Cornell Alliance for Science is a PR Campaign for the Agrichemical Industry

Posted on November 13, 2019 by Stacy Malkan

Despite its academic-sounding name and affiliation with an Ivy League Institution, the Cornell Alliance for Science is a public relations campaign to promote genetically engineered foods and pesticides. With $12 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Cornell Alliance for Science claims to be working to “restore the importance of scientific evidence in decision-making,” however, the examples in this fact sheet show that the group:

Misleads the public with inaccurate information about science;
Elevates unreliable messengers who make false and unscientific claims; and,
Partners with front groups that have worked with the tobacco industry or chemical industries to manufacture doubt about science that raises health concerns.

The evidence suggests the Cornell Alliance for Science is using Cornell’s name, reputation and authority to promote the talking points and political agenda of the world’s largest agrichemical corporations.

The Gates Foundation helped launch the Cornell Alliance for Science in 2014 as an effort to “depolarize the charged debate” around genetically modified foods (GMOs). The Gates Foundation Deputy Director Rob Horsch, who worked for Monsanto Company for 25 years, leads the foundation’s agricultural research and development strategies, which have drawn criticism for relentlessly promoting GMOs and agrichemicals in Africa over the opposition of Africa-based groups and social movements, and despite many concerns and doubts about genetically engineered crops across Africa.¹ In December 2018, a group of African farmers accused Cornell Alliance for Science of using their images without authorization to make false and misleading claims, according to the African Centre for Biodiversity.

Industry-aligned mission and activities

The mission of Cornell Alliance for Science – to build a global movement of “agricultural champions” to “advocate for access” to genetically engineered crops – is strikingly similar to the mission of the main trade group that promotes the interests of the world’s largest agricultural chemical companies. The Council for Biotechnology Information, which is funded by BASF, Bayer/Monsanto, DowDuPont and Syngenta, describes its agenda to “promote acceptance” of agricultural biotechnology by getting “external voices” to “understand and accept the positive role” of genetic engineering.

The main activity of the Cornell Alliance for Science appears to be training and supporting its Global Leadership Fellows – many of whom are journalists or marketing specialists² – to conduct public relations and political advocacy that aligns with the agrichemical industry’s agenda. Geographical areas of focus have included African countries, where Alliance members urged countries to accept GMO crops and pesticides; and the Hawaiian Islands, where Alliance members opposed community efforts to regulate pesticides.

Defending pesticides with Monsanto talking points

Cornell Alliance for Science used the same inaccurate messaging as Monsanto-funded groups to defend glyphosate in the wake of a World Health Organization cancer research agency report that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen. Monsanto’s messaging to combat the market effects of the cancer ruling is revealed in this February 2015 public relations document, which described plans to mobilize “industry partners” to “orchestrate outcry” against the cancer panel. Direct sales of glyphosate-based products such as Roundup account for about one third of Monsanto’s profits, and the herbicide is a key component of GMO foods with 90% of corn and soy grown in the United States genetically engineered to tolerate Roundup products.

As an example of industry messaging, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a front group Monsanto paid to spin the cancer report, claimed the cancer report was a “scientific fraud” perpetrated by “activist scientists.” Mark Lynas, a spokesperson for the Cornell Alliance for Science, leveled similar attacks against the scientists, portraying their cancer report as a “witch hunt” orchestrated by “anti-Monsanto activists” who “abused science” and committed “an obvious perversion of both science and natural justice” by reporting a cancer risk. The article on the Cornell website appeared one month after, and used the same sources, as the article by the Monsanto-funded front group ACSH.

Mark Lynas used false talking points straight from Monsanto’s PR playbook to attack the WHO cancer scientists.

Lynas claimed to be on the side of science but ignored evidence from the company’s own documents showing that Monsanto interfered with scientific research, manipulated regulatory agencies and used other “strong arm” tactics to interfere with the scientific process in order to protect its pesticide.

In August 2018, in the first case to go to trial of more than 40,000 lawsuits pending against Monsanto (now merged with Bayer), a jury ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million in compensatory and punitive damages to a school groundskeeper who was diagnosed with terminal cancer after using glyphosate-based Roundup products. The jury found that Monsanto “acted with malice, oppression or fraud” in covering up the cancer risk of Roundup.

Partners with industry, opposes transparency

The director of Cornell Alliance for Science, Sarah Evanega, PhD, has said her group is independent of industry: “We do not write for industry, and we do not advocate or promote industry-owned products. As our website clearly and fully discloses, we receive no resources from industry.” However, dozens of emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know, now posted in the UCSF chemical industry documents library, show that Dr. Evanega and the Cornell Alliance for Science coordinate closely with the pesticide industry and its PR allies on public relations initiatives.

As one example, a Monsanto document made public in 2019 describes the company’s deep fears about a public records investigation into its hidden collaborations with publicly funded academics. The PR document describes Monsanto’s plans to try to discredit the investigation by U.S. Right to Know as an attack on “scientific freedom.” The Cornell Alliance for Science played a key role in advancing this industry messaging via a public petition opposing the public records investigation. The Alliance launched the petition with Biofortified, a PR group Monsanto has identified as a “partner” group.

The USRTK investigation has revealed many examples of how academics assist industry with PR and lobbying campaigns in ways that are hidden from the public and policy makers. The emails reveal that the pesticide industry recruited members of Biofortified to lobby against pesticide regulations in Hawaii. One member of the group, University of Florida Professor Kevin Folta, claimed they were “independent expert scientists” traveling to Hawaii “simply to share science,” but document show the pesticide industry paid for the trip and coordinated their meetings and messaging. Dr. Folta has misled the public about science and his ties to industry on many occasions; yet emails show that Dr. Evanega invited him to teach and speak at Cornell and promoted Folta as “an amazing champion for change” and “a model for scientists.”

Dr. Evanega was a Trustee in 2017 of the food and pesticide industry-funded International Food Information Council, a group that promotes and defends sugar, artificial sweeteners, food additives, pesticides and genetically engineered foods. Emails show how this group solicited payments from food and chemical companies to produce materials in defense of processed foods. For more examples of Cornell Alliance for Science partnerships with industry groups, see footnotes.³

Fellows, partners mislead the public about science

The Cornell Alliance for Science partners with groups and people who mislead the public about science. The partnerships described below suggest that the purpose of the Cornell Alliance for Science is not to promote science but rather to promote the agrichemical industry’s political agenda of deregulation.

Mark Lynas: The most visible face of the Cornell Alliance for Science, the British writer Mark Lynas has written dozens of articles defending agrichemical industry products in the name of the Cornell Alliance for Science and recently published a book promoting GMOs and arguing for African countries to accept them.

Experts in genetic engineering, biology, agroecology and food policy have criticized Lynas for making false claims, inaccurate statements, “unscientific, illogical and absurd” arguments, “relying on authority rather than data or research,” and making a career out of demonizing and insulting critics of the agrichemical industry.⁴ A 2018 statement by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa described Lynas as a “fly-in pundit” whose “contempt for African people, custom and tradition is unmistakable.”

Lynas has been a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University’s Office of International Programs at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences since 2013. According to his website, he advises the Cornell Alliance for Science on their work in developing countries and teaches courses at Cornell. In 2015, Lynas described himself as the “political director” of Cornell Alliance for Science. He also serves on the advisory council of Sense About Science, a Monsanto partner group.

Read more about Mark Lynas and his background here.

Trevor Butterworth and Sense About Science/STATS: The Cornell Alliance for Science partners with Sense About Science USA to offer “statistical consultation for journalists,” and gives a platform to the group’s director Trevor Butterworth, who built his career defending products important to the chemical, junk food and drug industries, including phthalates, BPA, vinyl plastic, fracking, formaldehyde in baby soaps, sugary sodas, artificial sweeteners and Oxycontin.

Cornell Alliance for Science Visiting Fellow Trevor Butterworth built his career defending the chemical, junk food and drug industries.

Butterworth has been a Visiting Fellow at the Cornell Alliance for Science since 2016 and also teaches a statistics course at Cornell.

Journalists have described Butterworth’s former employer STATS, which he merged with Sense About Science USA in 2014, as a “disinformation campaign” that plays a key role in the “hardball politics of chemical regulation” and uses tobacco tactics to manufacture doubt about chemical risk. Both Sense About Science and STATS were founded by men who worked with the tobacco industry in the 1990s to downplay the risks of cigarettes.

Monsanto’s PR plan named Sense About Science as an industry partner, and suggested the group could “lead industry response” in the media. Read more about Butterworth, Sense About Science and STATS here.

Climate science skeptic Owen Paterson: In 2015, Cornell Alliance for Science hosted a visit by Owen Paterson, a British Conservative Party politician and well-known climate science skeptic who slashed funding for global warming mitigation efforts during his stint as UK Environment Minister. Paterson used the Cornell stage to promote GMOs with unscientific, inaccurate arguments and claims that environmental groups “allow millions to die.”

This post by a Monsanto-funded group shows how Cornell Alliance for Science spin echoes through industry’s messaging chamber.

The Monsanto-funded front group American Council on Science and Health promoted Paterson’s Cornell speech with an article by Gil Ross, a doctor who spent time in jail for Medicaid fraud, claiming that “billion dollar green campaigns kill poor children.”

A week after his Cornell talk, Paterson partnered with Mark Lynas of the Cornell Alliance for Science and Tracey Brown, director of Sense About Science in the UK, to launch the “ecomodernism movement,” a corporate-aligned, anti-regulation strain of “environmentalism” that Lynas said he co-founded. British writer George Monbiot describes ecomodernism as “take no action to protect the natural world.”

Opposes community efforts to regulate pesticides in Hawaii

Another example of how the Cornell Alliance for Science deploys fellows and staff members to assist with agrichemical industry lobbying efforts is the group’s campaign to defend pesticides and discredit public health advocates in Hawaii. The Hawaiian Islands are an important testing ground for genetically engineered crops, and also ground zero for high exposures to pesticides and concerns about pesticide-related health problems, including birth defects, cancer and asthma.

These concerns led residents to organize a years-long fight to pass stronger regulations to reduce pesticide exposures and improve disclosure of the chemicals used on agricultural fields. The Cornell Alliance for Science vigorously opposed those efforts, with staff members, fellows and associates writing many articles that tried to discredit elected officials and community groups in Hawaii working for reforms. Messengers of those pro-industry efforts include:

Sarah Thompson, a former employee of Dow AgroSciences, coordinates the Hawaii Alliance for Science, a “communications-based non-profit grassroots organization associated with the Cornell Alliance for Science.” The group launched in 2016, has 10 team members listed on its website, and says its purpose is to “ensure that Science can thrive in Hawaii.” Social media posts from the Hawaii Alliance for Science and its coordinator Thompson have described critics of the agrichemical industry as arrogant and ignorant people, celebrated corn and soy mono-crops and defended neonicotinoid pesticides which many studies and scientists say are harming bees.

Joan Conrow, Managing Editor and Visiting Fellow of Cornell Alliance for Science, and team member of Hawaii Alliance for Science, writes articles on her personal website, her “Kauai Eclectic” blog and for the industry front group Genetic Literacy Project trying to discredit health professionals, community groups and politicians in Hawaii who advocate for stronger pesticide protections. Conrow has accused environmental groups of tax evasion, ripped apart media reports about pesticide-related health concerns and compared a food safety group to the KKK.

