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discover kloor

kloor is a tool, got busted (is that why he bailed from discover blog?)

no MERRI

folta ketchum went to kloor to spin?

harvard blog cites

12. Wilcox C. “GMOs of the Future: Two Recent Studies Reveal Potential of Genetic Technologies”. Discover Magazine. 31 March 2015. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2015/03/31/gmos-of-the-future-two-recent-studies-reveal-potential-of-genetic-technologies/#.VZlFtPm6fIU

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yikes 619 intercept

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/

==

http://www.keithkloor.com/

nice green pict

blog infreq

~~ oreskes nuke: guard UK: James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira and Tom Wigley

cf brkthru letter?

James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira and Tom Wigley

==

http://polluterwatch.org/keith-kloor

2x w/ link bottom

==

"GMO opponents are the climate skeptics of the left."

Position:

Free-lance journalist

BIOGRAPHY:

Editor at Audubon Magazine, 2000-2009.

Fellow at the University of Colorado's Center for Environmental Journalism, 2008-2009

Founder of Collide-a-Scrape blog, Discover Magazine, 2009-2015

QUOTES:

"Yes, it’s easy to be suspicious about efforts to sanitize the image of a dirty energy. But the actual world we live in requires us to look past the cynical marketing campaign that everyone mocks and accept the fact that the planet’s climate needs clean coal—and the sooner, the better."

- "Clean Coal Isn't a Joke," Slate, Nov. 28, 2012

"Although there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that genetically modified foods pose no harm to public health, that is not the impression you would get from the tenor of many stories, be they at some respected journalism outlets or on popular TV talk shows. Indeed, much of this coverage suggests that the safety issue is still an open question, debated hotly by scientists, when this is not true at all."

"The food movement's demonization of genetically modified crops isn't just scientifically baseless, it's politically stupid."

Referring to GMO food labeling proposals: "If the food movement continues down this road, it will soon be as politically irrelevant as the once-promising environmental movement is now. ... Without subtly stoking ignorant fears about GM food, there would be no way to mobilize the fight against Monsanto and what it stands for."

"GMO opponents are the climate skeptics of the left," Slate, Sept. 26, 2012

Referring to climate change denier Marc Morano: "If you think the public discussion of climate change is best served by a free flowing exchange of information and perspectives, then Morano’s Climate Depot is one of your gateways, like it or not."

EVIDENCE:

Keith Kloor is a freelance reporter and part time journalism professor at New York University. He has written for Discover, Slate and other outlets. He has promoted "clean coal" and is a regular defender of Genetically Modified Organisms or foods (GMOs) who has attacked the industry's critics as unscientific and "politically stupid."

When journalists writes even slight critiques of GMOs and biotechnology, Kloor tends to react swiftly and aggressively. Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) wrote in 2013, "Keith Kloor makes a beat out of policing frightful coverage of GMOs."

Kloor's recent targets of criticism include:

New York University Professor Marion Nestle

UC Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan (describing the renowned writer as “irrational”)

New York University Professor Nassim Taleb (maligning the professor by calling him “an angry asshole”)

Mother Jones reporter Tom Philpott (“climate skeptic of the Left”)

New York Times reporter Michael Moss ( calling Moss an “anti GMO activist”)

CNN’s Jake Tapper (describing the CNN work as “FrankenJournalism”),

New York Times columnist Mark Bittman (decrying Bittman's work as “idiotic or utterly disingenuous”)

Reuter’s reporter Carey Gillam (claiming Gillam's reporting exhibited “false balance”)

Reporters Paul Thacker and Charles Seife (attacking their investigation on claims of “selective omissions and misrepresentations”)

Kloor disputes a statement by the European Network of Scientists for Safety and Environmental Responsibility that "no scientific consensus on GMO safety" exsists, after it was published in a peer-reviewed journal. Kloor's main argument is that the statement was signed by mostly "known opponents biotechnology," and that many who signed have no relevant scientific expertise, despite having no such scientific expertise himself.

Kloor has repeatedly decried public records requests, some of which include his communications with GMO interests, by organizations exposing conflicts of interest between corporations and scientists. Kloor calls the requests for financial infomation on publicly-employed scientists "an attack on science," comparing the tactic to coal and oil industry attacks on climate scientists. More background at Corporate Crime Reporter.

THE CORNELL ALLIANCE FOR SCIENCE

After writing a piece in February 2015 in Science Magazine criticizing the group U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) for using Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to uncover ties between 14 pro-GMO scientists' ties to Monsanto and the GMO industry, Kloor spoke in April 2015 at the Cornell Alliance for Science (CAS), a pro-Agriculture business think tank. Kloor was introduced at the event as the reporter “breaking the issue of attacks on ag-bio scientists for Science Magazine.”

The Cornell Alliance for Science was launched in 2014 with a $5.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,purportedly to "depolarize the GMO debate." GMO watchdogs noted that from its inception that CAS "partners" included groups like the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, which has taken funding from by Monsanto, CropLife and Bayer. The Gates foundation has invested in Monsanto, and food justice activists say the foundation's approach to solving hunger in Africa involves GMOs and other high-tech agricultural approaches that benefit multinational corporations like Monsanto. Bill Gates is himself an outspoken proponent for GMOs.)

The 14 scientists targeted by US Right to Know's FOIA request are associated with the industry-funded web site GMOAnswers, which was created for Monsanto and 5 other biotech producers by the PR firm Ketchum Communications. (For more about Ketchum's work for GMO companies, go here. In "Spinning Food," Friends of the Earth reported that Ketchum developed GMOAnswers.com to shift the story about GMOs on social media. A Ketchum video bragging about the campaign was taken offline after U.S. Right to Know called attention to it.)

BREAKTHROUGH INSTITUTE

As Think Progress blogger Joe Romm points out, Kloor often flacks for Roger Pielke, a fellow at the Breakthrough Institute known for promoting  doubt around aspects of climate change science.

BRUCE CHASSY’S ACADEMICS REVIEW

Kloor has criticized attempts to label GMOs as “cynical” and “irrational” and is known to regularly quote GMO scientists without disclosing their ties to Monsanto. For instance, in 2014 Kloor wrote for Discover about a talk he gave to a class run by Calestous Jouma of Harvard University. During the class, Kloor discussed the slanted journalism of Reutersreporter Carey Gillam. In a separate article, Kloor attacked Bill Nye with a published letter from scientist Kevin Folta. And in articles he wrote for Discover, Science and Nature, Kloor quoted scientist Bruce Chassy attacking the use of Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover ties to industry.

Based on Freedom of Information Act requests, the Boston Globe later reported that Calestous Jouma wrote a policy paper at the behest of Monsanto; the New York Times reported that Kevin Folta helped Monsanto lobby on GMO labeling; and Alternet reported that Bruce Chassy received Monsanto funding to start the website Academics Review.

Bruce Chassy’s Academics Review front group has sponsored a panel on GMOs where Keith Kloor was an invited speaker, and both Science and Nature have received formal complaints about bias in his reporting on GMOs. Emails released through FOIA have also found that Kloor has a very friendly relationship with GMO advocates. For instance,Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project referred to Keith Kloor in one email as “a very good friend of mine” and suggested Kloor as a contact to broker a meeting between GMO advocates and a blogger at Discover Magazine.

LINKS AND RESOURCES:

ThinkProgress' Joe Romm: "Meet blogger Keith Kloor"

SourceWatch: Keith Kloor

TruthWiki: Keith Kloor

AlterNet: 3 Journalists Who Are Disturbingly Cozy with the Agrichemical Industry

US Right to Know Network: A Short Report on Journalists Mentioned in our FOIA Requests

Mother Jones: Some GMO Cheerleaders Also Deny Climate Change

Keith Kloor archive: Discover Magazine

Keith Kloor archive: Slate

Food & Water Watch: Crashing the Pro-GMO Party

WhoWhatWho: GMO Makers, Their Puppets in Academia, and the New York Times

Ken Roseboro via Huffington Post: Biotech's Assault On Balanced Journalism

Tim Schwab via Common Dreams: Spinning a Consensus on GMOs

==

ggl news 4/16/16

How Science Is Communicated Is More Important Than You Might ...

Forbes-Mar 29, 2016

... Fauci, Marketplace Morning Report's David Brancaccio, science reporters Keith Kloor, Tamar Haspel and Julia Belluz, and many others.

Monsanto's Media Machine Comes To Washington

Huffington Post-Mar 31, 2016

U.S. Right to Know has criticized journalists Tamar Haspel of The Washington Post, and Keith Kloor, an instructor at the Arthur L. Carter ...

Story image for keith kloor from Nature.com

GM-crop opponents expand probe into ties between scientists and ...

Nature.com-Aug 7, 2015

... scientists and industry. Activist group compels records from 40 researchers at US public universities. Keith Kloor. 06 August 2015 Corrected: 10 August 2015 ...

Biotech professor's emails show no misconduct in battling anti-GMO ...

Genetic Literacy Project-Aug 7, 2015

Explore in depth (9 more articles)

Story image for keith kloor from Genetic Literacy Project

Keith Kloor on Bill Maher, vaccines and GMOs: “Nobody makes ...

Genetic Literacy Project-Feb 10, 2015

Bill Maher, the comedian and host of his own HBO show, is God's gift to conservatives. Nobody makes liberals look likes asses more than ...

The Tricky Terrain for GMO Communication

Discover Magazine (blog)-Jan 16, 2015

By Keith Kloor | January 16, 2015 10:31 am. Several years ago, the Boston Review published a forum called, “The Truth About GMOs.” Nine viewpoints were ...

Keith Kloor's Discover: Will Bill Nye agree to debate Kevin Folta on ...

Genetic Literacy Project-Nov 12, 2014

At Discover blogger Keith Kloor's invitation,University of Florida plant geneticist Kevin Folta wrote an open letter to Bill Nye after the pop ...

I Was Going To Write Some Words But Keith Kloor Beat Me To It

Science 2.0-Apr 28, 2013

Reuters gets dinged for being off-kilter journalistically when it comes to politics; to the current generation of independent voters they became ...

Keith Kloor makes a beat out of policing frightful coverage of GMOs

Columbia Journalism Review(blog)-Jun 5, 2013

The media have stoked irrational distrust of science in many fields over the years, from vaccines to climate change. But today, such fear ...

Why Did Anti-GMO Group Target Certain University Academics?

Discover Magazine (blog)-Feb 13, 2015

Why Did Anti-GMO Group Target Certain University Academics? By Keith Kloor | February 13, 2015 1:31 pm. In the current issue of Science, I report that a dozen ...

Story image for keith kloor from USA TODAY

USA TODAY

Narrow Media Coverage of Study linking Climate Change to Syria ...

