New York Times Prints GMO Propaganda as ‘Opinion’
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In its op-ed section on April 24, The New York Times gave space to a GMO propagandist named Mark Lynas. Which is fine. This is a country with free speech, right? Lynas can say his piece. We can read it, assess it, and agree with it or not, as we see fit. Such dialogue is good, right?
Well, maybe not when it’s corporate propaganda masquerading as one person’s heartfelt opinion.
So Lynas’s essay is entitled, “How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food.” Here’s a bit of what he had to say.
“I, too, was once in that activist camp (anti-GMO). A lifelong environmentalist, I opposed genetically modified foods in the past. Fifteen years ago, I even participated in vandalizing field trials in Britain. Then I changed my mind.
“After writing two books on the science of climate change, I decided I could no longer continue taking a pro-science position on global warming and an anti-science position on G.M.O.s.”
(Why opposition to GMOs is called “anti-science” is beyond me. Isn’t science supposed to be open-minded? There’s a load of perfectly good scientific evidence that GMOs and the chemicals associated with them are harmful. Does being pro-science mean swallowing the biotech industry Koolaid without examination?)
“There is an equivalent level of scientific consensus on both issues, I realized, that climate change is real and genetically modified foods are safe. I could not defend the expert consensus on one issue while opposing it on the other.”
(Ah—this is the straight Monsanto line here. As I reported before in this blog: “A few weeks ago, I spoke by phone with Cathleen Enright, executive vice president of the Biotech Industry Organization (BIO),” reports Katherine Paul, associate director of the Organic Consumers Association.
“During the course of our conversation, when we touched on the subject of the science behind the debate over whether or not GMOs are ‘safe’ (me arguing that there’s no scientific consensus), Enright said, ‘Then you must not believe in climate change, either.’
“I glossed over that accusation, though it struck me as odd. And random. Until less than a week later, on March 9 (2015), an article appeared in the Guardian under this headline: ‘The anti-GM lobby appears to be taking a page out of the Climategate playbook.’
“That’s when I realized what I should have known. Enright’s comment wasn’t random at all. It’s just a new twist on an old talking point—from an industry on the verge of crumbling under the weight of an avalanche of new credible, scientific evidence exposing not only the dangers of GMO crops and the toxic chemicals used to grow them, but also the extent to which both Monsanto and U.S. government agencies like the EPA, FDA and USDA have covered up those dangers.”
So Lynas is parroting the BIO line almost word for word. Note to the NYT—opinion is one thing. Blatant propaganda is quite another. But back to Lynas’s “opinion piece.”)
“The environmental movement’s war against genetic engineering has led to a deepening rift with the scientific community. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center and the American Association for the Advancement of Science showed a greater gap between scientists and the public on G.M.O.s than on any other scientific controversy: While 88 percent of association scientists agreed it was safe to eat genetically modified foods, only 37 percent of the public did — a gap in perceptions of 51 points. (The gap on climate change was 37 points; on childhood vaccinations, 18 points.”
(So 88 percent of AAAS scientists agreed it was safe to eat GMO foods. And were these scientists all biomedical researchers? Maybe they were chemists beholden to the chemical industry, or astrophysicists who don’t know a damn thing about food safety. Maybe the 22 percent who thought GMO aren’t safe to eat are food and health scientists. One of them, Dr. Judy Carman, has said: “We believe that there is a lack of evidence that these GM crop varieties are safe to eat.” Why? She and other researchers looked at the studies done on GMO safety. They found flaws with all of the studies reviewed. For example, studies were not consistent or transparent in their methods, investigators didn’t define what they considered to be a toxic or pathological finding, or they were not transparent in what they found. Many of the studies contained several such faults. But back to Mr. Lynas.)
“On genetic engineering, environmentalists have been markedly more successful than climate change deniers or anti-vaccination campaigners in undermining public understanding of science. The scientific community is losing this battle.”
(Notice how Lynas lumps anti-GMO environmentalists in with climate change deniers and anti-vaccination lunkheads, and claims we are “undermining science.” And that the anti-GMO people are separate from and opposed to “the scientific community.” It’s just insulting and dead wrong. Does the NYT think that this kind of propaganda advances the discussion or tries to get to the reality of the situation? Isn’t there an editor at the Times with the sense to know that these are Big Biotech’s talking points?)
Lynas goes on to say: “At Cornell, I am working to amplify the voices of farmers and scientists in a more informed conversation about what biotechnology can bring to food security and environmental protection…We need this technology. We must not let the green movement stand in its way.”