Conrow has not always disclosed her Cornell affiliation. In August 2016, Hawaii’s Civil Beat newspaper criticized Conrow for her lack of transparency and cited her as an example of why the paper was changing its commenting policies. Conrow “often argued the pro-GMO perspective without explicitly mentioning her occupation as a GMO sympathist,” wrote journalism professor Brett Oppegaard. “Conrow also has lost her journalistic independence (and credibility) to report fairly about GMO issues, because of the tone of her work on these issues.”

Joni Kamiya, a 2015 Global Leadership Fellow with Cornell Alliance for Science and also on the team of Hawaii Alliance for Science, argues against pesticide regulations on her website Hawaii Farmer’s Daughter, in the media and also for the industry front group Genetic Literacy Project. She is an “ambassador expert” for the agrichemical industry-funded marketing website GMO Answers.

Like Conrow, Kamiya claims pesticide exposures in Hawaii aren’t a problem, and tries to discredit elected officials and “environmental extremists” who want to regulate pesticides. She promotes chemical industry front groups and industry consultants as “fearless sources” she loves on her website, and even includes the Center for Consumer Freedom, the front group started by Rick Berman, the “king of corporate front groups and propaganda” who was once profiled on 60 Minutes as “Dr. Evil” for his work as the “arch enemy” of regulations to protect health and the environment.

Cornell Alliance for Science staffers, advisors

The Cornell Alliance for Science describes itself as “an initiative based at Cornell University, a non-profit institution.” The Alliance does not disclose its budget, expenditures or staff salaries, and Cornell University does not disclose any information about the Cornell Alliance for Science in its tax filings.

The website lists 20 staff members, including the Director Sarah Evanega, PhD, and Managing Editor and Visiting Fellow Joan Conrow (it does not list Mark Lynas or other fellows who may also receive compensation). Other notable staff members listed on the website include:

Gregory Jaffe is the third staff member on the Cornell Alliance for Science staff roster, with a title of Associate Director of Legal Affairs. Jaffe also works for Center for Science in the Public Interest as the Director of Biotechnology (where he draws a $143,000 salary plus benefits). CSPI opposes GMO labeling and Jaffe argues that “Americans should embrace” the current crop of genetically engineered foods.
Jayson Merkley, one of 10 members of the Cornell Alliance for Science training team, worked as a social media consultant for March Against Myths Against Modification, a project of the industry partner group Biofortified. In 2016, after attending a Cornell Alliance for Science grassroots organizing training, Merkley helped stage a protest to confront Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva. Although he claimed the protesters were standing up for “science activism,” Merkley’s Cornell article about the protest made inaccurate claims and left out important data.

The Cornell Alliance for Science advisory board includes academics who assist the agrichemical industry with their PR efforts.

Pamela Ronald: A geneticist at UC Davis, Ronald is a prominent champion of genetically engineered foods. She served on the boards of directors of two Monsanto partner groups, Biofortified (which Ronald co-founded) and the Science Literacy Project, the parent organization of the industry front group Genetic Literacy Project. Ronald has also solicited industry payments for speaking engagements; see $10,000 invoice to Bayer and $3,000 invoice to Monsanto.
Alison Van Eenennaam: A cooperative extension specialist at UC Davis, Van Eenennaam argues for deregulating genetically engineered animals she is developing. She is a key outside spokesperson the agrichemical industry relies on in its PR and lobbying campaigns to oppose regulations and transparency.
Anthony Shelton: Cornell Professor Tony Shelton was one of several professors recruited by Monsanto to write pro-GMO papers that were published by the industry front group Genetic Literacy Project with no disclosure about the corporation’s behind-the-scenes role. Shelton also created a controversy when he asked students in his class to taste a pesticide, ostensibly as a stunt to promote GMOs.

More critiques of the Cornell Alliance for Science

“6 ways this Ivy League university is acting like a PR firm for junk food, GMOs and pesticides,” by Sophia Johnson, Salon
- “The Cornell Alliance for Science is a PR front for the agrichemical industry.”
“Why is Cornell University hosting a GMO propaganda campaign?” by Stacy Malkan, The Ecologist
- This group “is promoting GMOs using dishonest messaging and PR tactics developed by agrichemical corporations with a long history of misleading the public about science.”
“New York Farmers call on Cornell to evict the Cornell Alliance for Science,” press release from 67 organic farmers
- “Careful examination of the Alliance for Science website reveals not a single critical assessment of genetic engineering, none of the reasonable questions that ecological precaution suggest, and no significant evaluation or critique of the way that increased use of genetically engineered seed, Round-Up Ready corn and soy in particular, has enabled the consolidation of power over the world’s food supply by fewer and fewer chemo-biotech corporations.”
“One student’s experience of pro-GMO propaganda at Cornell,” by Robert Schooler, Independent Science News
- “The GMO Debate course, which ran in the fall of 2015, was a blatant display of unscientific propaganda in an academic setting.”
“The Puppetmasters of Academia,” by Jonathan Latham, PhD, Independent Science News
- “The Alliance for Science is a PR project and international training center for academics and others who want to work with the biotech industry to promote GMOs.”
“The War on Genetically Modified Food Critics,” by Timothy Wise, director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
- “What we’re seeing is a concerted campaign (to) … paint GMO critics as anti-science while offering no serious discussion of the scientific controversy that still rages.”

Footnotes with additional information

[1] The Gates Foundation has been criticized for spending the bulk of its agricultural development grants in wealthy countries on strategies that entrench corporate power. Numerous groups across Africa have reported concerns about the disappearance of traditional and organic food crops, the higher expenses of GMO seeds and agricultural chemicals, doubts about whether genetic engineering can deliver on promises and the limitations of GMO crops to deal with the complex realities of farming in Africa. In Burkina Faso, farmers abandoned an experiment with Monsanto’s bug-resistant cotton after it became clear the genetically engineered corn could not deliver the same high quality as the traditional homegrown variety. In South Africa, where more than 85% of corn and soy are genetically engineered to survive glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer, farmers are using more chemicals and doctors are raising concerns about growing rates of cancer.

Critiques of the Gates Foundation’s approach to agricultural development and funding include:

“Seeds of Neo-Colonialism: Why the GMO Promoters Get it So Wrong About Africa,” statement by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (2018)
“How does the Gates Foundation feed the world?” funding analysis by GRAIN report (2014)
“Bill Gates spends bulk of agricultural grants in rich countries,” by John Vidal, the Guardian (2014)
“Gated Development: Is the Gates Foundation always a force for good?” Global Justice Now report (1.2014)
“Does the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation help big corporations more than poor people?” by Oscar Rickett, Vice (2016)
“Bill Gates is on a mission to sell GMOs to Africa, but he’s not telling the whole truth,” by Stacy Malkan, Alternet (2016)
“Philanthropic Power and Development. Who shapes the agenda?” by Jens Martens and Karolin Seitz, report page 48 (2015)
“Philanthrocapitalism: The Gates Foundation’s African programmes are not charity,” by Philip L Bereano, Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, Third World Resurgence (2017)
“Gates Foundation’s Seed Agenda in Africa ‘Another Form of Colonialism,’ Warns Protesters,” by Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams (2015)
“How Bill Gates is Helping KFC Take Over Africa,” by Alex Park, Mother Jones (2014)

[2] More than half the 2018 Cornell Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellows – 15 out of 27 – are identified in their bios as journalists or specialists in communication or marketing. Government administrators, biotechnology students and agribusiness representatives are also among the 2018 fellows chosen from seven countries: Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. According to the Cornell University press release, the fellows will attend a 12-week intensive training program to learn “strategic planning, grassroots organizing, the science of crop biotechnology and effective communications” to help them advocate for access to biotechnology in their home countries.

[3] Dozens of emails obtained via FOIA by U.S. Right to Know, and now posted in the UCSF chemical industry documents library, show Dr. Evanega and the Cornell Alliance for Science coordinating closely with the agrichemical industry and their academic allies to coordinate events and messaging:

Evanega worked with Monsanto’s Cami Ryan to organize a series of workshops in 2017 to promote genetically engineered foods.
In response to a request from a DuPont Pioneer executive, Dr. Evanega recruited University of Florida Professor Kevin Folta to speak to the University-Industry Consortium, a group that says it addressed critical issues in the agricultural marketplace in order to maintain “a competitive advantage” for its corporate and academic members.
Dr. Evanega invited Alliance advisory board member Alison Van Eenennaam, a cooperative extension specialist at UC Davis who is developing genetically engineered animals and argues for deregulating them, to speak at the DuPont Pioneer-funded Cornell Breeding Symposium. Dr. Evanega also asked Dr. Van Eenennaam to submit comments on a government proposal to regulate GMOs, and the two discussed developing feminist materials to help promote GMOs.
Dr. Evanega served on the working group of the UC Davis Institute for Food and Agricultural Literacy (IFAL), alongside Monsanto staffers and two groups identified in emails to be agrichemical industry front groups, Genetic Literacy Project and Academics Review. IFAL and the front groups co-hosted an industry-funded “boot camp” to train scientists and students to promote and defend GMOs and pesticides.

[4] Critiques and corrections of Mark Lynas include:

“Mark Lynas Promotes the Agrichemical Industry Commercial Agenda,” U.S. Right to Know fact sheet (2018)
“Seeds of Neo-Colonialism: Why the GMO Promoters Get it So Wrong About Africa,” statement by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (2018)
“The Science is Still Out on GMO Safety,” by David Schubert, PhD, Head, Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory & Professor at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego Union Tribune letter (2018)
“Science, Dogma and Mark Lynas,” by Doug Gurian-Sherman, PhD, former senior scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists (2013)
“The Absurdity of Claiming All GMOs are Safe,” by geneticist Belinda Martineau, PhD Biotech Salon and Letter to NYT (2015)
“Misleading Claims Made By and About Mark Lynas,” GM Watch
“Of Myths and Men: Mark Lynas and the Intoxicating Power of Technocracy,” by Eric Holt-Giménez, PhD, Director Food First/Institute of Food Policy and Development, Huffington Post (2013)
“Professor John Vandermeer challenges environmentalist Mark Lynas on GMOs,” Food First (2014)
“Scientist: Genetic Engineering is Based on Dramatically Incomplete Knowledge,” Q&A with John Vendermeer (2013)
“22 Pieces Of Junk Science From The Lynas Manifesto,” by Brian John, PhD, Permaculture Research Institute (2013)
“A Rebuttal to Mark Lynas’ GMO Reversal,” by Jason Mark, Earth Island Journal (2013)

Tracking the Agrichemical Industry Propaganda Network

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Posted on September 8, 2019 by Stacy Malkan

Propaganda: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view

Just four corporations now control more than 60% of the global supply of seeds and pesticides. Public oversight of their activities is crucial for a safe and healthy food supply. Yet these companies – Monsanto/Bayer, DowDuPont, Syngenta and BASF – have documented histories of hiding the health risks and environmental harms of their products. Since their records do not inspire trust, these companies rely on third-party allies to promote and defend their products.

