(NaturalNews) Have you ever heard of Vern Blazek's Science Power Hour? The chances are good that you haven't, but then you're in the company of about 99.99999 percent of the rest of the planet.

It's really nothing more than just another goofy podcast on the Internet. Over the summer, reports BuzzFeed News, it managed to hook about 90 followers on Twitter and 49 Facebook friends. Its creator claimed a couple thousand hits per episode.

If you don't know – and chances are good you don't – it's an interview program. During each episode, "Blazek," describing himself as a radio personality harboring in Tillamook, Oregon, with an oddly deep and lispy voice, interviews different scientists or advocates of corporate science.

"They get into research nitty gritty and Blazek cracks a few jokes," BuzzFeed News reports. "The whole point, according to the show's original intro, is 'sorting through the shills and charlatans to distill the scientific truth.'"

Oddly, the show's website claims it is an "experiment," featuring "a clearly fictitious host."

On June 13, "Blazek" published an interview with Monsanto shill Kevin Folta, a plant scientist who works at the University of Florida. The discussion centered on genetically modified organisms (GMO), and the science behind the concept.

Folta outed

Food activists who oppose GMOs, complained Folta to "Blazek," were making misguided attempts to tie supposedly independent scientists to biotech giant Monsanto, which has grown into one of the most polarizing companies in the United States.

What followed is just incredible. Reports Buzzfeed News' Brooke Borel:

In July, through a bizarre email exchange, I discovered that Blazek is Folta's alter ego. It was Folta who put on that disguised voice and interviewed his colleagues. It was Folta who had interviewed himself, without ever telling his audience. Because of our correspondence, Folta shut down the show and killed off Vern. Two weeks after that, a scandal broke that uprooted his life.

To put it mildly. And for record, our own Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, was out in front on that, writing Sept. 9 at Natural News that Folta, as a paid hack, was the latest member of the "Monsanto Mafia" to be identified publicly.

Folta's true role in shilling for Monsanto was revealed by activist group U.S. Right to Know, following a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for emails from Folta and 42 other public university employees whose work relates to food in some way. USRTK hoped to discover and reveal unethical ties between scientists and the biotech industry, with Monsanto being targeted specifically.

The group, along with a handful of journalists, scoured the emails – about 4,600 pages of them – and other public records for any sign of ties. In the end, the group uncovered what became an obvious intellectual and financial tie between Monsanto and Folta.

The plant scientist was found to have exchanged friendly emails with Ketchum, the public relations firm that handles propaganda for the Council on Biotechnology Information – an industry group to which Monsanto belongs – and collaborated with him regarding language about GMOs he summarily published on an industry-funded website.

It gets stranger and stranger

Also, he worked with Ketchum on an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel, and Monsanto recruited him to talk to farmers in Colorado skeptical of GMOs who did not want to speak directly to Monsanto.

And, as Adams noted, the real scandal was his acceptance of a $25,000 "grant" from Monsanto through his university for him to use however he wanted.

"Folta's academic institution, the University of Florida, also accepted huge money from Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont and other biotech giants," Adams wrote. "In essence, the Univ. of Florida is now a biotech front group, churning out Monsanto mafia members who shill for GMOs while lying about their financial corruption and viciously smearing clean food activists."

It gets weirder. As Buzzfeed News' Borel notes, Folta is clueless as to why everyone's upset about what he's done. And stranger: He has since re-launched his goofy radio program, with one recent episode featuring a duet of him singing to "Blazek." The show's social media pages now feature a small pic of him in disguise, wearing a curly wig and sporting photoshopped sunglasses.

Check out Borel's full report here.

You can learn more about Kevin Folta using the GoodGopher.com search engine.

Sources:

BuzzFeed.com

TruthWiki.org

GMO.news

Articles.OrlandoSentinel.com

NaturalNews.com

GoodGopher.com