Originally published November 26 2014
Key biotech journalist in smear campaign of Seralini completely discredited
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) Jon Entine -- biotech shill, character assassination operative, Forbes.com writer and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, George Mason University and the University of California at Davis -- has a long history of smearing anyone who dares to speak well-researched truth about the harmful effects of genetically modified organisms and bio-engineered food. That includes French Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini, whose 2012 University of Caen study found that GM maize and Roundup, even at low doses, caused organ damage, tumors and premature death in rats over the long term.
Writing in Forbes in May 2013, Entine launched a broadside against Seralini for withdrawing from a planned debate regarding biotechnology (Seralini is a critic of Monsanto, Roundup and GMOs, largely as a result of his findings) at the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute.
Entine, in his critical piece, claimed that he wanted to use the debate forum to "present both sides of the issue" regarding genetically modified foods and GM biotechnology in general, but his history suggests otherwise, as he is a regular, particularly vociferous defender of GMO foods and the biotechnology used to create them.
As further reported by GMWatch, Entine's pieces were extremely dishonest.
"For example, Entine described Seralini's findings as 'anomalous' even though Seralini's was the only long-term toxicity study ever carried out on this particular GM maize and the herbicide it is grown with. It's hard not to produce 'anomalous' findings if there is only one experiment," GMWatch noted.
In addition, Entine has undermined Seralini on Wikipedia, under the handle "runjonrun" (at one time, Entine's email address was [email protected]).
GMWatch said it was "alerted by Wikipedia users to the fact that Entine was one of the early editors on a one-sided and originally potentially libellous Wikipedia article called 'The Seralini affair', which denigrated Seralini's study and Seralini himself.
"Entine, under the Wiki user name 'runjonrun', was active in vandalising the article by rapidly deleting balancing information, for example, about the scientific support for Seralini's study and the conflicts of interest among critics of the study."
In one published spat on Wikipedia, "runjonrun" revealed himself as Jon Entine after upsetting other Wiki users by allegedly contravening Wiki conflict of interest guidelines and vandalizing articles without justification.
But perhaps of Entine's crowning achievements was the "take-down" of a business known as The Body Shop (TBS) during his waning days as a news program producer at ABC, in 1994.
Unable to get the program aired at the network, Entine eventually convinced a small-time journal, the Minneapolis-based Business Ethics magazine, to publish what can only be described as a hit piece against TBS. This was a long-term "investigation" by Entine, who seemed locked into TBS for some reason.
Immediately prior to the publication of his piece in Business Ethics, TBS responded to his reported allegations, which were reported by Britain's Independent newspaper:
Mr Entine was accused by the company of using questionable methods, and making 'misleading statements which are seriously defamatory of The Body Shop'. It added that he 'has been engaged in a single- minded [sic] campaign of vilification against The Body Shop.'
Mr Entine is alleged to have described Anita Roddick, the company's founder, as a 'schizophrenic and a sociopath'.
He is said to have denounced the company in approaches to investors, franchisees and potential supporters. ...
Among allegations to surface in the past 10 days are claims that the company's 'Trade not Aid' policy of buying goods from indigenous peoples was not as vigorously pursued as The Body Shop had claimed, that Ms Roddick 'stole' the company's concept from a tiny American outfit, and that it had been responsible for pollution in New Jersey.
But, as reported by independent journalist Lorna Salzman here, it was a pseudo-scandal of his making:
In Entine's TBS attack, he referred to a Food & Drug Administration (FDA) investigation of a small shampoo spill from TBS' New Jersey operations. But he failed to say that it was HE who called in the complaint (later whiting out his name,a [sic] fact he concealed), that FDA found the TBS facility to actually be well-run, and that FDA, upon completing all inspections, is bound by law to make recommendations regardless of how clean the facility may be.
Sources:
http://www.spinwatch.org
http://www.independent.co.uk
Jon Entine page on Natural News:
http://www.naturalnews.com
Jon Entine page on The Propagandists:
http://www.propagandists.org
The Refusers page on Jon Entine:
http://therefusers.com
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