesperson for the tobacco industry in this movie persuades his audience as well as his enemies, to believe the messages he projects on cigarettes. The same message is portrayed in Toxic Sludge. The tobacco industry makes it their responsibility to market their product with health warnings on the results of smoking. Even though they take it upon their responsibility to show these caution warnings, they still make money off of the addictive products they are distributing. If a company has such a damaging product, why do they keep it on the market? The answer is money. Money makes everyone go crazy, and they will do just about anything to get as much as they can; even if it means killing their consumers to get it.


Stauber, John and Sheldon Rampton. Toxic Sludge is Good for You; Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry. Monroe: Common Courage P, 1995.

Thank You for Smoking. Dir. Jason Reitman. DVD. Paramount, 2006.