U.S. Right to Know has uncovered many documents that shine light on the hidden corporate connections of front groups, academics, journalists and regulators who work with the pesticide companies to promote GMOs and pesticides and discredit critics, including journalists, scientists and public health groups; the following fact sheets document our findings.

Update: Newly released Monsanto documents reveal their full-court-press campaign to try to discredit our investigation and the work of our colleague, journalist and author Carey Gillam. “USRTK’s investigation has the potential to impact the entire industry,” according to Monsanto. See the documents here.

Academics Review: the making of a Monsanto front group

AgBioChatter: where corporations and academics plotted strategy on GMOs and pesticides

Alison Van Eenennaam: key outside spokesperson and lobbyist for the agrichemical and GMO industries

American Council on Science and Health is a corporate front group

Bayer’s Shady PR Firms: FleishmanHillard and Ketchum PR

Biofortified aids chemical industry PR & lobbying efforts

Center for Food Integrity food and agrichemical industry PR partners

Cornell Alliance for Science is a public relations campaign at Cornell to promote GMOs

Drew Kershen: agrichemical industry front group ringleader

Food Evolution GMO Documentary is a misleading propaganda film, say many academics

Geoffrey Kabat: ties to tobacco and chemical industry groups

Glyphosate Spin Check: tracking claims about the most-widely used herbicide

GMO Answers is a crisis management PR tool for GMOs & pesticides

Hank Campbell’s maze of Monsanto-loving science blogs

Henry I. Miller dropped by Forbes for Monsanto ghostwriting scandal

Independent Women’s Forum: Koch-funded group defends pesticide, oil, tobacco industries

International Food Information Council (IFIC): how Big Food spins bad news

International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) is a food industry lobby group, documents show

Jay Byrne: meet the man behind the Monsanto PR machine

Jon Entine, Genetic Literacy Project: key messengers for Monsanto, Bayer and the chemical industry

Keith Kloor: how a science journalist worked with industry allies behind the scenes

Kevin Folta’s misleading and deceptive claims

Mark Lynas of Cornell Alliance for Science promotes the agrichemical industry’s commercial agenda

Monsanto named these “industry partners” in its PR plan to confront glyphosate cancer ruling (2015)

Nina Federoff mobilized the authority of American science to back Monsanto

Pamela Ronald’s ties to chemical industry front groups

SciBabe says eat your pesticides, but who is paying her?

Science Media Centre promotes corporate views of science

Sense About Science/STATS spin science for industry

Tamar Haspel misleads readers of the Washington Post in her food columns

Val Giddings: former BIO VP is a top operative for the agrichemical industry

More fact sheets about key front groups, trade groups and PR writers:

BIO: biotech industry trade group

Calorie Control Council

Center for Consumer Freedom

Crop Life International

International Life Sciences Institute

International Dairy Association

Julie Kelly

Kavin Senapathy/MAMMyths

Ketchum PR

U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance

Science fact sheets:

Aspartame: Decades of Science Point to Serious Health Risks

Aspartame Tied to Weight Gain, Increased Appetite, Obesity

Glyphosate: Health Concerns About Most Widely Used Pesticide

You can learn more about the findings of the U.S. Right to Know investigation here and see here for a list of global news coverage about our top findings. If you like our work, please consider donating here to keep the USRTK investigation cooking.

Nina Fedoroff: Mobilizing the authority of American science to back Monsanto

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Posted on June 18, 2019 by Stacy Malkan

Key points:

As a president and board chair of AAAS from 2011-2013, Dr. Fedoroff advanced agrichemical industry policy objectives. She now works for a lobbying firm.
Documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know show how public relations and lobbying efforts are coordinated behind the scenes among the agrichemical industry, front groups and academics who appear independent.
Dr. Fedoroff promotes organizations that mislead the public about science and their industry ties.

Nina Fedoroff, PhD, is one of the most influential scientists advocating for the proliferation and deregulation of genetically engineered foods. She is a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2011-2012) and former chair of the AAAS Board of Directors (2012-2013). She is a senior science advisor since 2015 at OFW Law, a lobbying firm whose clients have included Syngenta and the Council for Biotechnology Information, a trade group representing Bayer (which owns Monsanto), BASF, Corteva (a division of DowDuPont) and Syngenta.

From 2007-2010, Dr. Fedoroff served as science and technology advisor to the Secretary of State and the Administrator of USAID under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Prior to that, she was a board member of the Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, a multinational chemical and biotech firm; and an advisory board member of Evogene, a biotechnology company that partnered with DuPont, Syngenta, Bayer and Monsanto.

In 2017, Dr. Fedoroff promoted the American Council on Science and Health “junk science” book alongside two scientists affiliated with groups that deny climate science and lobby for tobacco products.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “science czar,” Dr. Fedoroff served as diplomat for the “GMO all the way” thrust of U.S. foreign policy, Tom Philpott reported in Grist in 2008 and 2009. Pesticide Action Network of North America has described Dr. Fedoroff as “literally the U.S. ambassador” for genetic engineering. According to Greenpeace, Dr. Fedoroff has been “a fervent advocate for the global proliferation of GM (genetically modified) foods throughout her career.”

During her tenure as president and chairman of AAAS, the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society, Dr. Fedoroff leveraged those roles to provide political aid to the agrichemical industry: the AAAS Board of Directors under her chairmanship issued a politically timed statement to oppose GMO labeling in 2012; while president of the scientific organization in 2011, Dr. Fedoroff helped defeat a U.S. EPA proposal that would have required additional health and safety data for GMO crops, according to emails described below. See, Nina Fedoroff, AAAS and the agrichemical industry lobby. Dr. Fedoroff and AAAS have not responded to requests for response.

Affiliations with deceptive industry front groups and PR efforts

Dr. Fedoroff has promoted and helped to legitimize groups that claim to be independent voices for science but work behind the scenes with the agrichemical industry in ways that mislead the public − including two groups that helped Monsanto try to discredit the scientists who served on the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) expert panel that classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in 2015.

American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) is funded by chemical, pharmaceutical and tobacco companies, according to leaked internal documents that document how the group pitches its services to corporations for product-defense campaigns. Emails released via court proceedings show that Monsanto agreed to fund ACSH in 2015, and asked the group to write about the IARC cancer report on glyphosate; ACSH later claimed the cancer report was a “scientific fraud.”

Dr. Fedoroff helped promote this group as a legitimate science source in a 2017 National Press Club event to launch the ACSH’s “Little Black Book of Junk Science.” Appearing alongside Dr. Fedoroff at the press event were two scientists affiliated with groups that deny climate science and lobby for tobacco products:

Angela Logomasini, PhD, is a senior fellow at the Koch-funded Independent Women’s Forum and Competitive Enterprise Institute. She argues that the large body of scientific evidence linking chlopyrifos to brain damage in children is “junk science.”
Alan Moghissi, PhD, a former EPA official, supports several organizations that question man-made climate change. He served on the advisory board of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), a Philip Morris front group that tried to discredit research about the health harms of tobacco.

Genetic Literacy Project: Dr. Fedoroff is listed as a board member on the website of the Genetic Literacy Project, a group that claims to be independent but partners with Monsanto on PR and lobbying projects, according to documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know. Documents released in court filings show that Monsanto listed this group among the “industry partners” it planned to engage in a strategy to “orchestrate outcry” against IARC’s glyphosate assessment in order to “protect the reputation and FTO of Roundup.” Genetic Literacy Project has since posted more than 200 articles critical of the cancer research agency, including numerous personal attacks on the scientists involved in the glyphosate report, accusing them of conspiracy, fraud, lying, corruption, secrecy, and being motivated by “profit and vanity.”

In an award-winning series in Le Monde about Monsanto’s “effort to destroy the UN cancer agency by any means possible,” journalists Stéphane Foucart and Stéphane Horel described Genetic Literacy Project and ACSH as “well-known propaganda websites” and said GLP is “fed by PR people linked to the pesticides and biotechnology industries.” GLP was launched in 2011 by Jon Entine, who owns a public relations firm that had Monsanto as a client at that time.

Attacks on cancer researchers on the Genetic Literacy Project website that lists Dr. Fedoroff as a “board member”:

Academics Review: Dr. Fedoroff promoted Academics Review as a trustworthy science source in a 2012 article in Trends in Genetics and a 2016 interview with the Washington Examiner about poor science journalism. Documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know show that Academics Review was set up as a front group with the help of Monsanto to discredit critics of genetic engineering and pesticides, while keeping corporate fingerprints hidden. The group, which claimed to be independent but was funded by agrichemical companies, attacked the organic industry as a “marketing scam.”

Biotech Literacy Boot Camp: Dr. Fedoroff was listed as a core faculty member of a Biotech Literacy Project “boot camp” held at UC Davis in 2015. The event was organized by two PR groups, Genetic Literacy Project and Academics Review, and secretly funded by agrichemical companies to “train scientists and journalists to frame the debate over GMOs and the toxicity of glyphosate,” reported Paul Thacker in The Progressive. Speakers included a familiar list of industry PR allies including Jay Byrne, Jon Entine, Bruce Chassy, David Tribe, Hank Campbell of ACSH and a keynote by the “Sci Babe.”

AgBioWorld: In her 2012 Trends and Genetics article, Dr. Fedoroff promoted the website AgBioWorld as “another invaluable resource” to learn about science. In a 2002 article in the Guardian, George Monbiot described how Monsanto’s PR team used the AgBioWorld website and fake social media accounts to discredit scientists and environmentalists who raised concerns about GM crops. Monbiot reported:

While he was working for Monsanto, Byrne told the internet newsletter Wow that he ‘spends his time and effort participating’ in web discussions about biotech. He singled out the site AgBioWorld, where he ‘ensures his company gets proper play.’ AgBioWorld is the site on which [fake online personality Mary] Smetacek launched her campaign.”

Attack on Greenpeace: Dr. Fedoroff spoke at a 2016 press event for a group calling itself “Support Precision Agriculture,” which presented a letter signed by over 100 Nobel laureates criticizing Greenpeace for their opposition to GMOs. Agrichemical industry allies helped out with the campaign, including Monsanto’s former Communications Director Jay Byrne; former biotech trade group VP Val Giddings; and Matt Winkler, who funds the PR group Genetic Literacy Project and is listed as a board member along with Dr. Fedoroff on the group’s website. The .com version of the supposedly independent “Support Precision Agriculture” website redirected to the Genetic Literacy Project for years (it was delinked after we called attention to it in 2019). In emails from 2011, Byrne identified Greenpeace on a “targets” list he was developing for Monsanto with names of industry critics they could confront from behind the cover of an industry-funded academic group that appeared independent.