Discover Magazine (blog)-Mar 4, 2015

By Keith Kloor | March 4, 2015 4:04 pm. This week a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) received widespread ...

glp 8/16:

Keither Kloor examines Brooke Borel’s controversial article criticizing Kevin Folta GMO parody site

Keith Kloor | November 4, 2015 | Blog

mr-burns

Biotech advocates misjudged depth of distrust of corporations

Keith Kloor | October 26, 2015 | Blog

kfpic

Biotech professor’s emails show no misconduct in battling anti-GMO propaganda, but Monsanto tie noted

Keith Kloor | August 7, 2015 | Nature

Cultural brokers—environmental groups, prominent journalists—shape public discourse on GMOs

Keith Kloor | April 14, 2015 | Discover

15-TOXIC-popup

Food Babe conundrum: Responding to scare mongering while addressing legitimate fears

Keith Kloor | April 9, 2015 | Discover

Why reporters should confront an indefensible position on GMOs with scientific consensus

Keith Kloor | April 2, 2015 | Discover

MSNBC’s ‘Frankenjournalism’ on GM labeling

Keith Kloor | March 25, 2015 | Discover

Conflicting principles: Are anti-GMO groups abusing public records transparency laws?

Keith Kloor | March 2, 2015 | Discover

Screen Shot 2015-03-02 at 9.33.54 AM

Did Bill Nye, the anti-GMO guy, just flip? After visiting Monsanto? Stay tuned

Keith Kloor | March 2, 2015 | Discover

portland-press-herald_3762019

Mimicking Climategate, anti-GMO activists fund legal attack on biotech academics

Keith Kloor | February 11, 2015 | Science

Screen Shot 2015-02-09 at 12.21.46 PM

Keith Kloor on Bill Maher, vaccines and GMOs: “Nobody makes liberals look like asses more than Maher”

Keith Kloor | February 9, 2015 | Discover

Why communicating the science risks of GMOs is so challenging

Keith Kloor | January 20, 2015 | Discover

Screen Shot 2014-10-23 at 8.05.20 PM

Rich and famous embrace Vandana Shiva, wealthy self-described savior of the poor

Keith Kloor | October 24, 2014 | Discover

nas-building_0

National Academy of Sciences convenes panel to re-evaluate GMOs

Keith Kloor | September 15, 2014 | Discover

On GMOs, Union of Concerned Scientists skips the science

Keith Kloor | August 25, 2014 | Discover

==

conf:

Speakers will include:

Julia Belluz

Health reporter, Vox.com

David Brancaccio

Host and senior editor of the Marketplace Morning Report on American Public Media

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci

Director and Chief, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health

Dr. Nina V. Fedoroff

Emeritus Professor of Biology, Penn State University

Kate Hall

Managing Director for the Council for Biotechnology Information

Dr. James E. Hansen

Climate Science Awareness and Solutions Program, Earth Institute, Columbia University

Tamar Haspel

Award-winning food & health reporter

Keith Kloor

Science reporter

Instructor, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University

Seema Kumar

VP, Innovation, Global Public Health and Science Policy Communication at Johnson & Johnson

Dr. Donna Nelson

2016 President, American Chemical Society

Science Advisor to AMC’s Emmy Award-winning Breaking Bad

Professor of Chemistry, University of Oklahoma

Dr. Paul Offit

Chief of Infectious Diseases & Director of Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia & Maurice R. Hillman

Professor at the University of Pennsylvania

Moderator:

John Rennie

Former editor in chief, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Adjunct professor, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, New York University

Hosted by:

Jeremy Abbate

Vice President & Publisher, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Supported by the kind sponsorship of GMO Answers and Johnson & Johnson Innovation

==

twit

Founded by Katherine, @SmarfDoc, a graduate student in Nutrition Biochemistry and Epidemiology; the vision of Nutrition Wonk is to provide high-quality nutrition science news, opinions, and interactive content for readers and provide a place for nutrition professionals and students to contribute.

Advisors:   David Hastings, MBA

About

David Hastings is an Adjunct Professor at the Friedman School and served as its founding Executive Associate Dean from 1991-2003.  These past five years he has held two appointments at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.  With twenty years experience as a senior management professional in the non-profit health sector and twenty years as a senior academic administrator, he focuses on organizational behavior, strategic planning, crisis intervention and board development. In the consulting practice he founded, "Managing Excellence", he continues to apply his knowledge in these areas for the benefit of small, medium and large organizations in the health and human service sectors with targeted interventions focused on specific problems/issues/challenges and with a guarantee of specific deliverables.  He has been mentoring professionals for decades and derives great personal satisfaction from stimulating minds and stewarding individuals on journeys of self-discovery.  David is the trombonist and manager of The Jazz Disciples.  An avid volunteer in community organizations, he also cherishes time with his spouse of 40+ years, three strong, bright and accomplished adult daughters, a stubborn but loving English Springer Spaniel, and an inquisitive and beautiful grand-daughter!

Education

M.B.A. in Health Care Management, Boston University, 1976, with a concentration in Health Care Management

B.S. in Biology and History, cum laude, Tufts University, 1974

Courses

NUTB 0208: **Management of Health and Nutrition NGOs**

Tech Name: PERFECT PRIVACY, LLC
Tech Organization:
Tech Street: 12808 Gran Bay Pkwy West
Tech City: Jacksonville
Tech State/Province: FL
Tech Postal Code: 32258
Tech Country: US
Tech Phone: +1.9027492701
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech Fax:
Tech Fax Ext.:
Tech Email: 9fgj24ee0qhcmbdpkn926lmhc7@domaindiscreet.com

http://www.thenutritionwonk.com/#!Ancel-Keys-and-the-Seven-Country-Study-A-Response-to-The-Sugar-Conspiracy/cmbz/570ed1910cf20b4e25a4d9f2

==

rtk

Keith Kloor

Keith Kloor is a freelance journalist who has written for Nature, Science Insider, Discover, Slate and other outlets.  Kloor has written many pro-GMO articles that have been featured by Jon Entine’s Genetic Literacy Project.

Kloor is mentioned in two places in the FOIA documents.

In one email, Jon Entine refers to Keith Kloor as a “very good friend of mine”.

In another email, on October 18, 2014, Dr. Channapatna Prakash, a GMO advocate and dean at Tuskegee University, emails Adrianne Massey of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), along with several others, to forward an alert from Lorraine Thelian, vice chairman of the PR firm Ketchum that “the hacker community Anonymous is planning a series of attackson biotechnology and food industrywebsites…Trade association and corporate websites of CBI [Council for Biotechnology Information] members are being targeted in this planned attack.”  Dr. Prakash writes, “Adrianne I have copied Kevin Folta, Karl von Mogel, David Tribe and Keith Kloor here as well.”

Dr. Prakash cc’d the email to Jay Byrne (former director of corporate communications for Monsanto), Jon Entine, Bruce Chassy (agrichemical industry advocate) Val Giddings (former VP of BIO), Henry Miller (agrichemical industry advocate), Drew Kershen (agrichemical industry advocate), Klaus Ammann, Piet van der Meer, Martina Newell-McGloughlin (agrichemical industry advocate), Karl Haro von Mogel (member of the board of directors of Biology Fortified, a pro-GMO website), Kevin Folta (agrichemical industry advocate), Keith Kloor and David Tribe (agrichemical industry advocate).

Keith Kloor was the only journalist who received this email.

The email implies that Kloor works closely with the agrichemical industry’s prominent advocates.

Kloor has written three articles that were critical of U.S. Right to Know’s FOIA requests, in Science Insider, Discover and Nature.

On March 23rd, 2015, Kloor gave a talk for the Cornell Alliance for Science, which is hosting a petition against U.S. Right to Know’s FOIA requests.

truthwiki

cohort and “very good friend” of exposed biotech shill Jon Entine, Mr. Keith Kloor is a “freelance journalist” and is a former editor of Audubon Magazine, specializing in theorizing about climate change. Recently, Kloor has been “enlisted” by the chemical agri-business to spread _{propaganda written in-large-part by industry insiders}_ _{(2)}_ who know the game of chemical agriculture politics quite well. Kloor has also written propaganda for Science Insider,a hokey blog for Discover,articles for Nature,and rhetoric pieces for the infamous Slate; then top off all of that with Kloor serving as a former fellow (2000 – 2008) of the Center for Environmental Journalism(via University of Colorado), an apologist website front for the hydrolic fracturing or “fracking” industry.

http://www.naturalnews.com/052482_Corrupt_Journalist_Awards_corruption_journalism.html

Before selling out to biotech, Kloor’s favorite writing subject was climate change

Kloor the “spinmeister” and ultimate environment-conspiracist-creator also spins his usual rhetoric on the ***_{leftist online magazine}_*** **_{*Slate*,}_** _{(1)}_ using all the tricky brain-washing industry jargon, lingo, diction and buzz words. He accuses anyone suspect of GMO toxins of stoking fear that “warps the climate debate.” He sets up the old “straw man” and then knocks him down–because as he writes, he has “learned that the emotionally charged, politicized discourse is mired in the kind of fever swamps that have polluted climate science beyond recognition.” His **_{exaggerated and emotional “back-lashes”}_** are against pretend enemies here, and he is creating exactly what he says he is trying to prevent from happening–and that’s brainwashed public that believes in myths.

_{Slate.com}_ is a leftist daily online magazine founded in 1996 that offers dogmatic, editorial and highly opinionated commentary about politics and current event news. Slate uses witty banter to push consistently for Big Government, genetically modified food consumption and allopathic medicine. Slate.com is aimed at influencing readers to interpret and take ownership of the editors’ left-nut view of the world and receives enormous amounts of criticism from professional journalists and reporters around the globe. Kloor additionally writes hit pieces for _{Jon Entine’s Genetic Literacy Project}_, a pro-GMO rhetoric platform.

Kloor quite often refers to the **_{French scientist Seralini}_** who ran a long term (2-year) study on **_{rats eating GMO corn and the rats grew huge cancerous tumors}_** and died within a few months. Kloor works around the clock to discredit this research that sent shockwaves throughout the world and proved to everyone that GMOs are highly dangerous to health (and the environment), which over 90% of people already knew, but Seralini solidified everyone who was second guessing what they already knew. Kloor is now part of an **_{intricate network of propagandists}_** paid by the chemical and agri-business giants to take his climate change spins and add prolific-sounding discussions and retorts to the challenging GMO conversations, debates on line and conferences around the world.

