Stephen Barrett and Medical
McCarthyism

By S.L & R.A

Progressive Radio Network

The evidence for genetically modified organism (GMOs) safety for human
consumption and its environmental risks remains one of the nation’s most
contentious, controversial and debated subjects. Throughout the world,
governments, national health ministries and their populations have been led to
believe that there is no reason to critically object to GMOs. American
mainstream media, which have now been fully absorbed into the agendas of large
multinational corporate chemical and food sponsors, claim GMOs are completely
harmless. We are sold a promise that they are urgently needed for feeding the
world. Consequently, in the absence of critical journalism, aside from
independent media, the spread of GMOs has become widespread.

 

Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, and Bayer dominate the global GMO market. Corn
is the US’ number one crop with eighty-nine percent being genetically modified.
Ninety-three percent of American soybeans are GMO. GM sugar beets, certain
squashes, canola, alfalfa, papaya (77% of Hawaii’s crop), and new apple strains
are genetically engineered. Many more GM vegetables and fruits are in the
pipeline. Only during the past 15 years have voices within the environmental and
public health movements, and free-thinking scientists and researchers in
molecular biology, genetics and agriculture turned vocal to publicly challenge
GMO safety and their exaggerated promises. One especially unfounded promise,
often promulgated by Monsanto and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the
GMO revolution’s ability to feed the world. Yet as a senior economic analyst at
the Environmental Working Group in Washington DC has reported, “this is simply a
myth adopted and deployed by US agribusiness to distract the public from
reality.”[1]

 

Every leading opponent and critic of GMOs is well known to the chemical
industry and its army of public relation provocateurs and internet trolls. Many
have been mercilessly attacked, libeled and slandered through a sophisticated
network of PR hacks, industry special interest groups, educational and
pseudo-scientific organizations and projects, and the mainstream media,
publications and lobbying firms. In the wake of the agri-industry’s PR efforts
to bolster erroneous favorable images of GMOs and chemical based agriculture,
careers have been destroyed. For example, FOX journalists Jane Akre and her
husband Steve Wilson were destroyed by Monsanto for providing scientific
evidence about the dangers of genetically modified bovine growth hormone in
milk.[2] Mainstream media willingly provides a red carpet for GMO advocates to
promote the promises of genetic engineering but denies equal time to its
scientific critics. So effective have been the chemical industry’s attacks that
even peer reviewed research showing GMO risks has been retracted.

 

Perhaps the most important and damning case of retracted science is that of
Eric Gilles Seralini’s studies. Seralini and his colleagues at the University
of Caen in France reproduced Monsanto’s own safety trials for GMO maize.
However, Seralini continued the study for the entire lifespan of the laboratory
animals. Monsanto only published studies conducted over a three month period.
Seralini discovered a direct correlation between GM maize consumption with
kidney and liver diseases, hormonal disturbance and cancer. Later
investigations revealed that a sustained effort by Monsanto lobbyists and the
food industry influenced the study’s retraction from the journal Food and
Chemical Toxicology. Subsequently, the study was republished by another journal
and now remains on the scientific record. Recently, a French court uncovered the
original author behind the fraud allegations against Seralini’s research, which
led to the retraction. He was identified as Forbes Magazine journalist and
former FDA official, Henry I Miller, a former tobacco lobbyist with a history of
denying smoking’s association to cancer and heart disease.[3]

 

Again, on September 22, 2016, a criminal court in Paris found another pro-GMO
advocate and former president of the Biomolecular Engineering Commission, which
assesses GMO safety in France, guilty of forgery in order to defame and even
frame Prof. Seralini of criminal activity.[4]

 

The entire pseudo-scientism behind corporate sponsored GMO and pesticide
trials to twist data results to support Big Ag’s version of safety is an
illusion. Even when their own research is proven faulty and corrupt, no
explanations are given. Intellectual honesty, courage and integrity are
completely absent from not only the large chemical and food companies but from
all their supporters in the universities, academies, the scientific blogosphere,
and public relations firms and quasi think tanks relied upon for lobbying
efforts on behalf of Big Ag.

 

Today the lesson is clear that money, power and influence sustain the lies
and deceit of private industry. Take on any powerful interest and Big Ag will
come after you.