Friend of GMO Answers: Dr. Fedoroff is an independent expert for GMO Answers, a PR campaign developed by Ketchum public relations, which has a history of using deceptive tactics to influence the public. Although Ketchum claimed the GMO Answers campaign would “redefine transparency,” the group scripted answers for an “independent” expert and was listed among the “industry partners” in Monsanto’s PR plan to protect Roundup from cancer concerns. A “resources” section (page 4) pointed to GMO Answers and Monsanto links that communicate the company message that “Glyphosate is not carcinogenic.” In 2016, Dr. Fedoroff spoke on a panel sponsored by GMO Answers, Scientific American and the Cornell Alliance for Science about media coverage of science featuring industry-friendly journalists Keith Kloor and Tamar Haspel. See “Monsanto’s Media Machine Comes to Washington,” by Paul Thacker.

Opposed investigation to uncover industry-academic ties

In 2015, Dr. Fedoroff and two other former AAAS presidents, Peter Raven and Phillip Sharp, promoted their AAAS leadership roles, but failed to disclose any of their industry ties, in a Guardian op-ed opposing a public records investigation that sought to uncover undisclosed partnerships and financial arrangements between agrichemical companies, their PR groups and publicly funded professors. The investigation by U.S. Right to Know uncovered some of the key documents described in this fact sheet.

Although the Guardian later added a disclosure that Dr. Fedoroff works at the lobby firm OFW Law, it did not disclose that OFW Law’s client at the time was the agrichemical industry trade group, whose member companies were a focus of the public records investigation. The former AAAS presidents argued in their op-ed that the investigation to uncover undisclosed industry-academic conflicts of interest was “taking a page out of the Climategate playbook” and involved “science denialism,” the same claims made by industry PR groups described in this fact sheet.

Using the AAAS to advance agrichemical industry policy objectives

During her tenure as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) from 2011-2012 and as Chair of the Board of Directors from 2012-2013, Dr. Fedoroff worked with agrichemical industry allies to advance key policy objectives: keeping genetically engineered foods unlabeled and defeating a proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that would have required additional data on the health and environmental impacts of genetically engineered crops that are classified as pesticides.

AAAS helped persuade voters to oppose GMO labeling

In 2012, the AAAS Board of Directors under Dr. Fedoroff’s chairmanship took the unusual step of taking a position on a contentious political issue just two weeks before voters in California went to the polls to decide on Proposition 37, a ballot initiative to label GMOs. A review of the many political statements made by AAAS found no other examples of the organization attempting to influence voters ahead of a state election. (The AAAS and Dr. Fedoroff did not respond to requests for comment. Also disclosure: the USRTK co-directors worked on the pro-labeling campaign.)

The AAAS board’s statement opposing GMO labeling was controversial. It contained inaccuracies, according to longtime AAAS members, several of whom denounced the anti-labeling statement as a “paternalistic” attack on consumer rights that misled the public by omitting important scientific and regulatory context. An AAAS spokeswoman at the time, Ginger Pinholster, called the criticisms “unfair and without merit.” She told a reporter she was in the room when the board passed the statement: “We are not an advocacy group. We make our statements based on scientific evidence,” Pinholster said. “I can tell you that our statement is not the work of nor was it influenced by any outside organization.”

Some observers noted the similarities in language used by the AAAS and the industry-funded campaign to defeat Proposition 37. “Is a major science group stumping for Monsanto?” Michele Simon asked in Grist. Simon described the board’s statement as “non-scientific but very quote-worthy,” and noted that the accompanying AAAS press release contained “talking points” that matched No on 37 campaign literature.

“appearing to be less than transparent is a really bad idea for the scientific community”

In a 2013 letter to Science magazine, another group of 11 scientists raised concerns that the AAAS board’s statement on GMO foods “could backfire.” They wrote, “we are concerned that AAA’s position represents a poorly informed approach to communicating science … appearing to be less than transparent is a really bad idea for the scientific community.”

Dr. Fedoroff was an early supporter of the industry-backed No on 37 campaign, which listed her on its website in June 2012 as one of four scientists representing the “scientific and academic community” who opposed GMO labeling. The campaign later asked Dr. Fedoroff to help recruit more academics to their cause, which she did according to an October 1, 2012 email to Meghan Callahan of BCF Public Affairs, “I’ve forwarded your [request for academic supporters] to an international group of biotechnology supporting academics. I suspect you’ll be hearing from many corners of the world,” Dr. Fedoroff wrote.

Helped kill data requirements for pesticide-producing plants

In 2011 while serving as AAAS president, Dr. Fedoroff worked with agrichemical industry allies and an industry lobbyist to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from requiring companies to provide additional health and safety data for genetically engineered foods that are classified as pesticides, according to emails described below.

The EPA proposal stemmed from a 2009 EPA Scientific Advisory Panel discussion about ways to improve the agency’s ability to make regulatory decisions about plants that are genetically engineered to produce or contain pesticides, which EPA refers to as “plant-incorporated protectants” (PIPs). Panel members were asked to evaluate current and proposed EPA data requirements for PIPs in the following areas:

data to assess potential similarities between PIPs and allergens, toxins, anti-nutrients and other hazardous proteins;
testing for synergistic effects on health and non-target organisms, when two or more GMO traits are combined (stacked trait GMOs);
potential impacts on microbial populations in soil ecosystems; and
data to better address the impacts of gene flow.

According to notes from an October 2009 EPA meeting, the proposed rules would “mostly codify existing data requirements that are currently applied on a case-by-case basis,” and would encompass five categories of data and information: product characterization, human health, non-target effects, environmental fate and resistance management. EPA announced the proposed rules in the Federal Register in March 2011.

Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know via public records requests show how industry allies mobilized to defeat the proposal.

The emails show conversations between Bruce Chassy, a University of Illinois professor at the time, Eric Sachs of Monsanto and other industry reps discussing activities and meetings that involved Dr. Fedoroff. Chassy described himself in the emails (page 66) as the liaison between industry and academics in the effort to oppose the EPA data requirements. Interspersed in his emails to Sachs were queries about whether Monsanto had sent a check to the University of Illinois Foundation in support of Chassy’s “biotechnology outreach and education activities.” (For more details about the undisclosed funds Chassy received from Monsanto for years as he promoted biotechnology, see reporting by Monica Eng in WBEZ and emails posted by the New York Times.)

On July 5, Dr. Chassy emailed Eric Sachs of Monsanto to report that Dr. Fedoroff had sent a letter to EPA over her signature co-signed by 60 members of the National Academy of Sciences. “Nina really picked up the ball and moved it down the field,” Chassy wrote. He described the EPA proposal as a “train wreck.”

The emails show that on August 19, industry trade group representatives were surprised and pleased (page 19) to see a New York Times op-ed from Dr. Fedoroff arguing against regulations for genetic engineering; “who got Nina’s op ed placed?” Adrienne Massey of BIO asked Dr. Chassy and two other industry allies, Henry Miller and Val Giddings. Chassy responded:

Massey forwarded Dr. Chassy the letter BIO sent to the EPA “hoping to build on the academics’ letter and short-circuit any dismissive response of EPA to that letter.” Their efforts did not succeed as they hoped. On August 24, Dr. Chassy wrote to Eric Sachs (page 14) that Dr. Fedoroff “got a response from EPA that is an insult.” He described plans to ratchet up the pressure.

In September, Chassy organized a conference call with Fedoroff, Monsanto’s Eric Sachs, Adrienne Massey of BIO and their lobbyist Stanley Abramson, among others. According to Chassy’s notes from the call, “Finding a way to ensure that the EPA proposal never sees the light of day would be the best possible outcome we could hope for. Next best would be to make sure it is DOA, but if needs be we must be willing to continue the fight.”

He also shared the problem that, “The EPA does not believe that the academic community can mount a sustained opposition to their proposed rule making; they believe that only a small handful are behind the petition and that most of the signatories are not committed to the issue.” The group decided they needed to “build a core of leading scientists who are in fact willing to speak out and devote time to this issue.”

By October, the group was more hopeful. Chassy emailed Sachs to report on a “surprisingly productive” meeting he and Dr. Fedoroff attended with Steve Bradbury of EPA. The meeting had been set up by Massey and the lobbyist Abramson. The EPA proposal to require data for GMO PIPs never did see the light of day, according to Michael Hansen, PhD, senior scientist at Consumers Union, who participated in the public meetings with the agency.

Full email chains, via the UCSF Industry Documents Library:

Related reporting

“I Was Barred from a Nobel Laureate Press Conference by a PR Consultant with Monsanto Ties,” by Tim Schwab, Food & Water Watch (2016)

“The Puppetmasters of Academia,” by Jonathan Latham, PhD, Independent Science News (2015)

“20 years later: the biotech brigade marches on,” Pesticide Action Network (2012)

“Engineering food for whom?” by Marcia Ishii-Eitemann, PhD, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network North America (2011)

“Sorry, NY Times: GMOs still won’t save the world,” by Anna Lappe, Grist (2011)

“In which I go toe to toe with H. Clinton’s science czar over GMOs,” by Tom Philpott, Grist (2009)

“Genetically Modified Diplomat: U.S. Foreign Policy GMO All the Way,” by Tom Philpott, Grist (2008)

Nina Fedoroff: Mobilizing the authority of American science to back Monsanto

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Posted on June 18, 2019 by Stacy Malkan

As a president and board chair of AAAS from 2011-2013, Dr. Fedoroff advanced agrichemical industry policy objectives. She now works for a lobbying firm.
Documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know show how public relations and lobbying efforts are coordinated behind the scenes among the agrichemical industry, front groups and academics who appear independent.

A 2017 event to promote the American Council on Science and Health’s “junk science” book featured Dr. Fedoroff and two scientists affiliated with groups that deny climate science.

During her tenure as president and chairman of AAAS, the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society, Dr. Fedoroff leveraged those roles to provide political aid to the agrichemical industry: for example, the AAAS Board of Directors under her chairmanship issued a politically timed statement to oppose GMO labeling in 2012. While president of the scientific organization in 2011, Dr. Fedoroff helped defeat a U.S. EPA proposal that would have required additional health and safety data for GMO crops, according to emails described below. See, Nina Fedoroff, AAAS and the agrichemical industry lobby. Dr. Fedoroff and AAAS have not responded to requests for response.

Affiliations with deceptive industry front groups and PR efforts

Angela Logomasini, PhD, is a senior fellow at the Koch-funded Independent Women’s Forum and Competitive Enterprise Institute. She argues that the large body of scientific evidence linking chlopyrifos to brain damage in children is “junk science.”
Alan Moghissi, PhD, a former EPA official, supports several organizations that question man-made climate change. He served on the advisory board of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), a Philip Morris front group that tried to discredit research about the health harms of tobacco.

Opposed investigation to uncover industry-academic ties

Using the AAAS to advance agrichemical industry policy objectives

AAAS helped persuade voters to oppose GMO labeling

“appearing to be less than transparent is a really bad idea for the scientific community”

Helped kill data requirements for pesticide-producing plants

data to assess potential similarities between PIPs and allergens, toxins, anti-nutrients and other hazardous proteins;
testing for synergistic effects on health and non-target organisms, when two or more GMO traits are combined (stacked trait GMOs);
potential impacts on microbial populations in soil ecosystems; and
data to better address the impacts of gene flow.

Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know via public records requests show how industry allies mobilized to defeat the proposal.