Reverse Psychology: Entine and Kloor say “science trumps ideology” but their platform supports inserting chemical-pesticides into plants, soil, animals and humans

“Thought leaders” and “think tanks” are some buzz words used to “trump” ideology, and Keith Kloor’s intellectual-sounding writing is far from the course he once took as a writer describing climate change and its effects on birds. He’s “relatively new to the GMO debate” he posts on “Genetic Literacy Project” with a picture of Bill Nye in the background, who recently was “bought out” by Monsanto. Bill Nye now claims he is “in love” with GMO. Kloor goes on to debunk “ingrained myths” on his spectator’s behalf, seemingly very sincere in his approach, and concerned. Recently he has helped purport the term “cultural brokers”–a term for someone being paid to spread propaganda, as HE HIMSELF spreads propaganda that pesticide-laden food is good for health and sustainability of environment. In his world, a cultural broker might be an environmental group, or a food safety watch-dog group or person (like Food Babe Vani Hari), or well respected scholars and legendary journalists who challenge their biggest platforms, like Mike Adams–the Health Ranger–Editor of NaturalNews.com. _{The Health Ranger helped expose Jon Entine as a complete fraud, biotechnology shill, wife abuser and wikipedia vandal,}_ and that is why Forbes.com fired Entine as a writer, when they saw the series of artiles published that exposed all the court documents revealing Entine as having a very long, _{violent history}_ _{(3)}_ with his (then) wife and estranged teenage daughter. _{(4)}_

GM Watch, Quackery and the Anti-Science “Science” of Biotechnology

Jon Entine is the ring leader _{(7)}_, though, of the BIG circus of selling humans on GMO. Kloor is merely a side-clown learning the tricks of the high wire act (Entine’s job), taming the lions (attacking intelligent opposition), and entertaining the onlookers (use industry propaganda to answer tough questions). The biotech shills sell people on distrusting “NGOs” – Non-governmental organizations and they tell people to distrust the non-profits that are challenging GMO especially. They’ll refer to health enthusiasts who don’t trust GMO as “anti-science” when it’s genetically modified crops and food that is new, untested and saturated with chemical toxins. Biotech’s “molecular techniques” are nothing more than the insertion of toxic pesticides and herbicidal genes into plants in order to kill or stave off insects and weeds that affect profits–period. There is no concern for the safety or well-being of the environment when your mission is to spread the propaganda written by the manufacturers of cancer-causing food. _{(5)}_

Convoluting consumer trust using academics, public scientists and hack journalists is not a noble cause or venture, it’s rather insidious, and alternative news is exposing the whole “Rico” case of fraud, miseducation and psychological manipulation being carried out by rogue journalists in the false name of “science” and “technology.” _{Science-based medicine}_ doesn’t mean what it once did, or is supposed to mean. Today the term is used and abused by the agri-business world to sell humans toxic pesticides as food, which in turn feeds the “Big Pharma” monster the perfect food that corporations want the most–your health and money.

Kloor is an agent and advocate of anything Monsanto

In a series of hundreds of documents and emails exposed by US Right to Knowusing Freedom of Information Actrequests, a large group of journalists, public scientists, academics and biotech industry propaganda promoters are collaborating to spread misinformation through several media channels not only to influence public opinion of GMOs and chemical agriculture but to influence public officials, USDA regulators and even to fool Congress. The documents reveal all of these cohorts conspiring to write what Monsanto PR firm Ketchum tells them to write, which, ironically, is NOT founded in science-based research that could prove any human, animal, soil or environmental safety measures have been considered. Kloor is mentioned in the documents is more than one place, including Jon Entine referring to him as a “very good friend of mine.”

Monsanto “Mafia” and the Academic Hall of Shame!

Kloor also recieves emails and is included in major discussions taking place and originated by BIO–the Biotechnology Industry Organization, as an alert that hackers are attempting to target their websites. Those included in the group discussions include Entine, _{Dr. Kevin Folta of the horticulture department at University of Florida}_, and the sophmoric Keith Kloor who is just learning the ropes of GMO propaganda. At the fulcrum of the propaganda is Dr. Prakash, the former Director of Corporate Communications for Monsanto. These are the top shills of the agrichemical industry and they are advocates of spreading propaganda as long as they get paid well to do so. It’s easy to see from the slew of documents that Kloor is a hack journalist who works very closely with the prominent advocates of the sleazy and insidious biotech industry. A hack is defined as a writer who is paid to write low-quality, rushed articles, books, blogs or columns “to order” by an industry, and usually with a short deadline. _{(6)}_

Kloor is currently engaged in writing counter-articles to apologize for or to discredit the U.S. Right to Know’s FOIA requests, as he splatters his propaganda across his GMO-fronting websites like Science Insider, Nature and Discover. Kloor also gave a talk at Cornell’s “Alliance for Science,” where the top biotech promoters work their magic of convincing the world GMOs are safe and beneficial and can “save the world.” This is NOT science-based or evidence-based research or studies done independent of the biotech industry and manufacturers, by any means. _{(7)}_

Other biotech shills implicated of collusion, coercion and misrepresentation in the FOIA documents and state public records requests include WashingtonPost columnist Tamar Haspel, who admitted receiving “plenty” of money from pro-agrichemical industry sources. Most of the money pays for the GMO enlisted “front-men” (and women like Tamar Haspel, to travel the country and spread propaganda online. Another reporter/journalist implicated in the findings is Amy Harmon, who works for the New York Times and colluded and conspired with Jon Entine and Kevin Folta, along with the HCIA–Hawaii Crop Improvement Association–an agrichemical industry front group. All of the enlisted shills, as noted in several emails, are taking instruction from the leader Jon Entine and the information is further disseminated by PR firms, like _{Ketchum}_and MediaMetrics, that shape the public perception and the public opinion of these chemical-manufacturing firms and their shady practices. _{(9)}_

The headlines of shill articles are usually catchy and inquisitive, such as Amy Harmon’s New York Times piece entitled, “A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops.” It’s pure corruption that journalists, academics, and public scientists would accept tens of thousands of dollars from _{Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, Bayer and Syngenta}_, to make speeches and write articles and books that promote “Franken-journalism” and typical GMO propaganda. Several journalists openly admit to being paid by Monsanto and gladly accept the money, then turn around and write stories attacking clean food activists and hawking GMO propaganda and whatever Monsanto has pushed into the forefront of discussion and disinformation. Kloor is becoming seasoned quickly at distorting evidence and fabricating false claims, as mentioned earlier. _{(10)}_

Journalists and public scientists collaborating as biotech shills – all revealed by USRTK in thousands of pages of FOIA requests

The U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) is a consumer advocacy group that exposes what the food industry doesn’t want consumers, health advocates and actual honest journalists and reporters to know. It is very useful for the public to see how the biotechnology and agri-chemical food companies handle their public relations work. USRTK helps consumers assess the claims and information posted and published by the companies involved in food production, including their PR firms and operatives, and the journalists who work with them. _{(11)}_

_{Click here for a compiled list of sellouts and charlatans working for the biotech industry.}_

Sources:

(1) _{http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/are_gmo_foods_safe_opponents_are_skewing_the_science_to_scare_people_.html}_

(2) _{https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2303691-kevin-folta-uoffloridadocs.html#document/p10/a237532}_

(3) _{http://www.naturalnews.com/047666_Jon_Entine_child_abuse_court_documents.html}_

(4) _{http://www.naturalnews.com/051393_Monsanto_operatives_Keith_Kloor_Jon_Entine.html}_

(5) _{http://gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/16438-new-report-probes-pro-gmo-journalists}_

(6) _{http://gmo.news/2015-09-15-academic-hall-of-shame-monsanto-mafia-scientists-named-exposed-for-pushing-gmo-agenda-in-exchange-for-grants-favors-and-gifts.html}_

(7) _{http://www.truthwiki.org/jon_entine/}_

(8) _{http://www.truthwiki.org/science-based-medicine-also-evidence-based-medicine/}_

(9) _{http://www.truthwiki.org/ketchum-public-relations-firm/}_

(10) _{http://www.truthwiki.org/gmo-answers-biotechnology-website-gmoanswers-com/}_

(11) _{http://usrtk.org/gmo/a-short-report-on-journalists-mentioned-in-our-foias/}_

==

Genetic Literacy Project (GLP) has been accused of unethical journalistic practices after it published personal information about individuals opposed to genetically modified food and changed the text of an article without the author’s permission.

GLP is an organization that heavily promotes genetic engineering of foods and attacks critics of the technology.

:{http://ecowatch.com/2016/02/05/genetic-literacy-project-crosses-ethical-line/ :(style="max-width:750px;max-height:416px"):}:

Posting Personal Information “Way Below” Ethical Line

GLP has posted phone numbers, email and home addresses and other personal information about GMO critics. According to David Murphy, executive director of Food Democracy Now, GLP posted the phone number and email and home addresses of Don Huber, Emeritus Professor of Plant Pathology at Purdue University. Murphy contacted GLP asking them to remove the information, which they did, but shortly after GLP posted Murphy’s cell phone number and home address.

“It’s one thing to have a public disagreement with highly trained scientists and activists on a controversial subject like GMO safety, but publishing personal information, home addresses and cell phone numbers, is a new low, even for Monsanto’s smear merchant,” Murphy said. “Does Monsanto really want us publishing their CEO and top scientists like Robb Fraley’s home addresses? One wonders what they really have to hide if they’re willing to employ such slimeball tactics against their critics.”

GLP has also posted personal information about other GMO critics such as Mike Adams, publisher of Natural News; Vani Hari, a.k.a. the Food Babe; Henry Rowlands, publisher of Sustainable Pulse; Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology; and others. GLP even went so far as to post information about the value of Smith’s house.

Carey Gillam, research director at U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) and a former veteran senior journalist with Reuters news service, said the practice of publishing personal identifying information such as phone numbers and addresses, was clearly an unethical practice.

“We here at USRTK are intentionally not posting the emails we’ve obtained that include that kind of information because we think it is below the ethical bar. Way below,” Gillam said.

Crossed an Ethical Line

In November, pro-GMO journalist Keith Kloor accused GLP of altering his article, “The Story Behind the Story,” without his permission. The article, which was posted on his website, http://www.keithkloor.com, focuses on science writer Brooke Borel’s Buzzfeed profile of University of Florida scientist Kevin Folta, who was hosting a podcast using a fake identity.

GLP reposted a segment of Kloor’s article on their website with a different headline, “Did Brooke Borel cross ethical line in criticizing Kevin Folta GMO parody site?”

Kloor objected to GLP’s posting the article without his permission and changing the headline and text. In a blog, Kloor wrote: “It’s bad enough that a website built on the aggregated work of journalists takes something that belongs to you without asking for permission. It’s outrageous when the website truncates your text in ways that change the meaning of what you wrote, which is also what Genetic Literacy is guilty of doing with respect to my post. It’s infuriating and unforgivable when the person who stole your text puts his own flatly wrong headline above it … That’s crossing an ethical line.”

On a personal note, GLP has also changed the headlines of articles I’ve written that they’ve posted on their website. One headline they changed contained text that was meant to be derogatory to me.

Other authors also criticized GLP’s journalistic practices on Twitter. These included Borel, Helena Bottemiller Evich, a journalist with Politico, Anastasia Bodnar, policy director at the pro-GMO website Biofortified.org and Julie Kelly, a pro-GMO food writer, among others. The authors objected to GLP changing the headlines and text of articles, listing authors as GLP contributing writers when they aren’t and putting author bylines with paraphrased articles.

On Twitter, GLP Executive Director Jon Entine tried to assure the authors that GLP has been responsive “to every concern.” But Kloor responded sarcastically to that claim, asking Entine if he really wrote that “with a straight face.”

==

http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/16459-the-end-of-third-party-advocacy-for-gmos

As freedom of information requests reveal ostensibly independent GMO proponents to be working hand-in-hand with the GMO industry, Claire Robinson asks if the misinformation game is finally over

Below is a selection of some of the GMO industry’s bad press following the emails released as a result of freedom of information requests by the NGO, US Right to Know and various journalists.

The emails show exactly how Monsanto and other agribusiness companies enlist ostensibly independent scientists and academics to promote GMOs. This strategy, known as the third-party PR technique, was notoriously used by the tobacco industry, which enlisted doctors to promote smoking. It is employed to pull the wool over the eyes of the public, who are much more likely to trust apparently independent experts than to trust industry.

