Pro-GMO ‘Science’ Is Just Monsanto PR
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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, writes Katherine Paul for the Organic Consumers Association.
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.”
Druker’s book (published this year), and this new wave of bad press finally exposes Monsanto’s “science” for what it is—nothing more than an expensive, sustained and highly orchestrated public relations campaign.
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BIG US FIRMS HOLD $2.1 TRILLION OVERSEAS TO AVOID TAXES
The 500 largest American companies hold more than $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to avoid U.S. taxes and would collectively owe an estimated $620 billion in U.S. taxes if they repatriated the funds, according to a study released on Tuesday, David Alexander and Eric Beech of Reuters News Service report.
The study found that nearly three-quarters of the firms on the Fortune 500 list of biggest American companies by gross revenue operate tax haven subsidiaries in countries like Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
The Citizens for Tax Justice and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund used the companies’ own financial filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to reach their conclusions.
Technology firm Apple was holding $181.1 billion offshore, more than any other U.S. company, and would owe an estimated $59.2 billion in U.S. taxes if it tried to bring the money back to the United States from its three overseas tax havens, the study said.
The conglomerate General Electric (GE.N) has booked $119 billion offshore in 18 tax havens, software firm Microsoft (MSFT.O) is holding $108.3 billion in five tax haven subsidiaries, and drug company Pfizer (PFE.N) is holding $74 billion in 151 subsidiaries, the study said.
“At least 358 companies, nearly 72 percent of the Fortune 500, operate subsidiaries in tax haven jurisdictions as of the end of 2014,” the study said. “All told these 358 companies maintain at least 7,622 tax haven subsidiaries.”
Fortune 500 companies hold more than $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to avoid taxes, with just 30 of the firms accounting for $1.4 trillion of that amount, or 65 percent, the study found.
“Congress can and should take strong action to prevent corporations from using offshore tax havens, which in turn would restore basic fairness to the tax system, reduce the deficit and improve the functioning of markets,” the study concluded.
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A FEW WORDs FROM RALPH NADER RIGHTLY PRAISING THE FOIA
“Next year,” Nader writes in Ecowatch, “the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) will celebrate its 50th anniversary as one of the finest laws our Congress has ever passed. It is a vital investigative tool for exposing government and corporate wrongdoing.
“The FOIA was championed by Congressman John E. Moss (D-CA), who strove to guarantee the right of every citizen to know the facts of his government. Moss, with whom I worked closely as an outside citizen advocate, said that ‘without the fullest possible access to government information, it is impossible to gain the knowledge necessary to discharge the responsibilities of citizenship.’
“All 50 states have adopted FOIA statutes.
“As the FOIA approaches its 50th year, it faces a disturbing backlash from scientists tied to the agrichemical company Monsanto and its allies. Here are some examples.
“On March 9, three former presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science—all with ties to Monsanto or the biotech industry—wrote in the pages of the Guardian to criticize the use of the state FOIA laws to investigate taxpayer-funded scientists who vocally defend Monsanto, the agri-chemical industry, their pesticides, and genetically engineered food. They called the FOIAs an ‘organized attack on science.’
“In February, Justin Gillis and John Schwartz of the New York Times used documents obtained by Greenpeace and Climate Investigations Center through the FOIA to expose the corporate ties of the climate-change-denying scientist Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, who received more than $1.2 million in contributions from the fossil fuel industry over the last 10 years.
On August 20, in the New England Journal of Medicine, Philip J. Landrigan and Charles Benbrook wrote that ‘the argument that there is nothing new about genetic rearrangement misses the point that GM crops are now the agricultural products most heavily treated with herbicides and that two of these herbicides may pose risks of cancer.’ Another study published on Aug. 25 in the journal Environmental Health suggests that very low levels of exposure to Roundup ‘can result in liver and kidney damage’ in rats, ‘with potential significant health implications for animal and human populations.’
Jeff Cox here. Let me interject into Ralph Nader’s report a comment about “the argument that there is nothing new about genetic rearrangement…” Nader doesn’t address this, but the statement is entirely bogus. There is so something new about genetic engineering, which is the insertion of genes from one type of creature into another unrelated type of creature’s DNA. Hybridization has been going on since the dawn of time, but only between species that nature allows to hybridize. Nature has developed elaborate systems to prevent, say, fish from mating with honeybees, or any two unrelated creatures from mating and producing viable offspring. You can’t cross a bird with a tree. But in just the past couple of decades, genetic engineers have learned to open up the genetic systems of life (the DNA), select genes that express certain characteristics, and insert these individual genes into the DNA of totally unrelated creatures in hopes that the genes will express their characteristics in the implanted creature. And so they have created glow-in-the-dark cats by putting a gene for phosphorescence into cat DNA, and in agriculture, putting a gene from a bacterium that produces an insect disease into GMO corn. To say that there’s nothing new about genetic rearrangement is akin to saying that there’s nothing new about driving a vehicle, if by “driving a vehicle” you mean maneuvering a robotic car around the surface of Mars. OK—back to Nader.