 

Big Ag has turned the clock back to the era of the tobacco industry’s legacy.
Decades ago, regardless of how many lawsuits were filed showing tobacco’s
causal relationship to cancer, emphysema, heart disease and nicotine addiction,
none were won. Years later, and only with the emergence of an executive within
the tobacco industry turned whistleblower, Jeffrey Wigand, did the government
learn that the heads of the tobacco corporations had lied before Congress. Even
the FDA possessed proprietary information from the tobacco industry itself
proving smoking’s health risks yet refused to educate the public.

 

During the past six decades, corporations and their hired lobbyists and PR
firms have launched multi-million dollar public campaigns, largely organized and
funded in the shadows, to attack critics and activist opponents of DDT, dioxin,
saccharine, aspartame, the industrial meat industry, fluoride, psychiatric
drugs, hydro-fracking, sugar, vaccines, alcohol, nuclear power, and other toxic
substances. Regardless of the health concerns and risks of these chemicals and
activities, offensive corporate behavior designed to ridicule, demonize and
systematically marginalize opponents is similar and taken from the same
playbook. Yet in every case it has been the independent scientific research
relied upon by the critics that have been proven correct. Over the decades
corporate funded science, the media and the private industries themselves have
been proven wrong consistently. The agri-industry’s science is faith based and
full of contradictions and unsound claims. Unfortunately government regulators
are slow to act on the facts. Dangerous products remain for public consumption
for many years before resolute action is taken to ban them. In the meantime,
millions of people have been directly harmed or killed by pervasive scientific
fraud. Worse, no one in private industry who is caught for perpetuating
scientific and medical deception and fraud is held accountable. Corporations
settle out of court, pay fines that are a fraction of their revenues, and remain
in favor with Wall Street and investors. And those at the federal level are
protected and concealed from prosecution altogether.

 

The history of bad science propagated by private firms has always shown to be
profit over health. Inevitably it is self-educated citizens and the victims of
corporate greed and profit, not the federal government, who unveil the lies. It
wasn’t the federal agencies who raised alarm over DDT’s dangers but a marine
biologist, Rachel Carson, acting upon her own convictions, who uncovered the
plot in her seminal book Silent Spring. Over the years, many advocates
for public safety—Ralph Nader, Jim Turner, Sydney Wolf, Michael Jacobson, Ronnie
Cummins, Andrew Wakefield and many others—have battled the righteous struggle to
protect consumers against dangerous and unsafe drugs, chemicals and products
that the federal government more often than not defends and protects on behalf
of corporate interests.

 

In all such cases, proponents of consumer safety and health have had to
struggle against an army of lobbyists, consultants, think tanks, public
relations firms and a complicit media with the wealth and influence to convince
people that their fears are unfounded and they should wholeheartedly embrace
toxic substances. Not unlike the medical establishment, the industrial food
industry has created a vast network of allies in all walks of life and within
government to promote its cause. Realizing the sheer depth and breadth of this
network and the endless money pumped into its public relations machine to keep
the myths of GMOs alive and front and center is not only deeply disturbing but
also rather impressive. It is a leviathan of enormous scale and influence. And
there is little wonder that even with the most damning scientific evidence to
discredit anything of long-term value regarding GMOs, virtually nothing is done
at the federal level to protect the public.

 

After reviewing hundreds of research studies and articles, dozens of
interviews, and numerous conversations, we are convinced that science
overwhelming supports a cautionary position about the safety and promises of
GMOs. This research is all in the public domain which begs the questions, why
is the federal government reluctant to take action? And why is the chemical
agricultural and Big Food industry in complete denial to accept the risks of its
products, many which are known carcinogens?

 

For example, last year, we were made aware of a mother lode of formerly
sealed Monsanto documents the EPA was forced to release through a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request only after considerable political pressure was
applied. The documents, over 10,000 pages worth, provide clear and unequivocal
proof that Monsanto has known for many years the serious carcinogenic risks and
environmental dangers associated with glyphosate (Roundup) before any GMO seed
ever reached the market. Today, approximately 80% of all products with corn and
soy on grocery shelves are laced with glyphosate. Monsanto, similar to the
tobacco industry, concealed and covered up the health risks about their flagship
product for several decades. And even more egregious, the federal EPA has known
this for years and still sat on the damning documents.

 

Our thorough summary about the release of these Monsanto documents was
published in The Ecologist. However mainstream media has completely ignored and
denied the public urgency in this treasure trove of data that damns practically
everything positive Monsanto and the USDA has ever stated about glyphosate’s
safety for animal and human consumption and the environment.[5]

 

Whatever scientific integrity these people may have once held, it has been
compromised in a Faustian deal with private financial interests. GMO science has
become a mad science, a form of pathology that hides behind the illusion of
being objective.