In the latest scandal, the tsunami of press articles triggered by the disclosed emails has exposed a comprehensive list of pro-GMO individuals and outfits – many of whom will be familiar to GMWatch readers – as working hand-in-hand with industry to promote and defend GMOs and pesticides.

They include: 

* Kevin Folta, the self-declared independent scientist who turned out to have taken money from Monsanto for outreach and communication

* The “Biofortified boys”, who write for the pro-GMO Biology Fortified website. They include Kevin Folta, Karl Haro von Mogel, and Steve Savage

* The experts who answer the public’s questions on GMOs on the GMO Answers website – they include Folta and Savage

* University of Illinois professor emeritus Bruce Chassy and David Tribe, who run the pro-agrochemical industry website, Academics Review 

:{* Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project (the GLP dominates Wikipedia coverage of GMOs)

* Nina Fedoroff, emeritus professor of biology at Penn State, professor of biosciences at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, and former chief science and technology adviser to secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton}:

* Harvard professor Calestous Juma

* Channapatna Prakash, a GMO advocate and dean at Tuskegee University

* Peter Phillips, a policy professor at Canada's University of Saskatchewan

* Mississippi State University’s Davis Shaw and Tony Shelton of Cornell.

In addition, the emails reveal three journalists – Amy Harmon, Tamar Haspel, andKeith Kloor– as being disturbingly close to the GMO industry and its lobbyists.

In a world with any justice, we could confidently say that the third-party advocacy game for GMOs and pesticides is over. Once the puppetmasters are revealed, the “expert” pronouncements of the puppets lose their power.

The world and the power structure being what it is, however, we can expect the game to continue for some time and even for the pace and intensity to be jacked up, as the puppetmasters feel their control slipping away.

If you know any honest people who are still taken in by the shadow play, please send them this article, so that they can learn and reach their own conclusions.

——

Selection of media articles

New York Times: Food industry enlisted academics in GMO lobbying war, emails show

Independent Science News: The puppetmasters of academia

GMWatch: Death threats, libel, and lies – Part 1: Death threats

GMWatch: Death threats, libel and lies – Part 2: Documented liar? 

GMWatch: How “the Biofortified boys” defended the pesticide industry’s secrets in Hawaii 

Food Tank: Dirty money, dirty science

Mother Jones: These emails show Monsanto leaning on professors to fight the GMO PR war 

Common Dreams: The conflict of interest culture among GMO advocates

Boston Globe: Harvard professor failed to disclose connection 

Alternet: Three journalists who are disturbingly cozy with the agrichemical industry

Huffington Post: Monsanto and its promoters vs. freedom of information

EcoWatch: University scientists caught conspiring with Monsanto to manipulate public opinion on GMOs

The Intercept: Jeb Bush campaign manager helped Big Pharma beat back anti-meth lab legislation

==

new report...

US Right to Know examines the links of journalists that have written articles praising GMOs

EXCERPT: Some journalists have criticized journalists for “buckraking” on speakers’ circuits. For example, former Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee said, “I wish it would go away. I don’t like it. I think it’s corrupting. If the Insurance Institute of America, if there is such a thing, pays you $10,000 to make a speech, don’t tell me you haven’t been corrupted. You can say you haven’t and you can say you will attack insurance issues in the same way, but you won’t. You can’t.”

—

A short report on journalists mentioned in our FOIA requests

by Gary Ruskin

US Right to Know, September 28, 2015

http://usrtk.org/gmo/a-short-report-on-journalists-mentioned-in-our-foias/

[links to sources at the URL above]

On September 23rd, Washington Post food columnist Tamar Haspel admitted to receiving “plenty” of money from pro-agrichemical industry sources.

Following her admission, I thought it might be useful to report on journalists – including Haspel — mentioned in the documents we have received from state public records requests.

U.S. Right to Know is conducting an investigation of the food and agrichemical industries, their PR firms and front groups, and the professors who speak for them.

So far, three reporters come up in interesting ways: Amy Harmon, Keith Kloor, and Tamar Haspel.

These reporters appear in the context of Jon Entine, who is perhaps the leading PR operative working to promote the views of the agrichemical industry, and its pesticides and GMOs. Entine is founder and executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project, which, along with the PR firm Ketchum’s GMO Answers, are the agrichemical industry’s two most visible front groups. Entine is also founder and president of the PR firm ESG MediaMetrics, whose clients have included the agrichemical giant Monsanto.

Amy Harmon

Amy Harmon is a reporter for the New York Times. She was part of a Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001, and in 2008 she won a Pulitzer for explanatory reporting.

On September 23, 2013 at 7:44pm, Jon Entine emailed Renee Kester, “FYI, I think I’ve talked Amy Harmon into doing a Hawaii Hawaii [sic.] story... and I gave her your and Kirby’s email information, so she may call at some point if she indeed pursues this.” Kirby Kester is president of the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association, an agrichemical industry front group.

On January 4, 2014, the New York Times published a front-page article by Amy Harmon, titled “A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops.” The story is datelined from Kona, Hawaii.

In 2014, Harmon won second place for the Society of Environmental Journalists “Kevin Carmody Award for Outstanding In-depth Reporting, Large Market” for “The Facts About GMOs,” a series that included the article “A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops.”

On September 30th, Harmon is scheduled to speak to theCornell Alliance for Science, a group funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to promote GMOs. The group is running a petition against U.S. Right to Know’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Keith Kloor

Keith Kloor is a freelance journalist who has written for Nature, Science Insider, Discover, Slate, and other outlets. Kloor has written many pro-GMO articles that have been featured by Jon Entine’s Genetic Literacy Project.

Kloor is mentioned in two places in the FOIA documents.

In one email, Jon Entine refers to Keith Kloor as a “very good friend of mine”.

In another email, on October 18, 2014, Dr. Channapatna Prakash, a GMO advocate and dean at Tuskegee University, emails Adrianne Massey of theBiotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), along with several others, to forward an alert from Lorraine Thelian, vice chairman of the PR firm Ketchum that “the hacker community Anonymous is planning a series of attacks on biotechnology and food industry websites… Trade association and corporate websites of CBI [Council for Biotechnology Information] members are being targeted in this planned attack.” Dr. Prakash writes, “Adrianne I have copied Kevin Folta, Karl von Mogel, David Tribe, and Keith Kloor here as well.”

Dr. Prakash cc’d the email to Jay Byrne (former director of corporate communications for Monsanto), Jon Entine, Bruce Chassy (agrichemical industry advocate) Val Giddings (former VP of BIO), Henry Miller (agrichemical industry advocate), Drew Kershen (agrichemical industry advocate), Klaus Ammann, Piet van der Meer, Martina Newell-McGloughlin (agrichemical industry advocate),Karl Haro von Mogel (member of the board of directors of Biology Fortified, a pro-GMO website), Kevin Folta (agrichemical industry advocate), Keith Kloor, and David Tribe (agrichemical industry advocate).

Keith Kloor was the only journalist who received this email.

The email implies that Kloor works closely with the agrichemical industry’s prominent advocates.

Kloor has written three articles that were critical of U.S. Right to Know’s FOIA requests, in Science Insider, Discover and Nature.

On March 23rd, 2015, Kloor gave a talk for theCornell Alliance for Science, which is hosting a petition against U.S. Right to Know’s FOIA requests.

Tamar Haspel

Tamar Haspel is a columnist at the Washington Post. She has written many columns for the Post defending or praising GMOs that have later been featured by Jon Entine’s Genetic Literacy Project.

In 2015, Haspel won the James Beard Foundation Award for her Post columns.

In June 2014, Haspel spoke to a pro-industry conference about “How can scientists best engage the GMO debate with a skeptical public?” The conference was coordinated by Jon Entine and Cami Ryan, who is currently social sciences lead for Monsanto. The conference was led by two agrichemical industry front groups,the Genetic Literacy Project and Academics Review,along with theUniversity of Florida, which receives major funding from agrichemical companies, as noted in a September 6 article in the New York Times.

Haspel also moderated a panel organized by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, which “provides long-term economic and societal benefits to North Carolina through support of biotechnology research, business, education and strategic policy statewide.”

In a September 23 chat hosted by the Washington Post, answering a question about whether she receives money from industry sources, Ms. Haspel wrote that, “I speak and moderate panels and debates often, and it’s work I’m paid for.” Later that day, I asked Ms. Haspel on Twitter how much money she had received from the agrichemical industry and its front groups. She replied, “Since any group believing biotech has something to offer is a ‘front group', plenty!”

Is it appropriate for a Washington Post columnist to write glowing columns about GMOs while appearing at such pro-industry conferences? Is it a conflict of interest for Haspel to accept money from agrichemical company interests that she covers as part of her beat as a Post food columnist? How much money has Haspel received from agrichemical industry interests?

Some journalists have criticized journalists for “buckraking” on speakers’ circuits. For example, former Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee said, “I wish it would go away. I don’t like it. I think it’s corrupting. If the Insurance Institute of America, if there is such a thing, pays you $10,000 to make a speech, don’t tell me you haven’t been corrupted. You can say you haven’t and you can say you will attack insurance issues in the same way, but you won’t. You can’t.”

Haspel wrote in the Washington Post that she will only speak at events where “if for-profit companies are involved in the event (which they often are), they can’t be the only voice. So, I will speak at a conference co-sponsored by, say, Monsanto and the USDA and NC State University, but not an event sponsored by Monsanto alone.” However, at the June 2014, conference at which Haspel spoke, no consumer advocates were slated to speak, only pro-industry advocates.

On October 16, Haspel is scheduled to speak to the Cornell Alliance for Science, a pro-GMO group that is hosting a petition against U.S. Right to Know’s FOIA requests.

Haspel has been critical of the U.S. Right to Know FOIA requests.On August 17, on Twitter, she wrote: “The money/time/brainpower wasted on @garyruskin’s mean-spirited, self-interested attack on @kevinfolta! Can we move on to something useful?” Others did not agree with her news judgment. On September 6th, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Eric Lipton wrote an article largely based on our FOIA requests – especially of University of Florida Professor Kevin Folta – which ran on the front page of the Sunday New York Times. The article revealed how Folta, who repeatedly denied ties to Monsanto, in fact had received an undisclosed $25,000 grant, as well as writing assignments from the company, and worked closely with it and its PR firm Ketchum, which ghostwrote text for him and organized media and lobbying meetings for him.

U.S. Right to Know is a consumer advocacy group. We try to expose what the food industry doesn’t want us to know. We believe it is useful for the public to see how the food and agrichemical companies do their public relations work. That is one way we can help consumers to assess the claims and information they receive from the companies involved in our food production, their PR firms and operatives, and the journalists who work with them.

==

On GMOs, New York Times foodie Mark Bittman is a dark cloud in the brightening sky of reason | Genetic Literacy Project 3/4

As Discover blogger Keith Kloor wrote in discussing Bittman’s views last fall, before Californians rejected mandatory labeling, “Unfortunately, the real message environmentalists and foodies are sending by coalescing in support of Proposition 37 is a dangerous one—and not one that will help the food movement in the long run. That’s because Proposition 37 is predicated on junk science and blind, simplistic mistrust of multinational corporations. If the food movement continues down this road, it will soon be as politically irrelevant as the once-promising environmental movement is now.”...

