Organic Consumers Association
Campaigning for health, justice, sustainability, peace, and democracy
The Emperor Has No Clothes, and Neither Do Monsanto’s ‘Scientists’
The Monsanto public relations machine has done a stellar job in recent years of reducing the GMO debate to one that pits “pro-science advocates” against “anti-science climate-denier types”—with Monsanto portrayed as being squarely planted in the pro-science camp.
But that well-oiled machine may be starting to sputter.
Turns out that Monsanto executive solicited pro-GMO articles from university researchers, and passed the “research” off as independent science which the biotech giant then used to prop up its image and further its agenda.
We know this, thanks to thousands of pages of emails obtained by US Right to Know, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). And because a host of news outlets—including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Bloomberg, the StarPhoenix and others—are now running with the story.
For anyone who has paid attention, this latest scandal should come as no surprise. As Steven Druker writes, in “Altered Genes, Twisted Truth,” “for more than 30 years, hundreds (if not thousands) of biotech advocates within scientific institutions, government bureaus, and corporate offices throughout the world have systematically compromised science and contorted the facts to foster the growth of genetic engineering, and get the foods it produces, onto our dinner plates.”
Will Druker’s book (published this year), and this new wave of bad press be enough to finally expose Monsanto’s “science” for what it is—nothing more than an expensive, sustained and highly orchestrated public relations campaign?
The story behind the story
U.S. Right to Know (USRTK), a nonprofit funded almost entirely by the Organic Consumers Association, launched an investigation into “the collusion between Big Food, its front groups, and university faculty and staff to deliver industry PR to the public.”
As part of its ongoing investigation, the group filed FOIA requests to obtain the emails and documents from 43 public university faculty and staff. The requested documents included records from scientists, economists, law professors, extension specialists and communicators—all of whom, as the group points out, were conducting work in public institutions, all funded by taxpayers.
Activists
carry signs during a protest against chemical giant Monsanto in Durban
on October 12, 2013. (AFP Photo / Rajesh Jantilal)
Anti-GMO
(genetically modified foods) protestors put a chain at the site
entrance of US seed company Monsanto on October 12, 2013 during a day of
action against the company, in Monbequi, southern France. Banner (R)
reads: "No to a world according to Monsanto". (AFP Photo / Pascal
Pavani)