Okay—so who is Mark Lynas? Lynas is a researcher at the Cornell Alliance for Science. And what is the Cornell Alliance for Science? Here’s what the Corporate Crime Reporter has to say:
“The Cornell Alliance for Science was launched last year with a $5.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to ‘add a stronger voice for science and depolarize the charged debate around agricultural biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).’
(Translation: we’re out to defend GMOs on behalf of the agrichemical and food industries against all critics.)
Cornell decided last week to go after a newly created public interest group — U.S. Right to Know — which was created to “expose what the food industry doesn’t want you to know.” U.S. Right to Know is the brainchild of anti-GMO campaigner Gary Ruskin. And one of the group’s first campaigns is to identify professors at universities with ties to corporations backing GMOs. The Corporate Crime Reporter continued:
“Earlier this year, Ruskin’s group filed a Freedom of Information Act request for correspondence and emails to and from professors at public universities who wrote for the agrichemical industry’s PR website — GMO Answers.
“The GMO Answers website was created by Ketchum, a corporate public relations firm.
“’We taxpayers deserve to know the details about when our taxpayer-paid employees front for private corporations and their slick PR firms,’ Ruskin said. ‘This is especially true when they do work for unsavory entities such as Ketchum, which has been implicated in espionage against nonprofit organizations.’
“The public records requests filed by U.S. Right to Know covered correspondence to and from professors who work for publicly-funded universities and agrichemical companies such as Monsanto, as well as to and from PR firms such as Ketchum or Fleishman Hillard, and to and from trade associations such as the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Council for Biotechnology Information.
“The requests are not an effort to obtain any personal information or academic research involving the professors. The records request did not sit well with the corporate minded directors of the Cornell Alliance for Science. They are calling on the public to ‘stand with the Science 14’ against U.S. Right to Know’s record request.
“’It’s a tactic pulled straight from the climate change deniers’ playbook — and now an anti-science, agenda-driven organization is using it to bully another group of scientists,’ the Cornell Alliance for Science says.
“’All of these scientists have proactively engaged with the public to raise scientific awareness about agricultural innovation and contributed to the scientific consensus about the safety of GMOs. FOIA requests are a vital tool for a transparent democracy. However, this FOIA is clearly a last ditch witch-hunt by an anti-GMO group to mislead the public and keep scientists from doing their work.’
“’We’ve seen this anti-science bullying tactic before in Climategate, where academic discussion was taken out of context to mislead the public. Broad anti-science campaigns like this are hurting our society. Please join the fight for academic freedom by signing our letter to support the scientists under attack and urge them to stand strong in the face of anti-science bullying,’ the Alliance says.
(Why is wanting to see the emails of paid scientists to and from agribusiness and biotech corporations “bullying?” It’s only bullying if false accusations are being made. But no accusations at all are being made. Could it be that Cornell’s scientists—and others—feel squeamish about revealing their connections to Big Ag? For the debate on record requests aimed at scientists, see “Why Scientists Often Hate Record Requests” by Anna Clark, Columbia Journalism Review, February 25, 2015. The National Geographic magazine also recently fell into the trap of equating the consensus on global warming with the science on GMOs. The pro-GMO Center for Science in the Public Interest recently refused an offer to debate the issue of the labeling of GMO foods. See “CSPI Refuses to Debate Consumers Union on Labeling of GMO Foods” in the Corporate Crime Reporter, February 27, 2015.)
“Ruskin says the Cornell Alliance is just another arm of the corporate push for GMOs. ‘The agrichemical and biotech industries have a new PR shop at Cornell University, financed by the Gates Foundation,’ Ruskin said. ‘This is just the latest sorry example of the corporatization of the university in general, and Cornell University in particular.’
“’The agrichemical industry and the Gates Foundation have hired the good name of Cornell University to trash our efforts to uncover the details of the agrichemical industry’s $100 million campaign to defend GMOs.’
“The Cornell Alliance for Science says that they want to ‘depolarize’ the debate on GMOs. But really it seems like they just want to defeat public health, public interest, consumer and environmental advocates who are concerned about the health and environmental effects of genetically engineered food.”
Why is the Gates Foundation funding this attack on public health, public interest, and consumer and environmental advocates? And how can The New York Times go along with it? Should “opinion” be allowed in the pages of the Times when it is an obvious piece of industry PR boilerplate?