Bittman’s views on mandatory labeling are self­destructive and annoying. More consequential, and even dangerous, is his eagerness to spread the central myths about genetically engineered foods—that GE foods remain relatively untested and have not proven to be “beneficial to society at large.” He floated these standard stump speech themes once again in a recent disingenuous diatribe in the Times: It’s smart to prudently explore the possible benefits and uses of genetically engineered materials in agriculture, and to deploy them if and when they’re proven to be a) safe (otherwise, no) and b) beneficial to society at large (otherwise, why bother?). I don’t believe that any G.E. materials have so far been proven to be either of these things, and therefore we should proceed cautiously. … Genetic engineering, or, more properly, transgenic engineering – in which a gene, usually from another species of plant, bacterium or animal, is inserted into a plant in the hope of positively changing its nature – has been disappointing. What parallel universe does Bittman inhabit? As Henry Miller noted in Forbes.com, because GE crops require less chemical pesticide, from 1996 to 2010, the amount of pesticide that was sprayed on crops worldwide fell by an estimated 443 million kilograms – 1.5 times the total amount of pesticide applied annually to crops in the European Union.

Moreover, GE crops’ higher yields and lower production costs have reduced global commodity prices (corn, soybeans, and derivatives), resulting in higher farm income, enhanced supplies of food and feed products, and more readily available high­quality calories. Like a climate­denying archconservative, Bittman and hasn’t altered his views for years even as science has long since passed him by. As Keith Kloor, one of the world’s sharpest commentators on the politics of agricultural biotechnology journalism, recently noted in a response to Bittman’s latest, he couches his nutty views in reasonable­sounding verbiage that disguises the reality that his opinions are almost fact­ and science­free. “Bittman’s entire piece is disingenuous artistry,” Kloor wrote. “He starts off by saying: ‘Genetic engineering in agriculture has disappointed many people who once had hopes for it.’ Really? Who are these people?”

 Kloor responded with a quote from professor Ronald, one of the world’s leading advocates of sustainable agriculture. “After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops,” she is quoted as writing, citing an NRC study. In fact, even theFrench Supreme Court threw out France’s banon a GMO because the government couldn’t produce any credible evidence that GMOs were a threat to the environment or human health. There have been hundreds of independent medical studies on the health and safety of genetically modified foods. The World Health Organization, the National Academy of Sciences, the European Commission and many other groups—these are science based groups, not gourmands—have reached the identical determination that foods made using GM

12/21/2015 On GMOs, New York Times foodie Mark Bittman is a dark cloud in the brightening sky of reason | Genetic Literacy Project 4/4

ingredients are safe and “substantially equivalent” to conventional alternatives. Last fall, facing down intense pressure from the “antis”, the American Medical Association reaffirmed its prior statement that “there is no scientific justification for special labeling of genetically modified foods.” Added Kloor: “I think if Bittman bothered to talk to someone like Ronald, he’d learn that it is scientists who are disappointed that that the demonization of biotech by activists has been so successful. Their toxic rhetoric and campaigning has poisoned the well, which Bittman continues to drink from. And that disappoints many people who perhaps had high hopes that he would elevate the GMO dialogue. Instead, he continues to muddy it. What a shame.” Stanford’s Miller, who otherwise shares few political views with Kloor, was equally disgusted at Bittman. “He and other cynical, anti­social activists who have opposed and obstructed agbiotech relentlessly for years now have the gall to complain about the hype and over­selling of its benefits — rather like the teenager convicted of murdering his parents who pleads for mercy from the judge because he’s an orphan.” Bittman and his ilk may score points at foodie dinner parties, but increasingly they are becoming the butt of jokes in science circles. Even worse, their shrill but influential voices are making it increasingly challenging for federal and state regulatory agencies to follow the science when it comes to promoting good nutrition and public health.

==

bio bs

Keith Kloor is a NYC-based journalist, and anadjunct professor of journalism at New York University. His work has appeared in Slate, Science, Discover, and the Washington Post magazine, among other outlets. From 2000 to 2008, he was a senior editor at Audubon Magazine. In 2008-2009, he was a Fellow at the University of Colorado’s Center for Environmental Journalism, in Boulder, where he studied how a changing environment (including climate change) influenced prehistoric societies in the U.S. Southwest. He covers a wide range of topics, from conservation biology and biotechnology to urban planning and archaeology.

==

real clear sci 2015

I’m racing to meet a deadline, but this story in the New York Times is so dismaying I had to take a few minutes to call attention to it....

The fierce public relations war over genetically modified (GM) food has a new front. A nonprofit group opposed to GM products filed a flurry of freedom of information requests late...

In 2000, Salon asked, “Is your cell phone killing you?” Last year, editors there must have decided the verdict was in when they published this embarrassing piece...

==

In Bed With the GMO Devil

By Keith Kloor | June 14, 2013 12:46 pm

i'm in bed w. monsanto [cute cartoon]

...

More specifically, one group shrieks about “seeds of death” and Monsanto’s evil plot to sterilize humanity while the other group (the one I belong to) responds with alternating mockery and sober rebuttals. Personally, I try to avoid writing much about the deranged wing of the anti-GMO movement. It’s like taking on Lord Monckton and James Delingpole in the deranged wing of the climate skeptic sphere. What they say is so absurd that you can’t treat them seriously, so you end up lampooning them.

Unfortunately, the anti-GMO hysterics are, like the climate science is a fraud shouters, the face of their respective movements. Marc Morano goes on CNN and Jeffrey Smith goes on Dr. Oz. Both persons are likable, media-savvy, indefatigable spokesmen for their causes. As such, they help shape the tone and content of public debate.

What bothers me most about this dynamic, especially with respect to the GMO issue, is that thought leaders enable the worst tendencies of the anti-GMO movement, instead of trying to elevate the conversation. Thus, after I really started paying attention to the GMO debate, I wrote in Slate:

I’ve found that fears are stoked by prominent environmental groups, supposed food-safety watchdogs, and influential food columnists; that dodgy science is laundered by well-respected scholars and propaganda is treated credulously by legendary journalists; and that progressive media outlets, which often decry the scurrilous rhetoric that warps the climate debate, serve up a comparable agitprop when it comes to GMOs.

:{I wrote that last September and it is just as true today. :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:**UPDATE:**:{ On a related note, see this Mark Hoofnagle :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[post:{ at his Denialism blog.]  For example, take }:Grist:{, a popular environmental media site. They would never bend over backwards to legitimize }:outlier climate studies:{ that have no credibility with mainstream climate scientists. But if there’s an outlier study that suggests GMOs are poisoning animals, no matter how dubious the research, }:Grist:{ will be all over it. And if judicious mainstream biotech experts }:criticize:{ that study, Grist will }:shrug them off:{ as “GMO lovers.”}:

When you have one of the most widely read and admired environmental websites regularly promoting GMO fear-mongering and twisting itself into a pretzel to put a positive spin on faulty (and clearly biased) studies, that is as telling as the slanted climate change coverage at Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. [

When you point out this double standard at places like Grist, when you challenge thought leaders and some reporters on their credulousness, as I have been doing of late, or when you highlight the utter zaniness of the main anti-GMO assertions, you get accused of being a shill for Monsanto. This is not an experience unique to me. Anyone who is even gently critical of arguments advanced by anti-GMO activists has heard this. Every geneticist and plant scientist working in the biotech field has been accused of being in Monsanto’s pocket. It is an oft-repeated charge that appears in every comment thread of every article and blog post.

When Canadian agricultural researcher Cami Ryan recently published a guest piece in this space on the appeal of GMO myths, some readers predictably accused her of being a cheerleader for Monsanto.

My own all time favorite he’s a shill comment was hurled at me several weeks ago:

Wow, Keith Kloor is so rabidly PRO-GMO it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s receiving kickbacks. Freelance journalist and adjunct professor don’t pay too good, and NY has a pretty high cost of living.

As adjuncts and freelancers who live in NYC can attest, there is some truth to this. There’s also my two kids (and their massive Lego collection), the $9.00 beers at Yankee Stadium, my Caramel Frappuccino habit at Starbucks, and my summer house in East Hampton.

Now I’ve grown tired of fending off this “tool of Monsanto” charge. So has Cami. Thus, in the interest of full disclosure, we want to reveal the truth about ourselves.[cartoon]

=

Keith Kloor is a freelance writer who lives in Brooklyn New York City.[1] He teaches magazine article writing for the Arthur L. Carter journalism institute at New York University,[2] as well as Urban Environmental Reporting at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism[3] and is a former fellow of the Center for Environmental Journalism.[4]

Contents

Career

From 2000 to 2008, he was an editor at Audubon Magazine. From 2008-2009 he was a Fellow at the University of Colorado’s Center for Environmental Journalism.[5]

He has written for Nature,[1] Science[6] and for the Archaeological Institute of America.[7]

From early 2009 until April 15, 2015, he wrote a blog entitled Collide-a-Scape for Discover magazine.[8]

Publications

Various stories he wrote for Audubon Magazine are in the book Liquid Land: A Journey Through the Florida Everglades by Ted Levin [10]

Criticism

Kloor is on the list of journalists who have failed to disclosed sources' funding from Monsanto. [11]

References

1.

  1. http://usrtk.org/gmo/journalists-failed-to-disclose-sources-funding-from-monsanto-a-short-report/

Categories:

==

Cami Ryan, aProfessional Affiliatewith the**College of Agriculture and Bioresources** at the University of Saskatchewan and advocate for science, farming and consumers, is a contributing columnist for the Genetic Literacy Project. Her**blog**is a platform for dialogue around current food and agriculture issues. You can follow her on Twitter at @DocCamiRyan and on**Facebook**. cited by KLOOR on RCSci, echo chamber; miller plagiarizes her?

==

-

NATURE |news

GM­crop opponents expand probe into ties between

scientists and industry

Activist group compels records from 40 researchers at US public universities.

06 August 2015 Corrected: 10 August 2015

Update (16:35, 28 August): The University of Florida has announced that the US$25,000 grant from

Monsanto to the agricultural biotechnology communication programme directed by Kevin Folta will be

donated to a campus food bank. A press release cites personal threats to Folta as prompting the decision.

The university had offered to return the money to Monsanto, but the company declined to take it, says

University of Florida spokeswoman Beverly James.

Keith Kloor

The agriculture giant Monsanto's relationship with researchers has made them the target of activists who

oppose GM crops.

9/14/2015 GM­crop opponents expand probe into ties between scientists and industry : Nature News & Comment

http://www.nature.com/news/gm­crop­opponents­expand­probe­into­ties­between­scientists­and­industry­1.18146 2/14

[Related stories

India eases stance on

GM crop trials

Compromise blooms in

European GM crop

debate

Paper claiming GM link

with tumours republished

More related stories]

Michelle McGuire, a nutrition scientist at Washington State University in Pullman, was stunned last month

when activists who oppose the use of genetically modified (GM) organisms asked to read her e­mail.

US Right to Know of Oakland, California, filed a request under Washington's freedom­of­information law to

see her correspondence with, or about, 36 organizations and companies. McGuire is one of 40 US

researchers who have now been targeted by the group, which is probing what it sees as collusion between

the agricultural biotechnology industry and academics who study science, economics and communication.