Full email chains, via the UCSF Industry Documents Library:

Related reporting

“I Was Barred from a Nobel Laureate Press Conference by a PR Consultant with Monsanto Ties,” by Tim Schwab, Food & Water Watch (2016)

“The Puppetmasters of Academia,” by Jonathan Latham, PhD, Independent Science News (2015)

“20 years later: the biotech brigade marches on,” Pesticide Action Network (2012)

“Engineering food for whom?” by Marcia Ishii-Eitemann, PhD, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network North America (2011)

“Sorry, NY Times: GMOs still won’t save the world,” by Anna Lappe, Grist (2011)

“In which I go toe to toe with H. Clinton’s science czar over GMOs,” by Tom Philpott, Grist (2009)

“Genetically Modified Diplomat: U.S. Foreign Policy GMO All the Way,” by Tom Philpott, Grist (2008)

Glyphosate Spin Check: Tracking Claims About the Most Widely Used Herbicide

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Posted on April 26, 2019 by Stacy Malkan

Amid global debate over the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides such as Monsanto’s Roundup, numerous claims have been made to defend the product’s safety. In the wake of two recent landmark jury rulings that found Roundup to be a substantial factor in causing non-Hodgkin lymphoma, we examined some of these claims and fact-checked them for accuracy.

If you have more examples of glyphosate spin you’d like us to fact check, please email them to stacy@usrtk.org or tweet to us @USRighttoKnow.

Mark Lynas, Cornell Alliance for Science

Cornell Alliance for Science website (Nov. 2017)

This article by Mark Lynas contains several inaccurate and misleading statements. Like many promoting glyphosate products, the claims here focus on trying to discredit the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in 2015.

CLAIM: IARC is a “little known and rather flaky offshoot of the World Health Organization” that “finds almost everything carcinogenic”

FACT: IARC is the specialized cancer research agency of WHO with expert panels comprised of independent scientists from various disciplines of cancer research. In its 50-year history, IARC has assessed 1,013 substances and found 49% of those were “not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans”; 20% were classified as known or probably carcinogenic to humans.

CLAIM: “early drafts of the IARC assessment were extensively altered at a late stage to point towards a carcinogenicity finding – even when the science they were assessing pointed away from this”

FACT: This claim is sourced with a flawed Reuters report by Kate Kelland that left out crucial facts, including the fact that most of the information IARC didn’t adopt from “early drafts” was from a review article co-authored by a Monsanto scientist. The review article “did not provide adequate information for independent evaluation of the conclusions reached by the Monsanto scientist and other authors,” IARC said. Kelland has written a number of stories critical of IARC; documents released in 2019 establish that Monsanto secretly had a hand in some of her reporting.

Lynas used one other source to buttress his claims about wrongdoing at IARC: David Zaruk, a former chemical industry lobbyist who once worked for the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller.

CLAIM: Glyphosate is the “most benign chemical in world farming”

FACT: This statement is not science-based. Studies link glyphosate to a range of health concerns including cancer, endocrine disruption, liver disease, shortened pregnancies, birth defects and damage to beneficial gut bacteria. Environmental concerns include negative impacts on soil, bees and butterflies.

SOURCE: Mark Lynas is a former journalist turned promotional advocate for agrichemical products. He works for the Cornell Alliance for Science, a PR campaign housed at Cornell University that is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to promote and defend GMOs and pesticides.

American Council on Science and Health

ACSH website (October 2017)

CLAIM: The IARC carcinogenicity report on glyphosate was a case of “scientific fraud”

FACT: ACSH based its “fraud” claims on the same two sources Mark Lynas of the Cornell Alliance for Science used one month later to attack IARC on the Cornell website: the former chemical industry lobbyist David Zaruk and the inaccurate article in Reuters that followed talking points that Monsanto gave the reporter.

SOURCE: The American Council on Science and Health is a front group that receives funding from chemical, pharmaceutical and tobacco companies, and pitches its services to industry groups for product defense campaigns, according to leaked internal documents. Emails from 2015 establish that Monsanto was funding ACSH and asked the group to write about the IARC glyphosate report. An ACSH staffer responded that they were already involved in a “full-court press re: IARC” regarding agrichemicals, phthalates and diesel exhaust.

Yvette d’Entremont, a.k.a. the “Sci Babe”

Self Magazine article (October 2018)

CLAIMS: “with over 800 studies on it, no study has shown the components in Roundup to cause cancer” … “there haven’t been major credible studies showing a causal link between Roundup and cancer.”

FACT: Several major credible studies link Roundup or its key component glyphosate to cancer, including a study submitted to the EPA in the 1980s that EPA scientists at the time said was evidence of cancer concerns. There are too many studies to list, but citations can be found in the 2015 International Agency for Research on Cancer Monograph on Glyphosate.

Additionally, a broad scientific analysis of the cancer-causing potential of glyphosate herbicides published in February 2019 found that people with high exposures had an increased risk of developing a type of cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

SOURCE: Yvette d’Entremont is a “contributing editor” to Self Magazine with a column called “SciBabe Explains.” Self Magazine does not disclose to its readers that SciBabe partners with companies whose products she defends. In 2017, the artificial sweetener company Splenda partnered with SciBabe to help “empower fans of the SPLENDA® Brand to take an active role in busting myths about sucralose.” Chemical companies have sponsored some of her speaking engagements at farming conferences.

Geoffrey Kabat, epidemiologist

Genetic Literacy Project website (October 2018)

CLAIM: Glyphosate “has been so thoroughly studied for toxicity and the concentrations found in humans are so low that there is no need for further study … there is really nothing left to justify further research!”

FACT: In sworn testimony admitted into evidence in ongoing litigation against Monsanto and its owner Bayer AG, former Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant acknowledged the company never did any epidemiology study of glyphosate-based herbicide formulations the company sells. The company also sought to block a toxicity evaluation of glyphosate formulations by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Moreover, these comments, which Dr. Kabat attributed to an anonymous source, ignore two key facts: independent studies link glyphosate to a wide range of health problems and environmental concerns, and evidence from court filings suggests that Monsanto interfered with scientific and regulatory assessments of glyphosate (see examples and sources here, here, here, and here).

According to Judge Vince Chhabria, who presided over a recent federal trial that resulted in $80 million in damages against Monsanto, “the plaintiffs have presented a great deal of evidence that Monsanto has not taken a responsible, objective approach to the safety of its product.” The judge also wrote:

Regarding pesticide residues in people, recent science is raising concerns that current regulations do not provide adequate health protections. See reporting by Carey Gillam, “Chemicals on our food: When ‘safe’ may not really be safe,” and commentaries by scientists here, here and here.

SOURCE: Dr. Geoffrey Kabat has longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and has published papers favorable to the tobacco industry that were funded by the tobacco industry. He serves on the board of directors of the parent organization of Genetic Literacy Project, which works with Monsanto on PR projects. Kabat is also on the advisory board of the front group American Council on Science and Health.

Patrick Moore, PR consultant

Video interview with Canal+ (March 2015)

CLAIM: “You can drink a whole quart of [glyphosate] and it won’t hurt you.”

FACT: Even Monsanto says you should not drink glyphosate. According to the company’s website, “glyphosate isn’t a beverage and should not be ingested – just like you wouldn’t drink shampoo or dish detergent. It is always important to use products for their intended purpose and as directed on the label.” (The post also clarifies that Moore “isn’t a Monsanto lobbyist or employee.”)

SOURCE: Moore has been portrayed as a co-founder of Greenpeace who “calls out his former group” as he argues for deregulation of toxic products or polluting industries. According to Greenpeace, “Once upon a time, Dr. Patrick Moore was an early Greenpeace member. Now he is a public relations consultant for the polluting companies that Greenpeace works to change.” In 2014, Moore testified to a U.S. Senate committee that there is no scientific evidence that human activity is causing global warming.

Kevin Folta, PhD, professor at the University of Florida

Tweets 2015 and 2013

CLAIM: “I’ve drank [glyphosate] before to demonstrate harmlessness” … “I’ve done it live and will do it again. Must be mixed w/coke or c-berry juice. Tastes soapy. No buzz”

FACT: While Dr. Folta may indeed have consumed glyphosate, this is bad advice coming from an unreliable source. As described above, even Monsanto says you should not drink glyphosate.

SOURCE: Professor Folta has misled the public on many occasions about his agrichemial industry ties. In 2017, Dr. Folta sued the New York Times and Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Eric Lipton for reporting on Folta’s undisclosed collaborations with Monsanto to help defeat GMO labeling. The lawsuit was dismissed.

Alison van Eenennaam, PhD, animal geneticist, UC Davis

video interview on the Real News Network (May 2015)

CLAIM: “I think there’s several very comprehensive meta-analyses that have been done recently that show there are no unique toxicological or carcinogenicity effects associated with the use of Roundup. There was the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment that just reviewed hundreds of toxicological studies and nearly a thousand published reports, and concluded that the data showed neither carcinogenic or mutagentic properties of glyphosate, nor that glyphosate is toxic to fertility, reproduction, and or embryonic fetal development in lab animals … And I wouldn’t call Germany necessarily a country where you would expect them to be doing a risk assessment that wasn’t really looking at what the data’s saying.”

FACT: A 2019 report commissioned by Members of Parliament in the European Union found that Germany’s risk assessment agency “copy-and-pasted tracts from Monsanto studies.” See reporting in the Guardian by Arthur Neslen, “EU glyphosate approval was based on plagiarised Monsanto text, report finds.”

SOURCE: Dr. van Eenennaam is a leading promoter of genetically engineered animals and crops, and a fervent advocate for deregulation. Documents show she has coordinated with agrichemical companies and their public relations firms on PR and messaging.

Food Evolution documentary film

This 2017 feature-length documentary promotes genetically engineered foods as the solution to world hunger but glosses over a key controversy at the center of the GMO debate: whether Roundup, the herbicide that most GM crops are engineered to resist, causes cancer. The film does not even mention the IARC report that found glyphosate to be a probable human carcinogen, and it relies on just two sources to claim that glyphosate is not a worry.

CLAIM: The film shows footage of Monsanto’s Robb Fraley giving a speech; when an audience member asked him about studies linking glyphosate to cancer or birth defects, Fraley waved his hand dismissively and said all those studies are “pseudoscience.”

FACT: Evidence from animal studies and epidemiological data published in reputable journals link glyphosate to several adverse impacts including cancer and birth defects.

CLAIM: A farmer claims that glyphosate has “very, very low toxicity; lower than coffee, lower than salt.”

FACT: Comparing the toxicity of short-term exposure of glyphosate to things like coffee or salt is irrelevant and misleading; concerns about links to cancer are based on chronic, long-term exposures to glyphosate.

SOURCE: Food Evolution was produced by Scott Hamilton Kennedy, narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson and funded by the Institute for Food Technologists, an industry trade group. Dozens of academics have called it a propaganda film, and several people interviewed for the film described a sneaky and deceptive filming process. NYU Professor Marion Nestle asked to be taken out of the film, but the director refused.

Independent Women’s Forum

IWF website (August 2018)

CLAIM: “The truth is, glyphosate is not carcinogenic.”

FACT: This article by Julie Gunlock provides no scientific backing for its claims; the only links lead to previous IWF blogs accusing environmental groups of lying and “unnecessarily scaring moms.”

