If we had a correspondent who actually took part in one of these surveys, it is quite likely that some interesting facts would turn up. It is impossible to see from the results, the many ways in which these surveys can be perverted to produce erroneous end statistics.
As an example: in 2009 the MHRA (the UK's FDA equivalent) carried out market research in order to determine people's attitude to e-cigarettes in the UK. This research consisted of a questionnaire completed by people in a number of focus groups. They presented the results as an overwhelming request by the public for e-cigarettes to be regulated by the MHRA.
Unfortunately for them, one of the participants in the market research (unknown to the MHRA) was a member of ECITA, the UK e-cigarette trade association. They subsequently exposed the research as containing lies and fabrication, with the result that it was never used by the MHRA in the end. A waste of a large amount of taxpayers's money, no doubt.
One of the questions was, "E-cigarettes are uncontrolled or tested in the UK at present - do you think that they should be tested and regulated, for safety reasons?" (paraphrased as I was not present). The result, obviously (since there had been the usual implications that e-cigarettes contained unknown materials) was a resounding "Yes".
What the focus group members were not told was that e-cigarettes are already tested and controlled in the UK (by the Trading Standards authorities). Samples are in fact taken away, inspected and analysed. So when the subjects were told that they are uncontrolled, it was an outright lie; and when they replied that, yes, e-cigarettes needed to be regulated (by the MHRA), that reply was to a question that was based on a deliberate lie, in order to manipulate the results.
In fact, the UK is the only place in the world where e-cigarettes are controlled and tested, and the system works very well indeed: it is supported by the consumers, the trade and city/local authorities. This fact was not only conveniently ignored by the market researchers, it was cunningly concealed by an outright lie and a successful attempt to manipulate the results. If a trade representative had not been present, the deliberate perverting of the results would never have been discovered.
So: in order to interpret the results, you need to know exactly what was asked and how it was asked. Otherwise, the end results are meaningless, since as we have seen these groups are prepared to use outright lies to pervert the results and get the answers they want.