And that investigation, which began in February, has just started to yield

documents. These include roughly 4,600 pages of e­mails and other

records from Kevin Folta, a plant scientist at the University of Florida in

Gainesville and a well­known advocate of GM organisms. The records,

which the university gave to US Right to Know last month, do not suggest

scientific misconduct or wrongdoing by Folta. But they do reveal his close

ties to the agriculture giant Monsanto, of St Louis, Missouri, and other

biotechnology­industry interests.

The documents show that Monsanto paid for Folta's travel to speak to US

students, farmers, politicians and the media. Other industry contacts

occasionally sent him suggested responses to common questions about

GM organisms.[note no mention of $25k OOPS read on ; or cut and paste; when was that published?]

“Nobody ever told me what to say,” says Folta, who considers public outreach to be a key part of his job.

“There’s nothing I have ever said or done that is not consistent with the science.”

He adds that he has never accepted honoraria for outreach work, and that the University of Florida does not

require him to disclose travel reimbursements. But the e­mails show that Folta did receive anunrestricted

US$25,000 grant last year from Monsanto, which noted that the money “may be used at your discretion in

support of your research and outreach projects”. Folta says that the funds are earmarked for a proposed

University of Florida programme on communicating biotechnology.

Monsanto spokeswoman Charla Lord says that the company was “happy to support Dr. Folta's proposal for

an outreach program to increase understanding of biotechnology”, and that the $25,000 grant

“predominately covered travel expenses”. Lord adds that Monsanto considers public­private collaborations to

be “essential to the advancement of science, innovation and agriculture”.

Seeking answers

Such explanations do not satisfy Gary Ruskin, executive director of US Right to Know. "I think it's important

[9/14/2015 GM­crop opponents expand probe into ties between scientists and industry : Nature News & Comment

http://www.nature.com/news/gm­crop­opponents­expand­probe­into­ties­between­scientists­and­industry­1.18146 3/14]

for professors who take money from industry to disclose it,” he says. “And if they’re not disclosing it, that’s a

problem. And if they say they aren’t taking money, and they are, then that’s a problem."

Ruskin's group, which was founded in 2014, calls for mandatory labelling of food that contains GM

ingredients — even though numerous scientific bodies, including the US National Academy of Sciences,

have found no evidence that such food harms human health.

US Right to Know launched its investigation of academic researchers after it noticed that several had fielded

questions about crop biotechnology on a website called GMO Answers, which is funded by members of the

biotech industry. The group considers the site, which is aimed at consumers and managed by publicrelations

firm Ketchum of New York, to be a “straight­up marketing tool to spin GMOs in a positive light”. It is

now seeking the records of public­sector researchers — who are subject to state freedom­of­information

laws — to confirm its suspicions.

Ruskin says that the group has received responses to about 10% of its freedom­of­information act requests

to various universities. At least one institution, the University of Nebraska, has refused to provide documents

requested by the group.

US Right to Know argues that the freedom­of­information requests are reasonable, since the researchers

who are under scrutiny are public employees who are supported by taxpayers. “Part of democracy is that we

get to know what our public employees do,” Ruskin says.

The view from outside

McGuire is not sure why the group is seeking her records, because she has not contributed to the GMO

Answers website. Some of her recent research refutes claims that glyphosate, an herbicide often used on

GM crops, accumulates in breast milk; it relies on an assay developed with assistance from Monsanto. Still,

McGuire says, “I’m a milk ­lactation researcher.”

But Folta’s e­mails show him to be frequent contributor to GMO Answers. Ketchum employees repeatedly

asked him to respond to common questions posed by biotechnology critics. In some cases, they even

drafted answers for him. “We want your responses to be authentically yours,” one Ketchum representative

wrote in a message on 5 July 2013. “Please feel free to edit or draft all­new responses.”

“They thought they could save me time by providing canned answers,” Folta says of his “extremely

annoying” Ketchum contacts. “And I don’t know if I used them, modified them or what, but they stopped

doing it at some point.” He adds that the correspondence obtained by US Right to Know reveals only a

fraction of his work as a scientist, and taken alone does not paint an accurate picture of his work.

9/14/2015 GM­crop opponents expand probe into ties between scientists and industry : Nature News & Comment

http://www.nature.com/news/gm­crop­opponents­expand­probe­into­ties­between­scientists­and­industry­1.18146 4/14

Corrected:

Bruce Chassy, a toxicologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana­Champaign who is the subject of two

freedom­of­information requests by US Right to Know, says that his e­mails would reveal a similar portrait of

“people trying to defend the science against malicious attacks”.

But Chassy acknowledges the ethical questions raised by close relationships between the biotech industry

and the public sector. “Are we working for them, or are they working for us?” he asks. “Probably a little bit of

both” — in part because universities and companies often have overlapping research interests. The extent of

this overlap is what US Right to Know aims to reveal in full.

Michael Halpern, an expert on scientific integrity at the Union of Concern Scientists in Washington DC, says

that Folta's case suggests that universities should do more to educate researchers on what constitutes a

conflict of interest and what types of financial relationships should be disclosed.

“It behooves scientists to disclose their funding sources so there's no perception of inappropriate influence,”

Halpern says. “But that doesn’t mean all private money is tainted or suspect.”

Nature 524, 145–146 (13 August 2015) doi:10.1038/nature.2015.18146

Tweet 639

Corrections

This article wrongly stated that Kevin Folta informed Nature of the University of Florida’s release

of documents. In fact, Nature knew about the release before it spoke to Folta. The text has been corrected

==

http://www.nature.com/news/gm-crop-opponents-expand-probe-into-ties-between-scientists-and-industry-1.18146

==

For background on how this current story originally broke, you have to go back to Aug. 6, when the internationalscience journal Nature reported that more than 4,600 pages of emails from University of Florida plant scientist Kevin Folta “reveal his close ties to the agriculture giant Monsanto … and other biotechnology-industry interests”.

The Nature article set off a minor firestorm on social media, when University of Florida professor andMonsanto promoter Kevin Folta’s emails were leaked to Nature’s Keith Kloor for damage control.

==

GMO Opponents Are the Climate Skeptics of the Left

Don’t worry. Genetically modified corn isn’t going to give you cancer.

By Keith Kloor

...

I’ve found that fears are stoked by prominent environmental groups, supposed food-safety watchdogs, and influential food columnists; that dodgy science is laundered by well-respected scholars and propaganda is treated credulously by legendary journalists; and that progressive media outlets, which often decry the scurrilous rhetoric that warps the climate debate, serve up a comparable agitprop when it comes to GMOs.

In short, I’ve learned that the emotionally charged, politicized discourse on GMOs is mired in the kind of fever swamps that have polluted climate science beyond recognition.

The latest audacious example of scientific distortion came last week, in the form of a controversial (but peer reviewed!) study that generated worldwide headlines. A French research team purportedly found that GMO corn fed to rats caused them to develop giant tumors and die prematurely.

Within 24 hours, the study's credibility was shredded by scores of scientists. The consensus judgment was swift and damning: The study was riddled with errors—serious, blatantly obvious flaws that should have been caught by peer reviewers. Many critics pointed out that the researchers chose a strain of rodents extremely prone to tumors. Other key aspects of the study, such as its sample size and statistical analysis, have also been highly criticized. One University of Florida scientist suggests the study was "designed to frighten" the public.*

That's no stretch of the imagination, considering the history of the lead author, :{Gilles-Eric :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{Seralin:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{i:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:, who, as NPR reports, "has been campaigning against GM crops since 1997," and whose research methods have been "questioned before," according to theNew York Times.

The circumstances surrounding Seralini's GMO rat-tumor study range from bizarre (as a French magazine breathlessly reports, it was conducted in clandestine conditions) to dubious (funding was provided by an anti-biotechnology organizationwhose scientific board Seralini heads).

Another big red flag: Seralini and his co-authors manipulated some members of the media to prevent outside scrutiny of their study. (The strategy appears to have worked like a charm in Europe.) Some reporters allowed themselves to be stenographers by signing nondisclosure agreements stipulating they not solicit independent expert opinion before the paper was released. That has riled up science journalists such as Carl Zimmer, who wrote on his Discover magazine blog: "This is a rancid, corrupt way to report about science. It speaks badly for the scientists involved, but we journalists have to grant that it speaks badly to our profession, too. ... If someone hands you confidentiality agreements to sign, so that you will have no choice but to produce a one-sided article, WALK AWAY. Otherwise, you are being played."

Speaking of being played, have I mentioned yet that Seralini's book on GMOs, All Guinea Pigs! is being published (in French) this week? Oh, and there's also a documentary based on his book coming out simultaneously. You can get details on both at the website of the anti-biotetch organization that sponsored his study. The site features gross-out pictures of those GMO corn-fed rats with ping-pong-ball-size tumors.

It's all very convenient, isn't it?

None of this seems to bother Tom Philpott, the popular food blogger for Mother Jones, who writes that Seralini's results "shine a harsh light on the ag-biotech industry's mantra that GMOs have indisputably proven safe to eat."

Philpott often trumpets the ecological and public-health dangers posed by genetically modified crops. But such concerns about GMOs, which are regularly echoed at other left-leaning media outlets, have little merit. As Pamela Ronald, aUC-Davis plant geneticist, pointed out last year in Scientific American: "There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops."

So what explains the lingering suspicions that some people (even those who aren’t Monsanto-hating, organic-food-only eaters) still harbor? Some of these folks are worried about new genes being introduced into plant and animal species. But humans have been selectively breeding plants and animals pretty much since we moved out of caves, manipulating their genes all the while. The process was just slower before biotechnology came along.

Still, being uneasy about a powerful, new technology doesn’t make you a wild-eyed paranoid. The precautionary principle is a worthy one to live by. But people should know that GMOs are tightly regulated (some scientists say in an overly burdensome manner).

Many environmentalists are concerned that genetically modified animals such as “Franken-salmon” could get loose in the wild and out-compete their nonengineered cousins, or lead to breeding problems for the wild members of the species. But even the scientist on whose research the “Trojan gene” hypothesis is based says the risk to wild salmon is “low” and that his work has been misrepresentedby GMO opponents.

Another big concern that has been widely reported is the “rapid growth of tenacious super weeds” that now defy Monsanto’s trademark Roundup herbicide. That has led farmers to spray their fields with an increasing amount of the chemical weed-killer. Additionally, some research suggests that other pests are evolving a resistance to GMO crops. But these problems are not unique to genetic engineering. The history of agriculture is one of a never-ending battle between humans and pests.

On balance, the positives of GM crops seem to vastly outweigh the negatives. A recent 20-year study published in Nature found that GM crops helped a beneficial insect ecosystem to thrive and migrate into surrounding fields. For an overview of the benefits (and enduring concerns) of GM crops, see this recent post by Pamela Ronald.

The bottom line for people worried about GMO ingredients in their food is that there is no credible scientific evidence that GMOs pose a health risk.