SOURCE: The Independent Women’s Forum promotes tobacco products, denies climate science and partners with Monsanto on events to defend pesticides. IWF is funded largely by right-wing foundations that promote deregulation for polluting industries.

The International Food Information Council

IFIC website (January 2016)

CLAIM: “IARC’s determination [that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen] was found by numerous experts to have excluded dozens of studies that found no evidence of glyphosate being carcinogenic. Experts also found IARC’s review to be based on flawed and discredited science, some even going so far as to say the conclusion was ‘totally wrong.'”

FACT: IFIC relied on industry sources for these claims, linking to articles by Val Giddings, PhD, former trade group executive turned PR consultant for the agrichemical industry; and Keith Solomon, a toxicologist who was hired by Monsanto to assess the IARC report.

SOURCE: The International Food Information Council, funded by large food and chemical companies, promotes and defends sugar, artificial sweeteners, food additives, pesticides, processed foods and GMOs. A Monsanto PR plan identified IFIC as one of the “industry partners” that could help defend glyphosate from cancer concerns.

This photo posted to the IFIC glyphosate page (then deleted after we called attention to it) is an example of the type of messaging the food industry uses to try to convince women to trust their “experts.”

Monsanto Relied on These “Partners” to Attack Top Cancer Scientists

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Posted on March 31, 2019 by Stacy Malkan

Related: Secret Documents Expose Monsanto’s War on Cancer Scientists, by Stacy Malkan

This fact sheet describes the contents of Monsanto’s confidential public relations plan to discredit the World Health Organization’s cancer research unit, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in order to protect the reputation of Roundup weedkiller. In March 2015, the international group of experts on the IARC panel judged glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, to be probably carcinogenic to humans.

The Monsanto plan names more than a dozen “industry partner” groups that company executives planned to “inform / inoculate / engage” in their efforts to protect the reputation of Roundup, prevent the “unfounded” cancer claims from becoming popular opinion, and “provide cover for regulatory agencies.” Partners included academics as well as chemical and food industry front groups, trade groups and lobby groups — follow the links below to fact sheets that provide more information about the partner groups.

Together these fact sheets provide a sense of the depth and breadth of the corporate attack on the IARC cancer experts in defense of Monsanto’s top-selling herbicide.

Monsanto’s objectives for dealing with the IARC carcinogenicity rating for glyphosate (page 5).

Background

A key document released in 2017 in legal proceedings against Monsanto describes the corporation’s “preparedness and engagement plan” for the IARC cancer classification for glyphosate, the world’s most widely used agrichemical. The internal Monsanto document — dated Feb. 23, 2015 — assigns more than 20 Monsanto staffers to objectives including “neutralize impact of decision,” “regulator outreach,” “ensure MON POV” and “lead voice in ‘who is IARC’ plus 2B outrage.” On March 20, 2015, IARC announced its decision to classify glyphosate as Group 2A carcinogen, “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

For more background, see: “How Monsanto Manufactured Outrage at Chemical Cancer Classification it Expected,” by Carey Gillam, Huffington Post (9/19/2017)

Monsanto’s Tier 1-4 “Industry Partners”

Page 5 of the Monsanto document identifies four tiers of “industry partners” that Monsanto executives planned to engage in its IARC preparedness plan. These groups together have a broad reach and influence in pushing a narrative about cancer risk that protects corporate profits.

Tier 1 industry partners are agrichemical industry-funded lobby and PR groups.

CropLife International / European Crop Protection Association are pesticide industry trade groups
GMO Answers is a crisis management marketing website funded by Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Dow, Dupont and Syngenta and run by Ketchum public relations firm
Biotechnology Innovation Organization is a biotech industry trade group

Tier 2 industry partners are front groups that are often cited as independent sources, but work with the chemical industry behind the scenes on public relations and lobbying campaigns.

Tier 3 industry partners are food-industry funded nonprofit and trade groups. These groups were tapped to, “Alert food companies via Stakeholder Engagement team (IFIC, GMA, CFI) for ‘inoculation strategy’ to provide early education on glyphosate residue levels, describe science-based studies versus agenda-driven hypotheses” of the independent cancer panel.

International Food Information Council (IFIC) is a food industry-funded spin group that leads a coalition of 130 groups that coordinate messaging about GMOs and pesticides.
Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) is the leading trade group for junk food companies.
The Center for Food Integrity (CFI) is a food industry-funded spin group.

Tier 4 industry partners are “key grower’s associations.” These are the various trade groups representing corn, soy and other industrial growers and food manufacturers.

Orchestrating outcry against the cancer report on glyphosate

Monsanto’s PR document described their plans to conduct robust media and social media outreach to “orchestrate outcry with the IARC decision.”

How that played out can be seen in the writings of the industry partner groups that used common messaging and sources to accuse the cancer research agency of wrongdoing and attempt to discredit the scientists who worked on the glyphosate report.

Examples of the attack messaging can be seen on the Genetic Literacy Project website. This group claims to be an independent source on science, however, documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know show that Genetic Literacy Project works with Monsanto on PR projects without disclosing those collaborations. Jon Entine launched the group in 2011 when Monsanto was a client of his PR firm. This is a classic front group tactic; moving a company’s messaging through a group that claims to be independent but isn’t.

Plan suggests Sense About Science to “lead industry response”

Monsanto’s PR document discusses plans to conduct robust media and social media outreach to “orchestrate outcry with the IARC decision.” The plan suggests the group Sense About Science (in brackets with a question mark) for “leads industry response and provides platform for IARC observers and industry spokesperson.”

Sense About Science is a public charity based in London that claims to promote public understanding of science, but the group is “known to take positions that buck scientific consensus or dismiss emerging evidence of harm,” reported Liza Gross in The Intercept. In 2014, Sense About Science launched a US version under the direction of Trevor Butterworth, a writer with a long history of disagreeing with science that raises health concerns about toxic chemicals.

Sense About Science is related to the Science Media Centre, a science PR agency in London that receives corporate funding and is known for pushing corporate views of science. A reporter with close ties to the Science Media Centre, Kate Kelland, has published several articles in Reuters critical of the IARC cancer agency that were based on false narratives and inaccurate incomplete reporting. The Reuters articles have been heavily promoted by Monsanto’s “industry partner” groups and were used as the basis for political attacks against IARC.

For more information:

“IARC rejects false claims in Reuters article,” IARC statement (3/1/18)
Reuters’ Aaron Blair IARC story promotes false narrative, USRTK (7/24/2017)
Reuters’ claim that IARC “edited out” findings is also false, USRTK (10/20/2017)
“Are corporate ties influencing science coverage?” Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (7/24/2017)

“Engage Henry Miller”

Page 2 of the Monsanto PR document identifies the first external deliverable for planning and preparation: “Engage Henry Miller” to “inoculate / establish public perspective on IARC and reviews.”

“I would if I could start with a high-quality draft.”

Henry I. Miller, MD, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology, has a long documented history of working with corporations to defend hazardous products. The Monsanto plan identifies the “MON owner” of the task as Eric Sachs, Monsanto’s science, technology and outreach lead.

Documents later reported by The New York Times reveal that Sachs emailed Miller a week before the IARC glyphosate report to ask if Miller was interested in writing about the “controversial decision.” Miller responded, “I would if I could start with a high-quality draft.” On March 23, Miller posted an article on Forbes that “largely mirrored” the draft provided by Monsanto, according to the Times. Forbes severed its relationship with Miller in the wake of the ghostwriting scandal and deleted his articles from the site.

American Council on Science and Health

Although the Monsanto PR document did not name the corporate-funded American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) among its “industry partners,” emails released via litigation show that Monsanto funded the American Council on Science and Health and asked the group to write about the IARC glyphosate report. The emails indicate that Monsanto executives were uncomfortable about working with ACSH but did so anyway because, “we don’t have a lot of supporters and can’t afford to lose the few we have.”

Monsanto’s senior science lead Daniel Goldstein wrote his colleagues, “I can assure you I am not all starry eyed about ACSH- they have PLENTY of warts- but: You WILL NOT GET A BETTER VALUE FOR YOUR DOLLAR than ACSH” (emphasis his). Goldstein sent links to dozens of ACSH materials promoting and defending GMOs and pesticides that he described as “EXTREMELY USEFUL.”

Follow the findings of U.S. Right to Know and media coverage about collaborations between food industry groups and academics on our investigations page. USRTK documents are also available in the Chemical Industry Documents Library hosted by UCSF.

Geoffrey Kabat’s Ties to Tobacco and Chemical Industry Groups

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Posted on March 7, 2019 by Stacy Malkan

Geoffrey Kabat, PhD, is a cancer epidemiologist and author of two books arguing that that health hazards of pesticides, electromagnetic fields, secondhand tobacco smoke and other environmental exposures are “greatly overblown.” He is often quoted in the press as an independent expert on cancer risk. Reporters who use Dr. Kabat as a source should be aware of (and disclose) his longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and involvement with groups that partner with the chemical industry on PR and lobbying campaigns.

Front group leader and advisor

Dr. Kabat is a member of the board of directors of the Science Literacy Project, the parent group of Genetic Literacy Project, which works behind the scenes with Monsanto to promote and defend agrichemical products. Dr. Kabat is also a member of the board of scientific advisors of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a group that receives funding from chemical, tobacco and pharmaceutical companies.

Both Genetic Literacy Project and ACSH partnered with Monsanto on a public relations campaign to attempt to discredit the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) for its report that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is a probable human carcinogen. According to documents released via litigation:

A Monsanto PR plan (February 2015) named Genetic Literacy Project among the “industry partners” Monsanto planned to engage in its efforts to “neutralize [the] impact” of the IARC report. The goals of Monsanto’s plan were to “protect the reputation and FTO of Roundup” and “provide cover for regulatory agencies…” GLP has since posted more than 200 articles critical of the cancer agency.
Emails from February 2015 show that Monsanto funded ACSH on an ongoing basis and reached out to give ACSH the “full array” of Monsanto information about the IARC report on glyphosate. In the emails, Monsanto staffers discussed the usefulness of ACSH’s materials on pesticides, and one wrote, “You WILL NOT GET A BETTER VALUE FOR YOUR DOLLAR than ACSH.” (emphasis in original)
ACSH staffers told Monsanto the IARC glyphosate report was on their radar, and noted, “We are involved in a full-court press re: IARC, regarding ag-chemicals, DINP [phthalate] and diesel exhaust.”

These groups used similar messaging to attack the IARC cancer researchers as “scientific frauds” and “anti-chemical enviros” who “lied” and “conspired to misrepresent” the science on glyphosate. They cited Dr. Kabat as a key source for claims that IARC is “discredited” and “only enviro-fanatics” pay attention to reports on cancer hazard. Dr. Kabat has written that “there are literally no more studies we can do to show glyphosate is safe,” based on an interview with an anonymous expert.