 

Instead, independent researchers, their citizen supporters and anti-GMO
activists are venomously attacked by every means available. Conveniently
anonymous Wikipedia editors are clearly advocates of the health and food
industries as any alternative doctor or health practitioner can attest when she
or he attempts to change false information on their profiles. And now many
otherwise independent liberal, independent media sources, such as Mother Jones
and Alternet, are increasingly following suit. It pays to play the game with the
powers that have money.

 

So who are these people behind the efforts to suppress opposition? Who are
the real trolls doing agribusiness’ dirty work? When we pull back the curtain,
the wizards behind the chemical food industry who control the message through
the media through a well-oiled public relations network are exposed.

 

 

The Genetic Literacy Project and University of California at
Davis

 

The chemical agricultural industry relies upon American universities in many
ways. Collaborations between corporations, such as Monsanto, Syngenta and
DuPont, and university agricultural departments are common place and this has
been the increasing trend in the academic community since the 1980s and the
emergence of biotechnology. What is more recent has been a new trend whereby
universities across the U.S. participate directly or indirectly in the marketing
promotion of GMOs. In effect, some universities now act as private industry’s
lobbyists. And this becomes a greater scandal when the university is a public
institution receiving public funding. Such is the case of the University of
California at Davis and its prestigious agriculture department.

 

To date, US Right to Know has filed seventeen public records requests, per
the California Public Records Act, to receive information about the funding of
questionable activities that go beyond serving public education and only benefit
private interests such as Monsanto.[6]

 

Among these lobbying groups operating on the UC campus is the Genetic
Literacy Project (GLP).[7] Over the years GLP has gained recognition as a
credible and reliable source of information about GMOs. It is one of the most
frequently quoted sources of information by pro-GMO advocates and journalists.
However in our opinion, GLP is perhaps one of the most spurious, financially
compromised and scientifically illiterate organizations, founded and funded for
the sole purpose of disseminating false pro-GMO propaganda that distorts peer
reviewed literature in order to prop up public support for GMOs and genetic
engineering in general.[8]

 

The Project has become the GMO industry’s clearing house for public relations
to spin science into advertising, propaganda and character assassination of GM
opponents. It is also the primary site now sourcing the review of 1,700-plus
studies favoring GMO safety. This review of over 1,700 studies, also known as
the Nicolia Review, is the most cited source making the broadest claims for GMO
safety. Yet over the years, many independent, industry free and unbiased
researchers have reviewed the Nicolia Review and their conclusions are far from
what private industry wants us to believe. Many of these studies are tangential
at best and barely take notice of anything related to crop genetic engineering
or GMOs. Many are also completely irrelevant from a value-added perspective
because they have nothing to do with GMO safety whatsoever. Furthermore, other
studies in this collection conclude the exact opposite and prove GMOs
environmental and animal and human health risks. When Nicolia published his
review, heintentionally omitted and ignored scientifically sound research that
directly investigated GMO safety as a prime target that found convincing
evidence supporting GMOs risks. For example, one peer-reviewed publication by
over 300 independent scientists declared that there is no scientific consensus
that GM crops and food are safe. Curiously, there is no mention of this study in
the Nicolia Review.[9]

 

The Genetic Literacy Project is not a scientific project in any proper sense
of the term. Its founder and head Jon Entine has no formal academic scientific
background. Nor has he ever worked in an academic or corporate research driven
environment before crawling up the top of the ladder to become one of the GMO
industry’s leading PR gurus and propagandists. GLP will not release its exact
funding sources but Entine repeatedly claims that 97% of its funding derives
from non-partisan, independent foundations.[10]

 

This might sound impressive, but lobbying and the channeling of funds has
changed dramatically during the past decade. A new and more popular generation
of lobbying practices and ways to avoid K Street regulations, has reshaped the
means by which public relations, propaganda, and economic and political
pressures are enacted. This new model of lobbying has become an ever-spreading
fungus of think tanks, foundations, associations, and nonprofit entities, often
with impressive names, that serve no other purpose aside from steering funds
between various entities as lobbying payoffs. For an excellent understanding
about how this new form of shadow lobbying network operates, I would recommend
George Mason University Professor Janine Wedel’s publication Unaccountable:
How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom and Security.