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NEIL YOUNG’S NEXT ALBUM: ‘THE MONSANTO YEARS’
In mid-June of this year, Neil Young will release his next album, entitled, “The Monsanto Years.”
The Monsanto Years are here and we are living them. Monsanto is the poster-child for what is wrong with corporate controlled government in our world. “The Monsanto Years” encompasses several associated subjects that millions of people worldwide are concerned about and active in.
These subjects include: No One Owns the Sacred Seed. The Worldwide Solution to Climate Change. Sustainable Organic Agriculture. Separation of Corporation and State. Corporate Justice Applied. The Age of Extinction. Corporate Media and the Disinformation Business. World-Wide Water Shortages. Local Solutions. And more.
There is no end to my admiration of this artist.
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CHIPOTLE NIXES GMO FOODS IN ITS OFFERINGS
Green America, a national nonprofit organization working to create a green economy, issued the following statement today in response to Chipotle’s announcement of removing GMOs from its foods:
“Chipotle’s announcement that they are removing genetically engineered ingredients is major step forward for the company and an important milestone in creating a safer and healthier food system for all Americans. Increasingly, it is clear that consumers want food without genetically engineered ingredients, and have already rewarded Chipotle with increased sales for its growing non-GMO commitments. Evidence shows that GMOs are increasing the use of toxic herbicide use due to the development of herbicide-resistant weeds. Most recently, Glyphosate, which is commonly used on GMO crops, was deemed a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization. Consumers are increasingly concerned about the impacts of GMOs on the environment and human health and it is time for the restaurant industry and other food companies to make a change. Chipotle has shown that it is possible for a large fast food chain to adopt a more sustainable food supply. It is time that all food companies follow suit and move beyond genetically engineered ingredients and towards a more sustainable food system that benefits people and the planet.”
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POPE’S STANCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE STIRS KOCH BROTHERS’ IRE
Guess who thinks that Pope Francis’s impending encyclical on climate change is “unscientific” when it declares that wrecking the planet is immoral, if not suicidal. Why, conservatives at the Heartland Institute, Charles Koch’s right-wing “think” tank, that’s who.
“The Holy Father is being misled by unreliable and unscientific fearmongers,” the Koch Foundation funded organization says, painting the Pope as a doddering old fool being misled by the evil Wormtongues of the left.
The fact that the Koch brothers make billions upon billions of dollars by selling the stuff that’s causing climate change isn’t lost on most people. It’s only the fools at the Heartland Institute, doddering or not, who don’t understand…on purpose. Oh that’s right, the Kochs are paying their salaries.
Pope Francis must still believe that love makes the world go ‘round. The Kochs and their lackeys know that it’s really money that does that.
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30,000 ARGENTINE HEALTH PROS CALL FOR BAN ON ROUNDUP
Following the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen, Argentina’s union of doctors and health professionals, FESPROSA, has issued a statement throwing the support of its 30,000 members behind the decision:
“The organization (IARC) has just released the results of a study that overturns the agribusiness model. Thus the complaints that affected residents and scientists outside the orbit of corporations have been making for years have gained renewed momentum,” FESPROSA said in the statement.
FESPROSA explained:
“In our country glyphosate is applied on more than 28 million hectares. Each year, the soil is sprayed with more than 320 million litres, which means that 13 million people are at risk of being affected, according to the Physicians Network of Sprayed Peoples (RMPF). Soy is not the only crop addicted to glyphosate: the herbicide is also used for transgenic maize and other crops. Where glyphosate falls, only GMOs can grow. Everything else dies.
“Our trade union, the Federation of Health Professionals of Argentina (FESPROSA), which represents more than 30,000 doctors and health professionals in our country, includes the Social Health Collective of Andrés Carrasco. Andrés Carrasco was a researcher at the Argentine government research institute, CONICET, who died a year ago. He showed the damage caused by glyphosate to embryos. For disseminating his research, he was attacked by the industry and the authorities at CONICET. Today, WHO vindicates him.
“Glyphosate not only causes cancer. It is also associated with increased spontaneous abortions, birth defects, skin diseases, and respiratory and neurological disease.
“Health authorities, including the National Ministry of Health and the political powers, can no longer look away. Agribusiness cannot keep growing at the expense of the health of the Argentine people. The 30,000 health professionals in Argentina in the FESPROSA ask that glyphosate is now prohibited in our country and that a debate on the necessary restructuring of agribusiness is opened, focusing on the application of technologies that do not endanger human life.”