Attacking scientists who raise cancer concerns

Another example of how Dr. Kabat aids the Monsanto-connected groups can be found in his efforts to discredit a different group of scientists who raised cancer concerns about glyphosate in a February 2019 meta-analysis. The meta-analysis, co-authored by three scientists who were tapped by EPA to serve on an expert scientific advisory committee on glyphosate, reported “compelling links” between exposures to glyphosate-based herbicides and increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Dr. Kabat skewered the analysis in an article that was first published on Forbes but was later removed after Forbes editors received complaints about Kabat’s lack of disclosure about his ties to ACSH. When questioned about the issue, Forbes said the article was pulled because it violated Forbes standards and Kabat would no longer be a contributor to Forbes.

Dr. Kabat’s deleted Forbes article can still be read on Science 2.0, a website run by the former director of ACSH, and a version appears on Genetic Literacy Project. GLP Executive Director Jon Entine promoted Dr. Kabat’s article along with suggestions that the scientists may have committed “deliberate fraud.”

https://twitter.com/JonEntine/status/1100431041871953920

Jon Entine is also tied in with the American Council on Science and Health. ACSH published Entine’s 2011 book that defends atrazine, a pesticide manufactured by Syngenta, which was funding ACSH.

For more information about industry-orchestrated attacks on IARC, see:

Secret Documents Expose Monsanto’s War on Cancer Scientists, by Stacy Malkan, TruthOut (7.16.18)
Monsanto Relied on These ‘Partners’ to Attack Top Cancer Scientists, USRTK fact sheet

Dr. Kabat’s longstanding tobacco ties

Dr. Kabat has published several papers favorable to the tobacco industry that were funded by the tobacco industry. He and his co-author on some of those papers, James Enstrom (a trustee of the American Council on Science and Health), have longstanding ties to the tobacco industry, according to a 2005 paper in BMJ Tobacco Control.

In a widely cited 2003 paper in BMJ, Kabat and Enstrom concluded that secondhand smoke does not increase the risk of lung cancer and heart disease. The study was sponsored in part by the Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR), a tobacco industry group. Although that funding was disclosed, a follow-up analysis in BMJ Tobacco Control found that the disclosures provided by Kabat and Enstrom, although they met the journal’s standards, “did not provide the reader with a full picture of the tobacco industry’s involvement with the study authors. The tobacco industry documents reveal that the authors had long standing financial and other working relationships with the tobacco industry.” (emphasis added)

This table in the BMJ Tobacco Control paper reports the early ties:

Source: https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/14/2/118

In 2019, a search for Geoffrey Kabat in the UCSF Tobacco Industry Documents brings up over 800 documents, including a 2007 invoice to Phillip Morris for over $20,000 for “consulting on the health effects of low-yield cigarettes” billed at $350 an hour.

In 2008, Kabat and Enstrom published a paper partly funded by Phillip Morris reporting that previous assessments appeared to have overestimated the strength of the association between environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease.

In 2012, Dr. Kabat co-authored a paper finding that mentholated cigarettes were not an important contributor to esophageal cancer. For that paper, Dr. Kabat declared he had “served as a consultant to a law firm and to a consulting firm on the health effects of menthol cigarettes.”

For more information from U.S. Right to Know about front groups and academics with undisclosed ties to food and chemical companies, see our Agrichemical Industry Propaganda Tracker.

Last-Minute Moves

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Posted on February 19, 2019 by Gary Ruskin

With less than a week to go before opening statements in the Feb. 25 federal civil trial over accusations that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weed killers cause cancer, lawyers for both sides were readying for jury selection that starts Wednesday.

In pre-trial proceedings lawyers for plaintiff Edwin Hardeman and the legal team representing Monsanto, now a unit of Bayer AG, have already been arguing over jury selection based solely on written responses provided by prospective jurors, and many have already been stricken by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria for cause.

On Wednesday, attorneys will question the prospective jurors in person. Monsanto’s attorneys are particularly concerned about potential jurors who know about the case that Monsanto lost last summer. In that trial, plaintiff Dewayne “Lee” Johnson won a unanimous jury verdict on claims similar to Hardeman’s – that Monsanto’s herbicides caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that Monsanto failed to warn of the risks. Johnson was awarded $289 million by jurors, but the judge in the case reduced the verdict to $78 million.

The stakes in this case are high. The first loss hit Bayer hard; its share price is down nearly 30 percent since the verdict and investors remain skittish. Another loss in court could provide another blow to the company’s market capitalization, particularly because there are roughly 9,000 other plaintiffs waiting for their day in court.

In preparation for the trial opening on Monday morning, Judge Chhabria said in a Feb. 15 hearing that he will separate out all jury candidates on a Monsanto list who say they have heard about the Johnson case for specific questioning about their knowledge of that case.

Among those already stricken from the jury pool based on their written questionnaires were several people who indicated they had negative perceptions about Monsanto. While the judge agreed with Monsanto’s request to remove those people from the jury pool, he refused a request from plaintiff’s attorneys to strike a prospective juror who said the opposite – the juror wrote that he feels that “they (Monsanto) typically are very honest and helpful to society,” and said he believed Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide was safe.

Judge Chhabria said “I didn’t think anyone in the Bay Area felt that way….”

In other pre-trial action, lawyers from both sides were in Australia preparing for testimony from plaintiff’s expert witness Christopher Portier. Portier is providing video-recorded testimony in advance with direct and cross-examination. He was scheduled to be in court in person for the trial but suffered a heart attack in January and has been advised against the long air travel that would be required to appear in person.

Portier is one of the plaintiff’s star witnesses. He is former director of the National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and a former scientist with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

In other pre-trial action, Judge Chhabria ruled on Monday on motions from both parties dealing with what evidence would be allowed in and what would be excluded. Chhabria has ruled that there will be a first phase of the trial in which evidence will be limited to causation. If the jury does find that Monsanto’s products caused Hardeman’s cancer there will be a second phase in which evidence may be introduced pertaining to the allegations by plaintiff’s attorneys that Monsanto has engaged in a cover-up of the risks of its products.

Among Chhabria’s evidentiary rulings:

Evidence the plaintiff’s attorneys say shows Monsanto engaged in ghostwriting scientific literature is excluded for the first phase of the trial.
Evidence or Monsanto’s marketing materials is excluded for both phases.
Comparisons between Monsanto and the tobacco industry are excluded.
An email from Monsanto discussing work with the American Council on Science and Health is excluded from the first phase.
Arguments that glyphosate is needed to “feed the world” are excluded for both phases.
Certain EPA documents are excluded.
An analysis by the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifying glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen is “restricted.”

One piece of evidence plaintiff’s attorneys plan to introduce is a new meta-analysis A broad new scientific analysis of the cancer-causing potential of glyphosate herbicides. The study found that people with high exposures to the herbicides have a 41% increased risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

The study authors, top scientists who the Environmental Protection Agency has used as advisers, said the evidence “supports a compelling link” between exposures to glyphosate-based herbicides and increased risk for NHL.

Jay Byrne: Meet the Man Behind the Monsanto PR Machine

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Posted on February 1, 2019 by Stacy Malkan

Monsanto’s former Director of Corporate Communications Jay Byrne, president of the public relations firm v-Fluence, is a key player in the covert propaganda and lobbying campaigns of the world’s largest agrichemical companies. Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know, posted in the UCSF Chemical Industry Documents Archive, reveal a range of deceptive tactics Byrne and other industry allies are using to promote and defend GMO foods and pesticides.

The examples here showcase some of the ways companies are moving their messaging into the public arena from behind the cover of neutral-sounding front groups, government helpers and academics who appear to be independent as they work with corporations or their PR consultants.

Clients are top agrichemical, agribusiness and drug companies and tradegroups

Byrne’s client list has included a range of the largest agribusiness and pharmaceutical companies and business groups, including the American Chemistry Council, Syngenta, AstraZeneca, Monsanto, Pfizer, the International Rice Research Institute, the American Farm Bureau, National Corn Growers Association, Grocery Manufacturers Association, Rohm & Haas and the pesticide industry trade group CropLife.

Cooked up academic front group to attack Monsanto critics

A key strategy of the agrichemical industry, as the New York Times reported, is to deploy “white hat” professors to fight the industry’s PR and lobbying battles from behind the cover of the “gloss of impartiality and weight of authority that come with a professor’s pedigree.”

In March 2010, Byrne and University of Illinois Professor Bruce Chassy discussed setting up a front group called “Academics Review” that could attract donations from corporations while appearing to be independent. Byrne compared the idea to the Center for Consumer Freedom (a front group run by infamous corporate propaganda front-man Rick Berman), which “has cashed in on this to the extreme; and I think we have a much better concept.” Byrne described an “‘opportunities’ list with targets” they could go after. Byrne wrote to Dr. Chassy:

All those groups, people and topic areas “mean money for a range of well heeled corporations,” Byrne wrote. He said he and Val Giddings, PhD, a former vice president for the biotech trade group BIO, could serve as “commercial vehicles” for the academics.

In November 2010, Byrne wrote to Chassy again, “It will be good to get the next phase of work on Academics Review going – we’ve got a relative slow first quarter coming up in 2011 if business remains the same.” Byrne offered to “schedule some pro bono search engine optimization time” for his team to counter a GMO critic’s online influence. Byrne concluded the email, “As always, would love to find the next topic (and sponsor) to broaden this while we are able.”

In 2014, Academics Review released a report attacking the organic industry as a marketing scam; in its own marketing materials for the report, Academics Review claimed to be independent and did not disclose its agrichemical industry funding.

For more information:

Monsanto Fingerprints Found All Over Attack on Organic Food, by Stacy Malkan, Huffington Post (6.30.2016)
Academics Review: The Making of a Monsanto Front Group, USRTK fact sheet

“US government-GLP-Byrne projects” to sway journalists

Byrne’s lobbying and PR operations for the GMO and pesticide industry intersect at many points with the work of Jon Entine, another key figure in agrichemical industry defense campaigns. Entine directs the Genetic Literacy Project, which he launched in 2011 when Monsanto was a client of his PR firm. (Entine’s PR firm ESG MediaMetrics listed Monsanto as a client on its website in 2010, 2011, 2012 and up to January 2013, according to internet archives still available online.)

In December 2013, Entine wrote to Max T. Holtzman, who was then acting deputy undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to propose collaborating on a series of what he described as “US government-GLP-Byrne projects” to promote GMOs. Entine wrote to Holtzman:

Entine’s proposed “US government-GLP-Byrne” projects included a “Boot Camp and Response Swat Team” to prepare third-party academics for “potential legislative engagement on [GMO] labeling and related issues,” a “journalism conclave” to bolster media coverage about food security challenges and “provide coaching to younger journalists,” a global media outreach campaign to promote acceptance of biotechnology, and “multi-media content and placements from credible sources” reinforcing key themes “with segments and footage made available on U.S. government websites, GLP and other platforms.”

Holtzman responded, “Thanks Jon. It was great meeting you as well. I think your outline below provides natural intersection points where usda/USG messaging and your efforts intersect well. I’d like to engage further and loop other folks here at usda not only from the technical/trade areas but from our communications shop as well.”

Taxpayer-funded, Monsanto-aligned videos to promote GMOs

A series of taxpayer-funded videos produced in 2012 to promote genetically engineered foods provide another example of how academics and universities push corporate-aligned messaging. Byrne’s PR firm v-Fluence helped create the videos that were “designed to appear a little low budget and amateurish,” according to an email from University of Illinois Professor Bruce Chassy.

