BOMBSHELL: New York Times exposes academic scientists prostituting themselves out to Monsanto and the biotech industry

Tuesday, September 08, 2015
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Tags: Monsanto influence, academic prostitutes, New York Times

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(NaturalNews) File this under the category of "journalism we never thought we'd see." In a New York Times article published over the weekend, writer Eric Lipton covers the outrageous academic fraud taking place across America as university "scientists" prostitute themselves out to the biotech industry.

It's important that we, the pioneers of the New Media news movement, give credit where it's due in the mainstream media. With this story by Lipton, The New York Times has just trumped everybody else in the mainstream media. Sellout papers like The Washington Post -- whose entire editorial board is practically run by Monsanto -- would never dare publish such an investigative story. Somehow, The New York Times has now come to the realization that Big Biotech's academic fraud is too large and shady to keep ignoring.

It's time the truth finally came out. And the truth is that there is a long list of universities, scientists and even journalists who are all bought and paid for by the biotech industry. That list is now starting to come out.

US Right to Know did the investigative research cited by The New York Times

The breaking story is based on the extraordinary investigative work of Gary Ruskin and the U.S. Right To Know organization, which supports GMO labeling and full transparency of "scientists" who claim to be "independent" voices on GMOs. As Natural News readers have now come to realize, there is no such thing as an independent pro-GMO scientist. They're all science-for-hire biotech mercenaries who parrot the same B.S. line, "My opinions are my own."

Every single scientist that's publicly defending Monsanto has direct or indirect ties to the biotech industry, it turns out. And these secret emails now coming out about Kevin Folta and Monsanto reveal the deep, shady layers of collusion and academic corruption that deliberately distort the GMO debate in America.

Big Biotech, it seems, is Big Tobacco all over again, with all its fraudulent science and financial corruption of universities, institutions and even scientific journals.

Biotech sleazebag Kevin Folta of the University of Florida: a real "class act" who lied about taking money from Monsanto

Here's just a small taste of what The New York Times wrote about biotech sleazebag Kevin Folta, an academic prostitute whom we just covered for taking $25,000 from Monsanto while repeatedly claiming he was "independent" up until the day his financial ties were exposed. Folta joins other biotech sleazebags like Jon Entine, a former Forbes.com defamation con artist who's also exposed as a biotech industry shill in the documents linked to by The New York Times:

Dr. Folta is among the most aggressive and prolific biotech proponents, although until his emails were released last month, he had not publicly acknowledged the extent of his ties to Monsanto.

...A few weeks later, the Council for Biotechnology Information — controlled by BASF, Bayer, Dow Chemical, DuPont and Monsanto — asked Dr. Folta and other prominent academics if they would participate in a new website, GMO Answers, which was established to combat perceived misinformation about their products. The plan was to provide the academics with questions from the public, such as, "Do GMOs cause cancer?"

"This is a new way to build trust, dialogue and support for biotech in agriculture that will help explain in an independent voice what GMOs are," an executive at Ketchum wrote to Dr. Folta.

But Ketchum did more than provide questions. On several occasions, it also gave Dr. Folta draft answers, which he then used nearly verbatim, a step that he now says was a mistake.

Additional excerpts from the NYT piece:

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

...But even some of the academics who have accepted special "unrestricted grants" or taken industry-funded trips to help push corporate agendas on Capitol Hill say they regret being caught up in this nasty food fight.

...the biotech industry has published dozens of articles, under the names of prominent academics, that in some cases were drafted by industry consultants.

...Monsanto and its industry partners have also passed out an undisclosed amount in special grants to scientists like Kevin Folta, the chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida, to help with "biotechnology outreach" and to travel around the country to defend genetically modified foods.

...Dr. Folta, the emails show, soon became part of an inner circle of industry consultants, lobbyists and executives who devised strategy on how to block state efforts to mandate G.M.O. labeling and, most recently, on how to get Congress to pass legislation that would pre-empt any state from taking such a step.

...biotech companies paid for his trips to testify in Pennsylvania and Hawaii...

...In August 2014, Monsanto decided to approve Dr. Folta's grant for $25,000 to allow him to travel more extensively to give talks on the genetically modified food industry's products.

...[Monsanto], in late 2011, gave a grant for an undisclosed amount to Bruce M. Chassy, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, to support "biotechnology outreach and education activities," his emails show.

In the same email in which Dr. Chassy negotiated the release of the grant funds, he discussed with a Monsanto executive a monthslong effort to persuade the Environmental Protection Agency to abandon its proposal to tighten the regulation of pesticides used on insect-resistant seeds.

...Dr. Chassy eventually set up a meeting at the E.P.A., with the help of an industry lobbyist, and the agency ultimately dropped the proposal.

...In 2013, Monsanto also asked David R. Shaw, the vice president for research and economic development at Mississippi State University, to intervene with the Department of Agriculture to help persuade the agency to approve a new type of genetically modified soybean and cottonseed designed by Monsanto.

Organic farmers argued against this move, convinced that approval of the new seeds would lead to an increase in potentially harmful herbicide use. Monsanto wanted Dr. Shaw, whom the company has supported over the last decade with at least $880,000 in research grants for projects he helped oversee, to refute these arguments, the emails show.

Read the full New York Times piece here.