 

It is no secret that Monsanto and Big Ag, and more recently the USDA, have
significant undue influence over all of UC-Davis agricultural department and
divisions. The bogus economic studies trumped up by the Big Ag cartel to defeat
California’s GMO labeling bill Prop 37 were performed at this university. Gary
Ruskin who has been filing FOIA requests has publicly expressed deep concerns
that UC Davis has been acting as a financial conduit for private corporations
and interests to develop and launch PR attacks against academics, professors,
activists and other institutions who oppose those same corporate interests.
Agro-ecologist Dr. Don Lotter, who was interviewed for our documentary Seeds of
Death in 2011, was an employed scientist at UC-Davis’ agriculture school. In
2009, Dr Lotter published a paper in the peer-reviewed Journal of Sociology of
Agriculture and Food that presented a “damning case against genetically modified
foods, saying the technology is based on obsolete science, that biotechnology
companies such as Monsanto have too much influence on government regulators and
“public” universities, and that university scientists are ignoring the health
and environmental risks of GM crops.” Lotter was subsequently forced out of the
University for his truth telling.[11]

 

Like many plant scientists who have awakened to the serious risks GMO crops
pose to the future food security of the nation and planet, Lotter advocates for
agro-ecological methods in farming recommended by the International Assessment
of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Some 60
governments signed IAASTD’s final report in April 2008, in Johannesburg, South
Africa. The IAASTD report, the first of its kind ever produced, calls for a
fundamental change in farming practices, in order to address soaring food
prices, hunger, social inequities, and environmental disasters. It acknowledges
that GM crops are highly controversial. IAASTD director, Robert Watson, chief
scientist at the UK food and farming department DEFRA, said much more research
was needed to prove whether GM crops offer any benefits and do not harm human
health and the environment. Biotech companies Monsanto, Syngenta, and BASF
withdrew from IAASTD because it did not back GMOs as a solution to reduce
poverty and hunger. The comprehensive report was produced by over 400 scientists
from around the world over a 3-year period. The study was sponsored by a number
of major international organizations, including the United Nations, the World
Bank, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, and UNESCO.Not surprisingly and
conspicuously, the United States was one of only three nations present at the
IAASTD conference that refused to sign the accord.[12]

 

 

Jon Entine

 

Jon Entine is a perfect choice to head up the GLP’s well-funded propaganda
operations that specializes in distributing disinformation. He is a former TV
news writer and producer for ABC and NBC. Currently this non-scientist is also
senior fellow at University of California at Davis’ Institute for Food and
Agriculture Literacy (IFAL). IFAL is another entity that has remained secretive
and non-transparent, refusing to reveal its funding sources. Freedom of
Information Act requests were filed to force the University to reveal its
sources. But these FOIA requests continue to be thwarted.[13]

 

Entine is a shameless hack for mainstream big industry as is demonstrated by
his record of being paid to protect dangerous and controversial products. An
investigative report in the Boston Globe revealed that Monsanto executives
recruited prestigious professors to write favorable papers about their products,
namely GMOs and chemical pesticides.[14] Entine publicly admitted to Bloomberg
that he has helped edit their work in the past. Yet, Entine doesn’t limit
himself to GMOs. He has viciously attacked a prestigious Harvard scientist and
climate change expert, Naomi Orestes, who opposes nuclear power. He supports,
without reservation, the use of neonicitinoid pesticides that have been
repeatedly shown to contribute to honeybee colony collapse. In fact, Entine has
written that neonics benefit bees in his attack on European nations that have
formally banned neonics. He denies that phthalates, an endocrine hormone
disrupter banned in Europe, are health hazards. He has supported another
endocrine disruptor BPA, also partially banned in Europe. Entine defends
hydraulic fracking and has consistently attacked Cornell University scientists
who are perhaps the world’s experts in hydro-fracking’s risks and its most harsh
critics. This list goes on and on.[15]

 

 

A Case Example of Public Deception about GMOs

 

In June 2016, 108 Nobel laureates signed a letter against Greenpeace and the
international organization’s opposition to genetically engineered Golden Rice.
This rice, which has yet to be brought to market, was formulated in the belief
that it would significantly reduce illnesses associated with Vitamin A
deficiency which is primarily a problem for the poorest people on the planet,
primarily Africa and Southeast Asia. There has been considerable criticism s of
the letter. On the one hand, the argument doesn’t follow that every one of these
laureates supports all GMOs in general. Nevertheless, the Nobel letter has
become the gold standard of agribusiness’ industry’s PR machine which
propagandized the letter as it fed the letter to the mainstream media.
Consequently, the news blared that the laureates are in agreement that all GMOs
are safe. But nothing could be further from the truth.[16]