Dr. Chassy wrote to Monsanto employees on April 27, 2012:

Monsanto’s Eric Sachs responded:

Sachs offered to assist with messaging of future videos by sharing the results of focus group tests Monsanto was conducting. Dr. Chassy invited Sachs to offer suggestions for future video topics and asked him to send along the Monsanto focus group results.

Training scientists and journalists to frame the debate about GMOs and pesticides

In 2014 and 2015, Byrne helped Jon Entine organize the Biotech Literacy Project boot camps funded by agrichemical companies and co-hosted by two industry front groups, Entine’s Genetic Literacy Project and Bruce Chassy’s Academics Review. Organizers misleadingly described the funding for the events as coming from a mix of academic, government and industry sources, but the only traceable source of funding was the agrichemical industry, according to reporting by Paul Thacker in The Progressive. The purpose of the boot camps, Thacker reported, was “to train scientists and journalists to frame the debate over GMOs and the toxicity of glyphosate.”

Byrne was on the organizing team, along with Cami Ryan (who now works for Monsanto) and Bruce Chassy (who was receiving funds from Monsanto that weren’t publicly disclosed), according to emails from Entine and Ryan.

For more information:

Flacking for GMOs: How the Biotech Industry Cultivates Positive Media—and Discourages Criticism, by Paul Thacker, The Progressive (7.21.17)
Industry-funded Biotech Literacy Project Boot Camps, USRTK fact sheet

Bonus Eventus: the agrichemical industry’s social media echo chamber

A key service Byrne provides to agrichemical promotional efforts is his “Bonus Eventus community” that supplies academics and other industry allies with talking points and promotional opportunities. Internal documents (page 9) describe Bonus Eventus as “a private social networking portal that serves as a communication cooperative for agriculture-minded scientists, policy makers and other stakeholders.” Members receive Byrne’s newsletter, plus access to his reference library of agribusiness topics, “stakeholder database” of influential people in the GMO debate, and trainings and support for social media engagement.

Examples of the newsletter can be found in this cache of emails from Byrne to Peter Phillips, a University of Saskatchewan professor who has been criticized by colleagues for his close ties to Monsanto. In the Nov. 7, 2016 newsletter, Byrne urged Phillips and other recipients to share content about the “flaws and omissions” in a New York Times story that reported on the failure of GMO crops to increase yields and reduce pesticides, and the “mounting questions” facing an international group of cancer scientists who reported glyphosate is a probably human carcinogen (see our reporting about documents describing how Monsanto coordinated attacks on the cancer panel via their “industry partners”).

Byrne urged the Bonus Eventus community to share content on these themes from industry-connected writers, such as Julie Kelly, Dr. Henry Miller, Kavin Senapathy, The Sci Babe and Hank Campbell of the American Council on Science and Health, a group Monsanto was paying to help discredit the cancer scientists. In 2017, Forbes deleted dozens of articles by Dr. Miller – including several he co-authored with Kelly, Senapathy and Byrne – after the New York Times reported that Dr. Miller had published an article in Forbes under his own name that had been ghostwritten by Monsanto.

Gatekeeper for attack on Greenpeace

When a group of Nobel laureates called on Greenpeace to stop opposing genetically engineered rice, it looked like an independent effort. But behind the curtain of impressive credentials were the helping hands of two key players in the agrichemical industry’s PR lobby: Jay Byrne and a board member of the Genetic Literacy Project. Byrne was posted at the door at a National Press Club event promoting a group called Support Precision Agriculture. The .com version of that website redirected for years to the Genetic Literacy Project, a front group that works with Monsanto on PR projects without disclosing those ties.

So who paid for the anti-Greenpeace press event? Sir Richard Roberts, a biochemist who said he organized the Nobel laureate letter, explained the backstory in an FAQ on the website: the “campaign has been pretty inexpensive so far,” he wrote, consisting mostly of his salary paid by his employer New England Biolabs and “out-of-pocket expenses” paid by Matt Winkler. Winkler, founder and chairman of the biotech company Asuragen, is also a funder and board member of Genetic Literacy Project, according to the group’s website. Roberts explained that Winkler “enlisted a friend, Val Giddings,” (the former biotech trade group VP) who “suggested Jay Byrne” (Monsanto’s former communications director) who offered pro bono logistical support for the press event.

Byrne and Giddings also helped orchestrate the industry-funded Academics Review, a front group they set up to appear independent while serving as a vehicle to attract corporate cash in exchange for attacking critics of ag-biotech products, according to emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know. In the emails, Byrne named Greenpeace on the “targets” list he was compiling for Monsanto. Another of Byrne’s clients is the International Rice Research Institute, the main industry group trying to commercialize GMO Golden Rice, which was the focus of the Greenpeace critique. Research by Glenn Davis Stone of Washington University in St. Louis has found that low yields and technical difficulties have held up Golden Rice, not opposition from environmental groups.

In his FAQ, Dr. Roberts dismissed Dr. Stone’s independent research as “not an accurate representation of the state of affairs,” and instead pointed to industry-connected PR sources who will be familiar to readers of Byrne’s Bonus Eventus newsletter: Julie Kelly, Henry Miller and Academics Review. The press event took place at a critical political moment, and generated a helpful story in the Washington Post, a week before Congress voted to prohibit states from labeling GMOs.

As of January 2019, the .com version of Support Precision Agriculture redirected to the Genetic Literacy Project. In his FAQ, Roberts said he has no relationship with GLP and claimed that “an unknown person” had purchased the similar domain in an “apparent attempt” to link it to GLP. He said this is an example that “the dirty tricks of the opposition are without limits.”
(The redirect was deactivated sometime after this post went live.)

For more information:

107 Nobel Laureate attack on Greenpeace traced back to biotech PR operators, by Jonathan Latham, PhD, Independent Science News (7.1.16)
I was barred from a Nobel Laureate press conference by a PR consultant with Monsanto ties, by Tim Schwab, Food & Water Watch (7.6.16)
Greenpeace to Nobel laureates: it’s not our fault Golden Rice has ‘failed as a solution,’ by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch (6.30.2016)

Weaponizing the web with fake people and websites

Reporting for The Guardian in 2002, George Monbiot described a covert tactic that agrichemical corporations and their PR operatives have been using for decades to promote and defend their products: creating fake personalities and fake websites to silence critics and influence online search results.

Monbiot reported that “fake citizens” (people who did not actually exist) “had been bombarding internet listservers with messages denouncing the scientists and environmentalists who were critical of GM crops” – and the fake citizens had been traced back to Monsanto’s PR firm Bivings.

Monbiot described Jay Byrne’s connection to Bivings:

“think of the internet as a weapon on the table … somebody is going to get killed.”

“At the end of last year, Jay Byrne, formerly [Monsanto’s] director of internet outreach, explained to a number of other firms the tactics he had used at Monsanto. He showed how, before he got to work, the top GM sites listed by an internet search engine were all critical of the technology. Following his intervention, the top sites were all supportive ones (four of them established by Monsanto’s PR firm Bivings). He told them to ‘think of the internet as a weapon on the table. Either you pick it up or your competitor does, but somebody is going to get killed.’ While he was working for Monsanto, Byrne told the internet newsletter Wow that he ‘spends his time and effort participating’ in web discussions about biotech. He singled out the site AgBioWorld, where he ‘ensures his company gets proper play’. AgBioWorld is the site on which [fake citizen] Smetacek launched her campaign.”

For more information:

Corporate phantoms, by George Monbiot, The Guardian (5.29.02)
The covert biotech war, by George Monbiot, The Guardian (11.18.02)·

More from Jay Byrne

A 2013 Power Point presentation showcases the role Byrne plays for his clients in the agrichemical industry. Here he explains his theories about eco-advocates, ranks their influence online and urges companies to pool their resources to confront them, in order to avoid “regulatory and market constraints.”

The 2006 book “Let Them Eat Precaution,” published by the American Enterprise Institute and edited by agrichemical industry PR operative Jon Entine, contains a chapter by Byrne titled, “Deconstructing the Agricultural Biotechnology Protest Industry.”

Byrne is a member of “AgBioChatter,” a private email listserve that agrichemical industry senior staffers, consultants and academics used to coordinate messaging and lobbying activities. Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know show Byrne encouraging members of AgBioChatter to try to discredit people and groups that were critical of GMOs and pesticides. A 2015 Monsanto PR plan named AgBioChatter as one of the “industry partners” Monsanto planned to engage to help discredit cancer concerns about glyphosate.

For more information:

Secret documents expose Monsanto’s war on cancer scientists, by Stacy Malkan, TruthOut (7.16.18)
Tracking the agrichemical industry PR network, USRTK fact sheet

Evidentiary Hearing Set

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Posted on January 18, 2019 by Gary Ruskin

Time flies when a big case approaches. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria has set anevidentiary hearing for Jan. 28 at 9 a.m. local time in federal court in San Francisco to be followed by a “Daubert” hearing that day at 2 p.m. The hearings are to consider evidence and experts that will be key to the first-ever federal trial taking up claims that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides can cause cancer and Monsanto has covered up the risks. Video recording of the proceedings is being allowed.

Chhabria has taken the unusual step of agreeing with a request from the attorneys representing Monsanto and its owner Bayer AG to bifurcate the trial. The first phase, per Monsanto’s request, will deal only with evidence relevant causation – if its products caused the cancer suffered by plaintiff Edwin Hardeman. Evidence of Monsanto efforts to manipulate regulators and the scientific literature and “ghost write” various articles would only be presented in a second phase of the trial if jurors in the first phase find the herbicides were a substantial factor in causing Hardeman’s cancer.

The parties are in disagreement over exactly what evidence should be allowed in the causation phase.

Monsanto specifically has asked the judge to exclude from evidence:

A 2001 email detailing internal discussions regarding an independent epidemiology study published that year.
A 2015 internal email regarding the company’s relationship with and funding of the American Council on Science and Health, a group that purports to be independent of industry as its promotes safety messaging about glyphosate products.
A 2015 email chain includinginternal commentary by Monsanto scientist Bill Heydens about the role surfactants play in glyphosate formulated products.

For point 1, attorneys for Hardeman have said they do not intend to try to introduce the evidence “unless the door is opened byMonsanto.”

For point 2, they also said they do not intend to introduce the ACSH correspondence “unless Monsanto in anyway relies on the ACSH’s junk science positions regarding the carcinogenicity” of glyphosate-based formulations “or attackson IARC’s classification of glyphosate.”

As for the 2015 Heydens email chain, attorney’s for Hardeman argue the correspondence is illuminating to the causation question. Heydens’ email refers to the results of a 2010 study referred to as George et al., which found a statistically significant increase of tumors on the skin of rodents following exposure to a formulated Roundup product. The study is one relied upon by plaintiffs’ general causation experts.

The letter brief laying out the positions by opposing parties is here.

In a separate issue – the ongoing government shut-down could impact the Feb. 25 trial date for the Hardeman case. Judge Chhabria has said that he does not intend to ask jurors to sit in a trial without being paid.