Even Philpott, in his charitable take on the Seralini study, admits that, "no one has ever dropped dead from drinking, say, a Coke sweetened with high-fructose syrup from GMO corn." In the next breath, though, he wonders: "But what about 'chronic' effects, ones that come on gradually and can't be easily tied to any one thing? Here we are eating in the dark." Despite the study being a train wreck, Philpott's takeaway is that it "provides a disturbing hint that all might not be right with our food—and shows beyond a doubt that further study is needed." What's beyond a doubt here is Philpott's unwillingness to call bullshit when it's staring him in the face.

I single out Philpott not to pick on him, but because he represents the most reasonable, level-headed voice of the anti-GMO brigade (whose most extreme adherents don white hazmat suits anddestroy research plots). The same goes for Grist, which calls the French study "important" and says "it's worth paying attention to what Seralini has done.”

Such acceptance by lefties of what everyone else in the reality-based science community derides as patently bad science is “just plain depressing,” writes a medical researcher who blogs under the name Orac. He compares the misuse of science and scare tactics by GMO opponents to the behavior of the anti-vaccine movement.

The anti-GM bias also reveals a glaring intellectual inconsistency of the eco-concerned media. When it comes to climate science, for example, Grist and Mother Jones are quick to call out the denialism of pundits and politicians. But when it comes to the science of genetic engineering, writers at these same outlets are quick to seize on pseudoscientific claims, based on the flimsiest of evidence, of cancer-causing, endocrine-disrupting, ecosystem-killing GMOs.

This brand of fear-mongering is what I've come to expect from environmental groups, anti-GMO activists, and their most shamelessly exploitive soul travelers. This is what agenda-driven ideologues do. The Seralini study has already been seized on by supporters of California's Proposition 37, a voter initiative that, if successful in November, would require most foods containing genetically modified ingredients to be labeled as such in the state.

What's disconcerting is when big media outlets and influential thought leaderslegitimize pseudoscience and perpetuate some of the most outrageous tabloid myths, which have been given fresh currency by a slanted 2011 documentary that is taken at face value at places like the Huffington Post.

In a recent commentary for Nature, Yale University's Dan Kahan lamented the "polluted science communication environment" that has deeply polarized the climate debate. He writes: “People acquire their scientific knowledge by consulting others who share their values and whom they therefore trust and understand.” This means that lefties in the media and prominent scholars and food advocates who truly care about the planet are information brokers. So they have a choice to make: On the GMO issue, they can be scrupulous in their analysis of facts and risks, or they can continue to pollute the science communication environment.

Correction, Sept. 26, 2012: This article originally misidentified the affiliation of the scientist who suggests that the study was “designed to frighten” the public. He is with the University of Florida, not UC-Berkley.

Keith Kloor is a journalist based in New York. You can find him on twitterhere. He is a former editor atAudubonmagazine and often writes about environmental issues.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/are_gmo_foods_safe_opponents_are_skewing_the_science_to_scare_people_.html

==

blog

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is embarking on acomprehensive study of genetically engineered (GE) crops. It will examine the historic development of agricultural biotechnology, assess the “purported” benefits and negatives of GE crops, review food and environmental safety issues, and explore where the technology may be headed.

What is prompting such a deep dive into a thorny thicket? This:

Consumers in the United States and abroad get conflicting information about GE crops. Proponents tout the benefits while opponents emphasize the risks.  There is a need for an independent, objective study that examines what has been learned about GE crops, assesses whether initial concerns and promises were realized since their introduction, and investigates new concerns and recent claims.

It so happens that the first public meeting for this study will be held today and tomorrow. More on this in a minute.

First, let’s review essential findings on crop biotechnology and related food safety concerns from the past decade.

In 2004, an NAS report declared:

To date, more than 98 million acres of genetically modified crops have been grown worldwide. No evidence of human health problems associated with these ingredients of these crops or resulting food products have been identified.

(As of last year, that cumulative total stood at 4 billion acres.)

In  2008, a paper published in the UK’s Royal Society of Medicine noted:

Foods derived from GM crops have been consumed by hundreds of millions of people across the world for more than 15 years, with no reported ill effects (or legal cases related to human health), despite many of the consumers comring from that most litigious of countries, the USA.

In 2010, the European Union declared:

The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research, and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that that biotechnology, and in particular, GMOs, are no more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies.

Finally, the World Health Organization (WHO) states:

GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.

I know, I know, all these scientific institutions, professional societies and health bodies are bought off by Monsanto.

Seriously, back to the NAS study now underway. Remember, the justification for it is that “the public gets conflicting information about GE crops.”  Yet, as I showed above, there is nothing ambiguous about the safety of GMOs. This is not to say that agricultural biotechnology doesn’t warrant strict regulation, monitoring, and continued testing. But let’s be clear: Thus far, nothing in the global food supply derived from genetically modified crops has been found harmful to public health.

So where is “conflicting information” coming from? Unfortunately, much skewed information on GMOs comes from thought leaders, advocacy journalists, and public interest groups, as I discussed in this 2012 *Slate* piece. And it will be on display at this week’s NAS public meeting. For a virtual who’s who of cranks, pseudoscientists and ideologues–the worker bees and stars on the anti-GMO circuit–will be appearing before the committee (Reputable scientists and science communicators will also be represented.) I don’t have time to run through them all, but two notorious individuals (who should be familiar to anyone vaguely familiar with the GMO discourse) are giving their presentations back to back on Tuesday: Jeffrey Smith and Gilles-Éric Séralini.

Smith is the author of two self-published books on GMOs– Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette.He appears to have no scientific credentials. I’ve discussed Smith several times in this space, including here. He’s made two appearances on the Dr. Oz show. One of them was a segment called, “GMO Foods: Are They Dangerous to Your Health?” As Michael Specter recounts in The New Yorker:

Oz was not subtle. “You’re probably eating them right now and don’t even know,” he began, darkly invoking “the brave new world of food. Are they safe?” Oz then introduced Jeffrey Smith, the author of “Genetic Roulette,” who says that engineered foods may cause many serious diseases, including colitis, asthma, and cancer. Smith has also made a film version of the book; Oz, for the sake of full disclosure, noted that “my wife, Lisa, was a narrator in Jeffrey’s film.” He added that no scientists were willing to share the stage with Smith. “So today we are doing something we have never done before,” Oz said. “After Jeffrey makes his points, he has to leave the stage before we can speak with the scientists in favor of genetically modified foods.” Other than to say that Smith was controversial, Oz did not indicate why no scientists would appear with him.

But Smith is just a fear-mongering messenger indulged by the likes of Dr. Oz. Séralini is a French researcher who published adeeply  flawed (and ultimately retracted) study on GMO corn-fed rats and manipulated the media’s initial coverage of it. (This is the zombie paper that will not die.) Having Séralini give expert testimony at a scientific panel on GMOs is like having Andrew Wakefield present evidence at a similar panel on vaccine safety.

But hey, if the goal of the NAS committee is to discern nonsense from actual facts on genetically modified crops, then I suppose it is helpful to hear straight from the sources who have most succeeded in distorting the science of biotechnology and confusing the public about GMOs.

CATEGORIZED UNDER: AGRICULTURE, BIOTECHNOLOGY, GMOS, SCIENCE

MORE ABOUT: AGRICULTURE, BIOTECHNOLOGY, FOOD SECURITY, GILLES-ÉRIC SÉRALINI, GMOS,JEFFREY SMITH, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

==

Farewell Post

By Keith Kloor | April 15, 2015 3:48 pm

The time has come for me to say goodbye to this blog.

I started Collide-a-Scape in early 2009, when I was halfway through a year-long fellowship at the University of Colorado’sCenter for Environmental Journalism. I knew I was about to embark on a new chapter in my professional life (from full-time magazine editor to freelance writer) and figured I’d hang my shingle on the Web.

Initially, I thought I’d focus on topical sustainability issues. Perhaps I could draw attention to the backstory of Australia’s bushfires or offer a long view of California’s climate, as I did in my 7th post, when I commented on a piece in the Los Angeles Times that framed global warming as an imminent existential threat to California. I wrote on February 5, 2009:

Nowhere in the story is drought mentioned, which I find astonishing, given that just a few days ago, a state water official said, “We may be at the start of the worst California drought in modern history.” As I wrote here, even that statement fails to take into account a longer climate history of the West. The mega-droughts that occurred a millinium ago make the 1930s dust bowl look like childs play.

As the LA Times reported two years ago, scientists believe that the Southwest is about to enter a new cycle of severe aridity–a state of permanent drought–that will last for decades.

So now comes along a story that suggests global warming will bring California to its knees by the end of this century. But that’s only part of the story. Climate change is a force multiplier–it will undoubtedly exacerbate matters, making the West drier and for longer periods.

The natural cycles of drought and human-induced climate change will combine to write the future of the West.

In ensuing years, when relevant new papers were published, and as drought tightened its grip on California, I periodicallyrevisited this long view of California’s (and the the West’s) drought history. I think I may have been too far ahead of the story.

I always intended this blog to pivot off of newsy stories (the news hook!) but go beyond the headlines. By the time I started Collide-a-Scape in 2009, I had come to view ecological issues through a historical and a socio-cultural lens. In a 1990 essay, Richard White, now a historian at Stanford, discussed a shortcoming (since rectified, I think) in the then relatively new field of environmental history: “the failure to recognize the role of beliefs and value judgements.” I have long felt that much popular environmental writing suffers from a similar failure.

The historian J. R. McNeill, in his 2003 [global survey of the field, gave a concise definition of environmental history: “The history of human relations between humankind and the rest of nature.”]

The human/environment relationship fascinates me. Of specific interest: The nexus of science, politics, and culture. It’s the space I often explore in longer magazine stories. My blog has provided a vehicle for me to explore that volatile space in real time.

It’s been great to participate in environmental and science-related conversations as they play out. But it is also fraught with risk when the topics are contentious. People don’t get worked up over the return of an iconic dinosaur name or a planet the way they do over climate change, vaccines, and GMOs, which are some of  the hot-button topics I’ve explored on this blog. I suppose that’s because nobody’s worldview or values is challenged by the Brontosaurus or Pluto.

Many journalists writing about science are attracted to the “wow” aspect; I’ve been drawn to the “why”–as in why are people fighting over endangered species, the meaning of wilderness, the future of conservation, climate change, GMOs,the Anthropocene?

Another recurring theme for me: Read More

---

The Robert Kennedy Jr. Anti-Vaccine Tour

By Keith Kloor | April 13, 2015 1:08 pm

My mother-in-law, who lives in New Jersey, recently mailed me a newspaper clipping. It was about a famous person who came to her state to publicly oppose a bill that would make it harder for parents to exempt their children from school-mandated vaccinations.  This same famous person had just visited two other states to lobby against similar legislation proposed in the wake of the Disneyland/Measles outbreak. Local media and wire services have covered the spectacles in Oregon, California, and New Jersey.

:{

}:

Yes, Robert Kennedy Jr. has made headlines again for, as the New Jersey Star Ledger put it in a hard-hitting editorial, “his crazy-talk about a vast government conspiracy to hide the truth that a vaccine ingredient called thimerosal causes childhood autism.” The Star-ledger goes on to correctly note:

:{

}:

He is wrong. Every major scientific and medical organization in the country agrees that he is wrong. Here’s all you need to know about thimerosal: There is no link between it and any brain disorders, including autism. To assuage fears, the government removed it from pediatric vaccines nearly 15 years ago, with the exception of a specific flu vaccine, and childhood autism rates have actually gone up since.

