The Smoking Gun Media Failed to
Address — Funds from Monsanto Hidden?
October 07, 2015
Story at-a-glance
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Industries making the heaviest use of the
“third-party approach,” in which front groups,
academics, and “independent” researchers are used to
promote an agenda, tend to be industries that are
harmful to the public
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One recent conflict-of-interest scandal involves
Monsanto and University of Florida professor Kevin
Folta, a vocal advocate of genetically modified
organisms (GMOs)
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The most flagrant piece of evidence against Folta
shows he not only solicited funds from Monsanto, he
did so with intent to hide the financial connection
between them
By Dr. Mercola
Conflicts of interest are nothing new, but these days they
have become more or less routine — an integral part of how
entire industries operate.
The industries making the heaviest use of the "third-party
approach," in which
front groups, academics, and "independent" researchers are
used to promote an agenda, tend to be industries that are more
inherently harmful to the public.
Notorious examples include the tobacco, chemical, food
additives, and biotechnology industries.
A previous article1
in Take Part lists nine industry-funded groups that promote an
industry's selfish agenda, even though you'd be hard-pressed to
realize it based on names like Center for Food Integrity, and
the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance.
Monsanto, lobbies for and shapes public opinion through an
entire network of front groups, including the Grocery
Manufacturers Association (GMA), the American Council on Science
and Health, and the Center for Consumer Freedom, just to name a
few.
Kevin Folta — Poster Boy for Industry-Funded Third-Party Experts
One of the most recent conflict-of-interest scandals
involving Monsanto and University of Florida professor Kevin
Folta, a vocal advocate of
genetically modified organisms (GMOs), was recently
highlighted by Nature2
and The New York Times.3,4
Folta, who has vehemently denied ever receiving any money
from Monsanto, was caught having been less than forthright about
his connections to the company when his email correspondence was
released in response to a freedom of information (FOIA) request
by US Right to Know.5
In August of last year, Folta did in fact receive a $25,000
unrestricted grant from Monsanto, and Folta wrote back to a
Monsanto executive saying: "I am grateful for this
opportunity and promise a solid return on the investment."
However, despite a rare flurry of media attention, none of
the mainstream media outlets have addressed the most flagrant
piece of evidence against Folta, showing that not only did he
solicit these funds from Monsanto, he appeared to do so with
intent to hide the financial connection between them.
Keith Kloor, who initially broke the story about Folta’s
connections to Monsanto in Nature,6
may in fact have been trying to soften the scandal.
As revealed by US Right to Know,7
Kloor is looked upon as an ally of Monsanto’s propaganda
machine, and it appears Folta or the University of Florida were
the ones who released the emails to Kloor in the first place,
likely as a form of media preemption.
They probably did so because they knew it would soften the
blow to have an industry advocate break the story.
The New York Times8
posted a long list of
emails between Folta and Monsanto, obtained through the FOIA
request. I encourage you to read these emails to see for
yourself how Monsanto's PR firms use "independent" scientists to
further the industry's version of science.
Folta's Emails Show Intent to Hide Financial Ties to Monsanto
In a July 15, 2014 email9
to Keith Reding,10
the Biotech Regulatory Policy Lead at Monsanto, Folta writes:
"Keith, this is a real winner. It will take a huge
amount of time, but I think it will have a lot of impact...
Thank you for this opportunity. It was a good time to think
about how to solve the problem and devise a clever
solution."
To solve the "biotech communications problem," Folta lays out
a three-tiered program that includes training the trainers,
engaging the public, and on-campus training at the University of
Florida.
The total budget proposed by Folta for the implementation of
this pro-industry agenda was $25,000 — a budget that was indeed
approved.
However, while his public defense for his lack of
transparency has been spun in a number of ways, no one has
pinned him down on the following point: Why did he
propose the funds be given in such a way as to remain
UNDISCLOSED?
The very last paragraph in his proposal for this program
(page 104 in the emails published by The New York Times),
Folta writes:
"The total budget is $25,000. If funded directly to
the program as a SHARE contribution (essentially
unrestricted funds) it is not subject to IDC and is not in a
'conflict-of-interest' account.
In other words, SHARE contributions are not publicly
noted. This eliminates the potential concern of the funding
organization influencing the message."
Financial Ties Are Hidden to Hide Message Source
That last paragraph clearly shows that Folta is the one
offering the suggestion to hide the funds. He had no intention
of disclosing his financial ties to Monsanto. It would appear he
purposely solicited the funds with intent to hide the source.
While it may not legally qualify as money laundering, the
effect is essentially the same. This email shows how the
shell game works, and it reveals a disturbing reality: simply by
moving money around via certain channels, it allows the
"third-party" to appear as independent and not funded by
industry.