 

Looking at this more deeply, the Nobel laureates’ letter has an interesting
gensis. Its originator was Sir Richard Roberts, who received the Nobel Prize for
discovering genetic sequences known as introns. Sir Roberts currently serves as
Chief Science Officer at New England Biolabs which is involved in GMO research.
Roberts also happens to have earned a somewhat controversial reputation as a
leading promulgator of GMOs in India and has been accused of unfounded
exaggeration of food shortage threats to the lives of millions of people unless
there is wholesale, uncritical adoption of GMOs.[17] At this moment, lawsuits
remain pending against Monsanto for violating India’s regulations and the
national government is in session to possibly ban Monsanto’s GMO cotton. GMOs
have been a nightmare for the Indian subcontinent; Monsanto knows this and is
already making efforts to step further away from India as a market for its
genetically engineered seeds. Forbes magazine recently profiled Sir Robert’s
most recent mission to promulgate GMOs to the world religious leaders including
Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama.[18]

 

For many academics possessing actual experience in agricultural sciences and
developmental conditions in third world nations, the laureates’ letter was an
outrage. According to professor Devon Pena at the University of Washington, and
an expert in indigenous agriculture, the laureates’ letter is “shameful.” He
noted that the signatories were “mostly white men of privilege with little
background in risk science, few with a background in toxicology studies, and
certainly none with knowledge of the indigenous agro-ecological alternatives.
All of you should be stripped of your Nobels.” In fact one “signatory”, Alfred
Gilman, was already dead. And none of the Nobel signatories have any background
in agriculture, which led a professor of physical sciences and statistics at
UC-Berkeley to write “Science is supposed to be ‘show me’, not ‘trust me’… Nobel
Prize or not.”[19]

 

So, how did Sir Roberts, gather 107 signatures from Nobel laureates? The
press conference that first announced this PR achievement was directly connected
to Monsanto’s former PR man, Jay Byrne, now head of the biotech industry PR firm
v-Fluence. In addition, the laureates’ letter was originally housed at the
website, supportprecisionagriculture.org. Curiously its sister website,
supportprecisionagriculture.com finds its home with the Genetic Literacy
Project. Jon Entine is a close associate of Byrne, having been the editor of
Byrne’s book “Let Them Eat Precaution,” published by the pro-business and
conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.[20]

 

And there is one further caveat to the Nobel laureate letter. According to
the International Rice Research Institute, Golden Rice is not ready for release.
It has yet to be tested for toxicity and has yet to prove efficacy in combating
health conditions related to vitamin A deficiency.[21] This was the primary
reason behind Greenpeace’s opposition to its release on the market. Greenpeace
adopted a precautionary stance. Nevertheless the GMO industry with the
assistance of the GLP turned this into an opportunity for a publicity
misinformation stunt to silence one of GMOs largest critics.

 

 

American Council on Science and Health

 

The Genetic Literacy Project is a key collaborator with another food industry
front organization, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). But ACSH
has very little do with actual science of health. It has been described by the
independent corporate financial watchdog organization Sourcewatch as a thinly
veiled corporate front that holds “a generally apologetic stance regarding
virtually every other health and environmental hazard produced by modern
industry, accepting corporate funding from Coca-Cola, Syngenta, Proctor Gamble,
Kellogg, General Mills, Pepsico, and the American Beverage Association, among
others.”[22] ACSH is also in favor of toxic pesticides, the use of biphenol A in
products and hydrofracking. It is also closely aligned with pseudo-medical
front organizations that criticize alternative and natural health modalities.
Among ACSH’s board of scientific advisors is controversial Quackbuster founder,
Steven Barrett.

 

The extremist Koch Brother’s American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has
also been associated with the ACSH. This information was leaked to Mother Jones
and subsequently, ACSH’s executive director Dr. Gilbert Ross did not deny the
veracity of the leaked information. Remarkably, Ross was convicted of scamming
Medicaid for $8 million in 2005, had his medical license revoked, and served
half of a 46 month prison. He now has his license back and is heading one of the
more powerful food lobbying organizations in the nation.[23]

 

 

 

Ketchum and GMO Answers

 

Ketchum is the principle public relations firm for Monsanto, Dow Chemical and
mega grocery manufacturers such as Kraft. The GMO and food industries are among
Ketchum’s special focus areas. Ketchum is owned by the corporate giant Omnicom
and has a checkered history that includes unsavory clients and engaging in
questionable legal activities. It spearheaded the public relations efforts to
improve the image of Honduras following the Obama administration’s backed coup
in 2009. A Mother Jones investigative report in 2010 uncovered Ketchum’s
espionage activities targeted against Greenpeace on behalf of Dow Chemical.