“U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit consumer group staffed by consumer advocates, is conducting an investigation of the food and agrichemical industries, including companies like Monsanto and how they use front groups and taxpayer-funded professors at public universities to advance their claims that processed foods, artificial additives and GMOs are safe, wholesome and beyond reproach.
“Based on documents that U.S. Right to Know obtained through the FOIA, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Eric Lipton wrote a front page New York Times article about how Monsanto and the agrichemical industry use publically-funded scientists to lobby and to promote its messages and products. For example, Lipton reported on a $25,000 grant from Monsanto to University of Florida Professor Kevin Folta, who had repeatedly denied having ties to Monsanto: ‘This is a great third-party approach to developing the advocacy that we’re looking to develop,’ Michael Lohuis, the director of crop biometrics at Monsanto, wrote last year in an email as the company considered giving Dr. Folta an unrestricted grant.
“One thing is clear; food safety, public health, the commercialization of public universities, corporate control of science and the research produced by taxpayer-funded scientists to promote commercial products are all appropriate subjects for FOIA requests.
“The use of the FOIA by citizens, journalists and others to expose scandals is essential to ensure honest scientific inquiry and is critical to developing protective public health and environmental standards. Scientific research should not be contaminated by the inevitable biases and secrecy that come with corporate contracts at public universities.
“The FOIA is a valuable tool to help citizens uncover corruption and wrongdoing and to vindicate our right to know what our own governments are doing.”
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LEAKED TPP PROVISION THREATENS THE INTERNET
Wikileaks has published a leaked draft — dated October 5, and thus possibly the final text — of the Intellectual Property Chapter of the Trans Pacific Partnership, and it’s grim reading.
First in the parade of the Just Plain Wrong: the Internet has been included in a secret trade agreement.
Second: that the Internet is in any trade agreement at all, secret or not.
Third: The chapter dealing with the Internet is the intellectual property chapter, which tells you that as far as the negotiators were concerned, the most important fact about the Internet is whether people watch movies without paying for them — not whether the nervous system of the 21st century through which we conduct our work, family, romantic, artistic, and political lives is appropriately safeguarded.
Then we get into the specifics.
Under the terms of the text, countries in the TPP can force each other to suspend legal proceedings if the trial would cause embarrassing information — information “detrimental to a party’s economic interests, international relations, or national defense or national security” — would come to light. That would be the Wikileaks/Snowden clause.
Also, if one country is prosecuting someone for “intellectual property theft,” they can require other countries to turn over huge amounts of private data: “information regarding any person involved in any aspect of the infringement or alleged infringement, and regarding the means of production or the channels of distribution of the infringing or allegedly infringing goods or services, including the identification of third persons alleged to be involved in the production and distribution of such goods or services and of their channels of distribution.”
In other words, if you’re accused of downloading anime in America, the Japanese government can force your American ISP to hand over all of your parents’ online records.
“The text of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter confirms advocates warnings that this deal poses a grave threat to global freedom of expression and basic access to things like medicine and information,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of internet activist group Fight for the Future. “But the sad part is that no one should be surprised by this. It should have been obvious to anyone observing the process, where appointed government bureaucrats and monopolistic companies were given more access to the text than elected officials and journalists, that this would be the result.”
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HOW MUCH ROUNDUP HAS BEEN SPRAYED ON OUR FARMS?
Mary Ellen Kustin of the Environmental Working Group says 2.6 billion pounds of Monsanto’s Roundup has been sprayed on US farmland over the past two decades. That’s over a million tons. And now we know it can cause cancer and cause a raft of other health problems.
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MARIA RODALE REPORTS ON A HOSPITAL’S ORGANIC FARM
Maria is the granddaughter of J.I. Rodale and the daughter of Bob Rodale, and now runs her family’s publishing business in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. In this article, she describes an idea that should spread to every hospital in the world. She writes:
“Full disclosure: I’m not referring to just any organic farm. This is a Rodale Institute organic farm. It’s not just any hospital, either. It’s a hospital based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (my hometown), which had the courage to do something that only one other hospital in America has done: find a way to grow organic food to help nourish and heal its patients, staff, and community.
“Congratulations to St. Luke’s for having the vision to understand that the way food is grown is critical to the health of the people the hospital serves—and the environment they live in. They are pioneers in a world where you can find fast food for sale in a number of American hospital cafeterias. Good for the leadership team at St. Luke’s for understanding that the real value of healthful, organic food is in the money saved by preventing disease in the first place!”
More full disclosure: I worked at Rodale for 30 years. I’m delighted to hear that St. Luke’s is feeding patients organic food. Maria’s right—proper nutrition can prevent disease. In fact, that’s why her grandfather started Prevention magazine 65 years ago.
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