It reminds me a bit of the situation with the Grocery
Manufacturers Association,11
which in 2013 was sued by Washington State Attorney General Bob
Ferguson for money laundering after it illegally collected and
spent more than $7 million in donations from its members to
fight GMO labeling in Washington, all while hiding the
identity of its big business contributors.
Folta's incriminating email needs to be addressed and
answered, because it shows a premeditated attempt to hide a
financial contribution from the industry.
Why hide it at all? Because everyone knows that with the
money comes influence. Folta himself promised a "return on
investment" in writing.
The influence of the funding source is not an assumption —
it's been scientifically investigated, and studies show that
"gifts" from drug companies indeed influence the prescribing
behavior of physicians, for example. And this influence was
generated on amounts far smaller than Folta's grant. The
benefits of industry relationships in science are quite similar
to those in politics.
Studies have also shown that the
funding source has a significant influence on the outcome of
research.
Not only did Folta tell Monsanto12
he would "write whatever you like," he also apparently used the
answers written by Monsanto's PR firm Ketchum to answer
questions posed on the GMO Answers website, in which he was
featured as a non-biased independent scientist.
Nature,13
which broke the Folta story, made it seem as though he'd ignored
the canned answers provided for him by Ketchum. However,
according to The New York Times,14
Folta often did use the Ketchum's answers, nearly
verbatim, noting he now says that doing so was "a
mistake," and "absolutely not the right thing."
As noted by The New York Times, "... the emails
show how academics have shifted from researchers to actors in
lobbying and corporate public relations campaigns."
Indeed, Folta's emails show that industry moguls like
Monsanto can (and do) dump money into public universities
without ever having to disclose it. And scientists are in on the
game, allowing and even recommending the money be "laundered" in
such a way as to keep the fake veil of "independence" needed to
maintain public trust.
Mainstream Media Finally Taking Notice of the Problem
The undisclosed recruitment of academics and scientists from
universities such as Harvard, Cornell, the University of
Florida, Penn State, and others is finally starting to gain some
serious attention by the media, with critical articles being
published not just by the New York Times, but also by Bloomberg,15
Chicago Tribune,16
The StarPhoenix,17
and The Boston Globe.18
"The company's role isn't noted in the series of
articles published in December by the Genetic Literacy
Project, a nonprofit group that says its mission is 'to
disentangle science from ideology.' The group said that such
a disclosure isn't necessary because the the company didn't
pay the authors and wasn't involved in writing or editing
the articles," Bloomberg writes.
As reported by both Bloomberg and Mother Jones19
— the latter of which includes an informative summary of the
released emails so far — two years ago Monsanto's head of
strategic engagement, Eric Sachs, asked a number of scientists
to write a series of "policy briefs" relating to biotechnology.
The topics were chosen based on "their influence on public
policy, GM crop regulation, and consumer acceptance." According
to one of Monsanto's emails:
"The key to success is participation by all of you -
recognized leaders with the knowledge, reputation, and
communication experience needed to communicate
authoritatively with the target groups."
Less than a year later, the Genetic Literacy Project's
website ran a series of articles that, according to Mother
Jones "look remarkably like the ones proposed by Sachs,
though no involvement with Monsanto is disclosed in any of
them." The articles in question were written by Kevin Folta,
Anthony Shelton, an entomologist and professor at Cornell;
Calestous Juma, a professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School
of Government; Peter W.B. Phillips, a professor at the
University of Saskatchewan; and David Shaw, chief research
officer at Mississippi State University.
Undisclosed Recruitment of Scientists Suggests Monsanto Cannot
Defend Its Own Science
As in Folta's case, email exchanges suggest that the papers
ultimately penned by these academics were less than
independently conceived... As noted by The Boston Globe:20
"A Harvard Kennedy School professor wrote a widely
disseminated policy paper last year in support of
genetically modified organisms at the behest of seed giant
Monsanto, without disclosing his connection, e-mails show.
Monsanto not only suggested the topic to professor Calestous
Juma. It went so far as to provide a summary of what the
paper could say and a suggested headline. The company then
connected the professor with a marketing company to pump it
out over the Internet as part of Monsanto's strategy to win
over the public and lawmakers..."
Like Folta, Juma defends his actions saying he was not paid
by Monsanto, and that he used material from a book he wrote on
the topic of his article. Yet one has to ask, if these
scientists are indeed independent experts, why are they being
spoon-fed by Monsanto and their PR machines? It just doesn't
look good, and it's really difficult to defend your independence
when you've been given exact parameters to follow by a company's
public relations outfit...