 

In 2013, Ketchum launched GMO Answers, an interactive, personalized website
to convince the public to accept GM foods and produce. According to Gary
Ruskin’s investigations at US Right to Know, GMO Answers claims the public’s
questions and concerns about GMOs are answered by qualified scientists and
professors. However it was uncovered that much of the pro-GMO materials is
ghostwritten by Ketchum employees or independent contractors.

 

In an interview with US Right to Know founder, Gary Ruskin, Ketchum was
identified as recruiting an army of journalists, trolls and private industry
compromised scientists and academics to defend GMOs, pesticides and processed
foods containing GMO ingredients.[25]

 

 

Cornell Alliance for Science

 

Many pro-GMO front organizations frame themselves as scientific organizations
to seduce people into believing they are engaged in an actual scientific
inquiry. In fact, these groups are nothing more than well-funded propaganda
machines devoted to the distribution of misinformation and faux research in
order to promote the GMO agriculture agenda. Such organizations are now
commonplace in the corporate scientific community and medical establishment.

 

One such GMO public relations front is the Alliance for Science at Cornell
University (AFS). As reported by GM Watch, AFS does not conduct any agricultural
research, yet its tentacles reach far and wide largely to attack GMO opponents.
Similar to the Genetic Literacy Project at University of California at Davis
agriculture department, the AFS makes the unfounded claim to represent
“balanced” research about genetic engineered products. One of its missions is
to influence the next generation of agricultural scientists to embrace GMO
science. For AFS, as for Bill Gates, GMOS are the only food solution for Africa
in the future. Recently, organic farmers in New York mobilized to pressure the
Trustees of Cornell University to evict AFS’ presence and influence over the
school’s prestigious College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.[26]

 

Several incidents of protest against anti-GMO organizations and activists now
reveal that AFS is nothing more than a propaganda campaign to attack and
discredit opposition. Two of its most notable targets have been the non-profit
organization US Right to Know in Oakland CA and the public appearances by the
international organic food activist Vandana Shiva. US Right to Know is devoted
to exposing what the food industry and Big Agriculture corporations such as
Monsanto don’t want the public to know. AFS waslaunched in 2014 after the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation granted AFS $5.6 million in start-up money.[27]

 

 

Conclusions

 

The chemical industry’s GMO tobacco science aside, what is most disturbing is
that the public has become the victim of one of the greatest deceptions in our
midst that will have untold detrimental consequences in the future. The public
has blindly trusted the statements of our government agencies —
particularly the FDA and USDA that has been headed by former Monsanto personnel
since Clinton’s first term. Our legislators and mainstream media profit from the
industrial food firms and associations, that GMOs are safe and are saving the
planet by reducing hunger. Nothing can be further from the truth as we witness
more and more nations, particularly in the developing world, rejecting the GMO
agricultural paradigm.

 

Whenever the truth is told, no matter the amount of prevailing documentation
and expert witness presented, there is an enormous push back by agriculture
industry spin doctors, hired professional PR firms, and internet trolls paid to
promulgate lies, misinformation and character assassination of all anti-GMO
advocates. There is no honor, no responsibility to accept reliable and
trustworthy data or any science contrary to agribusiness interests. These
corporations make every effort to reduce the urgency of their products’ health
risks in order to protect the guilty.

 

So far, the war of facts about GMO safety has had little impact in altering
or shifting national policy. This is because of the overarching economic
interests of large corporations that must protect the enormous financial rewards
reaped from false advertising, deception, misinformation, and character
assassinations of their opponents. The success of Big Agriculture’s public
relations strategy and operations has been fear, intimidation, and character
assassination. It has never been a campaign based upon scientific facts, but
only scientific deception, spin and outright falsehoods. Unfortunately,
mainstream media continually laps up this misinformation while ignoring any
contrary independent research.