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GMO CORN SEEN LACKING IN NUTRIENTS
An eye-opening investigation conducted by Canada’s only supplier of non-GMO corn seed has revealed that genetically modified “Frankencorn” is severely lacking in a number of vital nutrients, reports Natural News.
Compared to non-GMO corn varieties, Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn contains only a small fraction of the amount of calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, copper, manganese, and carbon normally found in natural corn.
Shattering the myth that there’s no substantial difference between GMO and non-GMO crops, the report by De Dell Seed Company of London, Ontario, shows that GMO corn is nutritionally deficient and wholly unfit for human consumption. In nearly every vitamin and mineral category tested, GMO corn was found to contain only trace amounts of many key nutrients necessary for life.
According to the report, corn ears were selected from two adjacent corn fields in Iowa — one growing Roundup Ready corn and the other growing non-GMO corn. The corn ears were selected from multiple locations in each field two weeks prior to harvest to get a proper sampling, and they were then shelled from the cob and sent to a laboratory for testing.
When the results came back, researchers found that the Roundup Ready corn contained 13 parts per million (ppm) of glyphosate, the primary active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. The non-GMO corn, on the other hand, contained no glyphosate.
“The EPA standard for glyphosate in water in America is .7 ppm,” explains Moms Across America. “European tests showed organ damage to animals at .1 ppb (.0001 ppm) of glyphosate in water. Our water levels allow glyphosate 7,000 times higher than what has been shown to be toxic in animals. This corn has 13 ppm! That’s 130,000 times higher than what is toxic in water!”
Similarly, the GMO corn samples were found to have higher pH levels, higher sodium content and significantly less natural phosphate, potassium, calcium, and magnesium compared to the non-GMO corn.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/049515_GMO_corn_nutrient_content_glyphosate.html#ixzz3YrdhONgm
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A NOTE ABOUT BALTIMORE
As the riots swirled around Baltimore, here’s what John Angelos, son of the owner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, said after the club closed the stadium at Camden Yards to the public.
“My great source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.
“The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importance of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.”
He’s right, and his words strike at the core reasons why the African-American community in Baltimore exploded at the tragic death of Freddie Gray.
But to me, the core question is more personal—more one on one. Who do these violent, aggressive, murderous cops think they are? I’m not talking about good Officer Wright who saves your kid’s life. I’m talking about the beasts who destroyed Freddie Gray’s body and let him die. Or the cop who shot unarmed Michael Brown, or the Cleveland cop who pulled up to an unarmed 12 year old kid and offed him. Or even in my home town of Santa Rosa where a kid with a toy gun was murdered by a cop. Need I go on—because there are all kinds of other cases where police decide to murder people, especially black people? Like the privileged white guy who mistook his pistol for a taser and killed a guy. Well, it’s too depressing. All I can say is that black people in our country live under a cloud of fear that the uniformed, armed, militarized, and bigoted forces that are supposed to serve and protect them are actually looking for any good reason to beat the crap out of them, damage them, and maybe even kill them. Hey—it’s what’s happening. Rodney King was a tea party compared to what we’re seeing today.
Here’s what I think: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And there is no more absolute power than a gun in my holster and a license to kill, at my discretion, anyone who I think represents a threat to me or anyone else. I am judge and jury. I have the badge. If you stinking lowlifes think you can challenge me, I’ll let you taste hot lead. My anger fuels my adrenalin, and my adrenalin turns me from the nice guy into the Incredible Hulk. Disobey me and I will shoot you in the heart. Give me a challenge and it will be met with lethal force. And you know what? I will not be prosecuted. I will not even be arraigned. I will stay on the force with full pay and the protection of the institution and my fellow officers. I hold the gun, the cards, and the rights. If I want to kill you, I will. And there’s nothing, nothing you can do about it.
This is the reality our black citizens face every day. We white guys and gals—we don’t have to even think about stuff like this. But if I’m a black guy or woman, every morning when I get up and try to live a normal life, look in the mirror, and see a black face, I see a victim of racism. I see a running rabbit pursued by a system of racial injustice. I see a target of police violence. I see someone who is not worthy. I see someone who can be killed by the society I live in without consequence. I don’t matter.
So when Freddie Gray gets murdered, I can’t stand it anymore. I don’t care if it’s my neighborhood or your neighborhood or wherever. I’m going to burn and loot and destroy and tear down this murderous, unfair, infuriating, outrageous, bigoted, racist, humiliating system. Just try to understand.
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