In response to these findings, Bloomberg quotes Scott Faber,
executive director of Just Label It as saying:
"It says something that Monsanto can't defend the
safety of their own products, that they have to resort to
hiring a PR consultant and get academics to spin the
science."
And, as noted by The StarPhoenix:21
"[Gary] Ruskin, whose group [US Right to Know]
accessed thousands of pages of emails and other documents
linking the scientists and Monsanto, said North Americans
should be able to trust their top university scientists, and
that's not possible when significant connections to
corporations such as Monsanto are not disclosed."
The Questionable History of Monsanto's PR Firm Ketchum
In one email,22
Folta refers to Monsanto's PR firm Ketchum as his "friends." But
Ketchum is a
PR group with a questionable history; they're not exactly
the people you want partnered with university academics teaching
your kids. According to Ketchum, it was hired by the Council for
Biotechnology Information (a biotech front group) to improve
GMOs' public image and "balance" the online conversation.
US Right to Know previously called attention to a video ad in
which the firm spoke about doubling positive GMO coverage using
online social media monitoring — a tactic that smacks of
internet "sockpuppets" — fake internet personas who interject
themselves into social media conversations to steer the debate.
Ketchum also created the GMO Answers website, in which
professors at public universities (including Folta) answer GMO
questions from the public — supposedly without remuneration from
the industry, although the email exchanges between Ketchum and
Folta reveal the firm supplies prewritten answers to the
questions they ask these "independent experts" to address.
In 2008, Mother Jones23
implicated Ketchum in an espionage effort against nonprofit
organizations, including the Center for Food Safety and Friends
of the Earth, and in 2010 Greenpeace sued the firm "for hiring
former executives at a private security firm to spy on the
environmental group from 1998 to 2000, and to perform a range of
'clandestine and unlawful' actions, including trespassing and
stealing documents, in order to undermine the group's
anti-pollution efforts against the chemical industry," Telesur
TV reports.24
Ketchum is also a "disaster PR expert" that does work for a
number of politicians and world leaders with image problems,
including Russian President Vladimir Putin,25
as well as corrupt governments around the world. As recently
reported by Telesur TV:26
"The Honduran government will pay controversial
U.S.-based public relations firm Ketchum close to US$500,000
over the next year to give its embattled government a
makeover after a multimillion-dollar corruption scandal
sparked months of popular protests calling for the
president's resignation. Ketchum will provide crisis
management and reputation improvement services and report to
President Juan Hernandez's sister Hilda Hernandez, who
currently serves as Honduras' minister of strategy
communications..."
FP1 Strategies — Monsanto PR Firm Lobbying to Put an End to GMO
Labeling Efforts
FP1 Strategies — another Monsanto PR firm — was co-founded by
Danny Diaz, who was recently brought on to manage Jeb Bush's
presidential bid. One of Diaz's previous victories include a
successful campaign to prevent the restriction of
over-the-counter sale of cough medicine used in meth labs.27
The firm has also been accused of using sneaky tactics
against farm workers pushing for wage increases. FP1 is involved
in the Grocery Manufacturers Association's (GMA) lobbying
efforts for the Pompeo bill,
HR 1599, which preempts states' rights to create their own
GMO food labeling laws.
Efforts to Educate Senators About the DARK Act Appears to Be
Working
With regards to HR 1599, congratulations are in order,
although we're certainly not out of the woods yet. In previous
articles, I've urged you to speak to your Senators about HR
1599, and your donations have also allowed the Organic Consumers
Association (OCA) to travel across the country to meet with
Senators about the contents of this horrendous bill.
Not only does Pompeo's bill bar states from introducing their
own GMO labeling, it also preempts the FDA or any other federal
agency from requiring labels on
GMO foods. It even goes so far as to preventing the FDA from
allowing voluntary GMO labeling! This bill has all the
bases covered to make sure you will not know if and when a food
is genetically engineered.
All of this outreach has been effective, as a Senate bill has
not yet been introduced. However, as OCA pointed out in a recent
newsletter, the absence of a Senate bill is not going to stop
Monsanto, and this is not the time to sit back and take a
breather. You can bet the industry, spearheaded by the GMA, will
come out swinging. A hearing will take place in the
Agriculture Committee on October 21 - please make an effort to
contact your senator.
Folta's Irresponsible Defense of Roundup
In addition to being pro-GMO in general, Kevin Folta is also
a staunch defender of Monsanto's flagship product Roundup. The
active ingredient in Roundup is
glyphosate, which in late March was reclassified as a
"probable human carcinogen" by the International Agency for
Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health
Organization (WHO).