 

There must be a public debate, on a nationally recognized level, of
independent GMO research, not compromised by commercial or ideological
interests, to commence and lay to rest GMO safety issues once and for all. This
is the only way that the truth will finally come out and the propaganda control
by GMO agribusiness will be broken

 

 

Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the
Progressive Radio and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and
genomic industries. Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s
longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a
multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary films, including Seeds
of Death about GMOs and Poverty Inc. More at the Progressive Radio
Network

 

NOTES

 

[1] “Despite ‘Cloak of Moral Necessity,’ Report Shows Big Ag
Can’t Feed the World”
http://commondreams.org/news/2016/10/05/despite-cloak-moral-
necessity-report-shows-big-ag-cant-feed-world

[2] “The BGH Scandals” PR Watch. Volume 7, No. 4, 2000.
https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/rbgh/akrepart1.php

[3]
http://www.gmoseralini.org/seralinis-team-wins-defamation-and-forgery-court-
cases-on-gmo-and-pesticide-research/

[4] “Seralini wins again in court against his attackers” GM Watch, Sepetmber
26, 2016. http://gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/17236

[5] Gale R, Null G. “Monsanto Knew All Along. Secret Studies Reveal the Truth
of Roundup Toxicity,” The Ecologist. September 18, 2015.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2985458/
monsanto_knew_all_along_secret_studies_reveal_the_truth_of_roundup_toxicity.html

[6]
https://usrtk.org/news-releases/uc-davis-sued-for-failing-to-release-public-
records-on-gmos-and-pesticides/

[7] https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org

[8] Katherine Paul, “How Monsanto solicited academics to bolster their
pro-GMO propaganda using taxpayer dollars,” Alternet. October 15, 2015.
http://www.alternet.org/food/monsanto-scandal-biotech-giant-solicited-academics-
fight-their-pro-gmo-war

[9] Antoniou M, Fagan M, Robinson C. “GMO Myths and Truths” 2015 second
edition. http://earthopensource.org/gmomythsandtruths/download/

[10] Heyes JD. “Who’s funding Jon Entine’s Genetic Literacy Project’s pro-GMO
propaganda?” Natural News, April 6, 2016.
http://www.naturalnews.com/053565_Jon_Entine_character_assassin_funding_sources.
html

[11] see documentary film Seeds of Death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6OxbpLwEjQ

[12] “Scientist jeopardizes career by publishing paper criticizing GM foods”.
The Organic and Non-GMO Report, 2009.
http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/nov09/scientists_criticizing_gm_foods.php< /p>

[13] http://www.truthwiki.org/Jon_Entine/#exactline

[14] Laura Krantz. “Harvard Professor failed to disclose connection.” Boston
Globe. October 1, 2015.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/01/harvard-professor-failed-disclose-
monsanto-connection-paper-touting-gmos/lLJipJQmI5WKS6RAgQbnrN/story.html

[15] US Right to Know. http://usrtk.org/hall-of-
shame/jon-entine-the-chemical-industrys-master-messenger/

[16]
http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/17077-pro-gmo-campaign-exploits-nobel-
laureates-to-attack-greenpeace-and-fool-the-people

[17] Ibid.

[18] “Nobel laureate Sir Richard Roberts to ask religious and government
leaders to support GMOs” Forbes. September 21, 2016.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2016/09/21/nobel-laureate-sir-richard
-roberts-to-ask-religious-and-government-leaders-to-support-gmos/#695a848e5cc8

[19]
http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/17077-pro-gmo-campaign-exploits-nobel-
laureates-to-attack-greenpeace-and-fool-the-people

[20] Ibid.

[21] “Who is to blame for the failure of GMO golden rice?” Independent
Science News. August 10, 2016.
https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/millions-spent-who-is-to-blame-
failure-gmo-golden-rice/

[22] http://www.truthwiki.org/jon_entine/

[23] Bill Hogan. “Paging Dr. Ross,” Mother Jones. November 2005.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/11/paging-dr-ross

[24] James Ridgeway. “Black Ops, Green Groups” Mother Jones. April 11, 2008.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2008/04/exclusive-cops-and-former-secret-
service-agents-ran-black-ops-green-groups?

[25] Interview with Gary Ruskin. Progressive Radio Network. September 27,
2016. https://prn.live/progressive-commentary-hour-09-27-16/

[26] Ibid.

[27] “Gates Foundation Backed Pro-GMO Cornell Alliance for Science on the
Attack,” Corporate Crime Reporter. March 5, 2015.
http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/gates-foundation-backed-pro-gmo-
cornell-alliance-science-attack/