Food industry enlisted academics in GMO lobbying war, emails show

[nationalize the fed]

NY Times.com Sep 6 2015

WASHINGTON - At Monsanto, sales of genetically modified seeds were steadily rising. But executives at the company’s St. Louis headquarters were privately worried about attacks on the safety of their products.

So Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, and its industry partners retooled their lobbying and public relations strategy to spotlight a rarefied group of advocates: academics, brought in for the gloss of impartiality and weight of authority that come with a professor’s pedigree.



“Professors/researchers/scientists have a big white hat in this debate and support in their states, from politicians to producers,” Bill Mashek, a vice president at Ketchum, a public relations firm hired by the biotechnology industry, said in an email to a University of Florida professor. “Keep it up!”

And the industry has.

Corporations have poured money into universities to fund research for decades, but now, the debate over bioengineered foods has escalated into a billion-dollar food industry war. Companies like Monsanto are squaring off against major organic firms like Stonyfield Farm, the yogurt company, and both sides have aggressively recruited academic researchers, emails obtained through open records laws show...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/food-industry-enlisted-academics-in-gmo-lobbying-war-emails-show.html

also in Telegram.com- no login
http://www.telegram.com/article/20150906/NEWS/150909451

GMO Related: GMO Crops require tractors fitted with special tires

Genetically Modified Tires
Tire Makers Learn to Cope With Bioengineered Crops
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390444097904577539012713121388

[GreatGazoo]

1. The "white hat" gets dirty quickly. They are selling their credibility and their future careers for

a quick buck. And it isn't going to work. The era of big brand authority is over and they are struggling to find footing in the world of transparency.

Want facts about GMO crops ? Well you can't have them...the only science being advanced is the science of marketing. In this case, the logical fallacy:

An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form: Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S. Person A makes claim C about subject S. Therefore, C is true.

"White hats" like recently fired Mythbuster Grant Imahara went down quickly:

Imahara is shown the beef inspection area of the plant, where the purportedly high quality beef trimmings are being checked over on an assembly line, and Imahara is impressed as only a paid shill could be by the "nice chunks" of beef bits in front of him.

http://sfist.com/2014/10/13/former_mythbuster_grant_imahara_sel.php

Now the only gig he can get is "Sharknado 3"

[MisterP]

2. they're not "dirty-cop scientists": dirty cops should be "ACSH cops" given the numbers!

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ACSH_Scientific_advisors

[nationalize the fed]

3. ^