For a review of the published studies28
questioning the safety of glyphosate in terms of its effects on
human and animal health, check out this
compilation by Dr. Alex Vasquez, containing 220-pages' worth
of research. Recent follow-up research29,30
by Gilles-Éric Séralini — whose initial
lifetime feeding study revealed massive tumor growth and
early death — shows that long-term exposure to even
ultra-low amounts of Roundup may cause tumors, along with
liver and kidney damage in rats. Another heavily referenced
80-page report31
is "Banishing
Glyphosate," authored by Drs. Eva Sirinathsinghji and
Mae-Wan Ho.
Despite such well-documented concerns, Folta claims to have
demonstrated glyphosate's harmlessness by drinking it,
apparently more than once, judging by his Twitter posts.32
There are no photos or videos of these stunts however, so
there's no telling if he actually did so, or how much of this
registered poison he may have imbibed.
But regardless of the purity of his intentions, there's no
scientific basis for drinking Roundup, and it's hard to imagine
that a university professor charged with teaching students about
safe handling of pesticides would actually do something that
irresponsible. Glyphosate alone has been scientifically
demonstrated to be toxic and Roundup even more so, courtesy of
the synergistic chemical interactions with surfactants and other
additives. Drinking a registered poison to "prove" harmlessness
is a stunt — it's clearly NOT a scientific way to prove safety
in an educational setting.
Should You Be Concerned About Corporate Influence Over
University Research?
In the end, the case of Kevin Folta has brought to the fore
the problems inherent with allowing corporations to influence
public land-grant universities. These concerns are laid out in
some detail in a Food and Water Watch report33
titled, "Public Research, Private Gain." Land-grant universities
first came about in 1862, at which time they revolutionized
agriculture by devising improved seeds, hybrid plant varieties,
and scientific breakthroughs that bolstered productivity. They
initially partnered with farmers, and the research generally
improved both food safety and availability.
Back then, the innovations coming out of these research
facilities were primarily funded by public investments. That
changed when, in the 1980s, federal policies began to encourage
land-grant universities to partner with private corporations to
further agricultural research. The patented seed business is an
outgrowth of the research performed at these institutions in
partnership with the private sector. As noted in this report:
"By 2010, private donations provided nearly a quarter
of the funding for agricultural research at land-grant
universities. This funding steers land-grant research toward
the goals of industry. It also discourages independent
research that might be critical of the industrial model of
agriculture, and diverts public research capacity away from
important issues such as rural economies, environmental
quality, and the public health implications of agriculture.
Private-sector funding not only corrupts the public
research mission of land-grant universities, but also
distorts the science that is supposed to help farmers
improve their practices and livelihoods. Industry funded
academic research routinely produces favorable results for
industry sponsors...
Congress should restore the public agricultural
research mission at land-grant schools... Reprioritizing
research at land-grant universities... could play a vital
role in developing the science and solutions needed to
create a viable alternative to our industrialized,
consolidated food system."
Labeling GMOs Is Necessary to Protect Public Health
The food industry has spent $51.6 million on a series of
efforts to defeat
GMO labeling laws,34
including lobbing for
HR 1599, which would bar states from implementing their own
GMO labeling laws. As of July 21, Monsanto alone had spent $2.5
million lobbying Congress.35
International trade agreements also threaten to restrict
transparency about food — how it's produced, and where it comes
from.
Why are these industries spending so much money and going to
such great lengths to eliminate transparency about toxic
exposures and potentially harmful substances in our food supply?
Could it be because they realize how bad the situation really
is, and that if public knowledge continues to grow, they won't
be able to continue running business as usual?
Anyone who has taken the time to look at the available
information on GMOs, Roundup, and other pesticides, and the
damaging effects of modern industrialized agriculture as a whole
will recognize that the situation is unsustainable and nearing a
breaking point — both in terms of environmental harm and public
health. We need to turn this situation around, and at the
present moment, the most urgent action item is still to make
sure our US Senators reject HR 1599, so that efforts to
label GE foods can move forward.
Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan) introduced a bill that would preempt states'
rights to enact GMO labeling laws. It would specifically prohibit
Congress or individual states from requiring mandatory labeling of GMO
foods or ingredients. It would also allow food manufacturers to use the
word "natural" on products that contain GMOs.
Unfortunately, the bill has been passed in the House and now heads to
the Senate. There needs to be an extra push to put an end to the
absurdity. It's imperative you contact your senators today urging them
to not support HR 1599. Tell them this bill is an attack on consumer
rights and states' rights, and you expect your elected officials to
protect you.
You can find your senators' contact information by clicking the
button below, or by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. To
set up an in-person meeting with your senators, contact their district
office.
It's really imperative to concentrate our efforts on our senators
right now, and to inform them accurately. They're being deceived by
industry lobbyists, and this is our last chance to preserve our right to
know what is in our food.
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