:{

}:

After reading the editorial, my mother-in-law clipped it out and mailed to me with a note:

:{

}:

Keith–

:{

}:

Saw this–I know it’s an “old” topic–but still in the news!

:{

}:

Baba

:{

}:

That’s the infuriating part of this story for many people–that it’s still in the news, from the New York Daily News to the UK’s Daily Mail. Of course, Baba mailed me the story because she had read about Kennedy’s unrelenting and misguided crusade last summer in a piece I wrote for the Washington Post magazine.

:{

}:

I anguished over that story: Before I pitched it, after it was accepted, and each step along the way during the reporting and writing process. I agonized over every sentence, every edit. I agonized because I didn’t want to give any oxygen to anti-vaccine activism, but when it became obvious to me that one of their celebrity crusaders was engaged in newsworthy activities, I felt the story of his obsessive crusade was legitimate. The reactions were all over the map.

:{

}:

I’ve spent enough time with Kennedy and argued with him enough to know that he’s gone down a deep rabbit hole. It’s not just that he can’t let go of the discredited thimerosal/autism connection. It’s his irresponsible conspiracy talk involving the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), calling it a “sock puppet” of the pharmaceutical industry. And his shameless hyperbole, which he has ramped up in recent weeks. For example, here’s what Kennedy said last month before a crowd in California: Read More

:{

}:

===

Journalists failed to disclose sources’ funding from Monsanto(2015)... Between Scientists and Industry. By Keith Kloor, August 6, 2015. 6. NPR: Is The Food Babe A Fearmonger? Scientists Are Speaking Out. By Maria Godoy, February 10, 2015. 7. New Yorker: The Operator. By Michael ...Created on 25 November 20152. The end of third-party advocacy for GMOs?(2015)...  Davis Shaw and Tony Shelton of Cornell. In addition, the emails reveal three journalists – Amy Harmon, Tamar Haspel, and Keith Kloor – as being disturbingly close to the GMO industry and its lobbyists ...Created on 16 October 20153. New report probes pro-GMO journalists(2015)... their PR firms and front groups, and the professors who speak for them. So far, three reporters come up in interesting ways: Amy Harmon, Keith Kloor, and Tamar Haspel. These reporters appear in the ...Created on 29 September 20154. University scientists caught conspiring with Monsanto to manipulate public opinion on GMOs(2015)... professor and Monsanto promoter Kevin Folta’s emails were leaked to Nature’s Keith Kloor for damage control. While Folta has not yet been charged with scientific misconduct or wrongdoing, these emails ...Created on 13 September 20155. Following criticism, PLOS removes blog defending scrutiny of science(2015)...  a ‘chilling effect’ on public debate and academic freedom while cheerfully silencing a viewpoint they don’t like.” Keith Kloor, author of the Nature news article mentioned in the retracted post, tol ...Created on 26 August 20156. Rückblick Nr. 345(German General)... ?   Der Blogger Keith Kloor versucht Umweltschützer zu diskreditieren, indem er sie in dieselbe Anti-Wissenschafts-Schublade steckt wie Leugner des Klimawechsels, aber Wissenschaft und Logik sind ihm dabei ...Created on 13 October 20147. Review 345(News review)... r response sells the science short and continues to mislead the public. Keith Kloor: Trash-talking the enviros – or just talking trash? Blogger Keith Kloor tries to discredit environmentalists by putting t ...Created on 21 September 20148. Prof Jack Heinemann on vaccines, climate, power, and GMOs(2014)...  In the second article, Prof Heinemann asks whether attacks on Reuters journalist Carey Gillam by the blogger Keith Kloor and the former Vice President for Food & Agriculture of the Biotechnolog ...Created on 18 September 20149. Keith Kloor: Trash-talking the enviros – or just talking trash?(2014)Blogger Keith Kloor doesn’t like environmentalists – and is a stranger to science and logic, writes Jonathan Matthews THE BLOGGER Keith Kloor doesn't like environmentalists – at least, not the one ...Created on 19 August 201410. Biotech's assault on balanced journalism(2014)GMO proponents are pressuring Reuters to remove journalist Carey Gillam, who presents both sides of the GMO debate. EXCERPT: Why do GMO proponents like Giddings, Chassy, Kloor, Entine, and others respond ...Created on 04 June 201411. Spinning a consensus on GMOs(2014)Contrary to claims by GMO proponent Keith Kloor, there's no scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs, writes Tim Schwab of Food & Water Watch. Spinning a consensus on GMOs by Tim Schwab Food & ...Created on 16 May 201412. Nathanael Johnson: Grist to whose mill?(2013)... ynas, the pro-GM blogger Keith Kloor, and the bloggers at Biofortified, who are keen admirers of the GM plant scientist Pam Ronald. Ronald might be said to typify the problems with Johnson's series ex ...Created on 21 August 201313. Claims of "scientific consensus" on GM are baseless(2013)... ngage And Mark Lynas and the blogger Keith Kloor have made very similar assertions. Lynas, for instance, declared in his Oxford speech that "on GM there is a rock-solid scientific consensus." http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-januar ...Created on 13 June 201314. Rückblick nr. 326(German General)... mus gegen Gentechnik einen völlig überzogenen Medienrummel aus. Viele dieser Zitate stammen aus Artikeln und Interviews, die in so etablierten Medien wie z. B. BBC, Sunday Times, New York Times, Australian ...Created on 06 March 201315. Review 326(News review)... ontent&view=article&id=14621 An interview with Lynas by blogger Keith Kloor now contains two retractions of Lynas's claims: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2013/01/31/mark-lynas-res ...Created on 10 February 201316. Lynas backs down and apologises to the Soil Association(2013)... c supporters of Lynas, whose persistence would eventually lead her to complain of 'feeling bullied'.  In their wake came another Lynas' supporter, KeithKloor, who promised a response to the article  ...Created on 05 February 201317. California's Prop 37 and the story of knowledge(2012)... cience and anti-technology, a grave offence in an era of rampant starvation and failing crops, as Keith Kloor asserted on Slate. After all, how else will we feed "the seven billion people who cannot feed ...Created on 09 November 201218. Inside the Monsanto information war(2012)... g the study's release, American bloggers smelled blood and resorted to pot shots to discredit Séralini and reporters who cover his work. Journalist and blogger Keith Kloor, who is no stranger to controv ...Created on 24 October 201219. GMO cheerleaders who also deny climate change(2012)...  Left," declares the headline of a recent piece by Keith Kloor in Slate. The argument goes like this: Just as certain conservative writers flout science by denying the urgency of climate change, there are pro ...Created on 18 October 201220. Scientific consensus on GM is an illusion(2012)... just engaged in a debate on Twitter with the science writer Keith Kloor over Kloor's claim that GM opposition is equivalent to climate change denial. Tom Philpott made a number of important points abou ...Created on 27 September 2012

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"GMO opponents are the climate skeptics of the left."

Position:

Free-lance journalist

BIOGRAPHY:

Editor at Audubon Magazine, 2000-2009.

Fellow at the University of Colorado's Center for Environmental Journalism, 2008-2009

Founder of Collide-a-Scrape blog, Discover Magazine, 2009-2015

QUOTES:

"Yes, it’s easy to be suspicious about efforts to sanitize the image of a dirty energy. But the actual world we live in requires us to look past the cynical marketing campaign that everyone mocks and accept the fact that the planet’s climate needs clean coal—and the sooner, the better."

"Although there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that genetically modified foods pose no harm to public health, that is not the impression you would get from the tenor of many stories, be they at some respected journalism outlets or on popular TV talk shows. Indeed, much of this coverage suggests that the safety issue is still an open question, debated hotly by scientists, when this is not true at all."

"The food movement's demonization of genetically modified crops isn't just scientifically baseless, it's politically stupid."

Referring to GMO food labeling proposals: "If the food movement continues down this road, it will soon be as politically irrelevant as the once-promising environmental movement is now. ... Without subtly stoking ignorant fears about GM food, there would be no way to mobilize the fight against Monsanto and what it stands for."

"GMO opponents are the climate skeptics of the left," Slate, Sept. 26, 2012

Referring to climate change denier Marc Morano: "If you think the public discussion of climate change is best served by a free flowing exchange of information and perspectives, then Morano’s Climate Depot is one of your gateways, like it or not."

EVIDENCE:

Keith Kloor is a freelance reporter and part time journalism professor at New York University. He has written for Discover, Slate and other outlets. He has promoted "clean coal" and is a regular defender of Genetically Modified Organisms or foods (GMOs) who has attacked the industry's critics as unscientific and "politically stupid."

When journalists writes even slight critiques of GMOs and biotechnology, Kloor tends to react swiftly and aggressively. Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) wrote in 2013, "Keith Kloor makes a beat out of policing frightful coverage of GMOs."

Kloor's recent targets of criticism include:

Kloor disputes a statement by the European Network of Scientists for Safety and Environmental Responsibility that "no scientific consensus on GMO safety" exsists, after it was published in a peer-reviewed journal. Kloor's main argument is that the statement was signed by mostly "known opponents biotechnology," and that many who signed have no relevant scientific expertise, despite having no such scientific expertise himself.

Kloor has repeatedly decried public records requests, some of which include his communications with GMO interests, by organizations exposing conflicts of interest between corporations and scientists. Kloor calls the requests for financial infomation on publicly-employed scientists "an attack on science," comparing the tactic to coal and oil industry attacks on climate scientists. More background at Corporate Crime Reporter.

THE CORNELL ALLIANCE FOR SCIENCE

After writing a piece in February 2015 in Science Magazine criticizing the group U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) for using Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to uncover ties between 14 pro-GMO scientists' ties to Monsanto and the GMO industry, Kloor spoke in April 2015 at the Cornell Alliance for Science (CAS), a pro-Agriculture business think tank. Kloor was introduced at the event as the reporter “breaking the issue of attacks on ag-bio scientists for Science Magazine.”

The Cornell Alliance for Science was launched in 2014 with a $5.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, purportedly to "depolarize the GMO debate." GMO watchdogs noted that from its inception that CAS "partners" included groups like the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, which has taken funding from by Monsanto, CropLife and Bayer. The Gates foundation has invested in Monsanto, and food justice activists say the foundation's approach to solving hunger in Africa involves GMOs and other high-tech agricultural approaches that benefit multinational corporations like Monsanto. Bill Gates is himself an outspoken proponent for GMOs.)

The 14 scientists targeted by US Right to Know's FOIA request are associated with the industry-funded web site GMOAnswers, which was created for Monsanto and 5 other biotech producers by the PR firm Ketchum Communications. (For more about Ketchum's work for GMO companies, go here. In "Spinning Food," Friends of the Earth reported that Ketchum developed GMOAnswers.com to shift the story about GMOs on social media. A Ketchum video bragging about the campaign was taken offline after U.S. Right to Know called attention to it.)

BREAKTHROUGH INSTITUTE  

As Think Progress blogger Joe Romm points out, Kloor often flacks for Roger Pielke, a fellow at the Breakthrough Institute known for promoting  doubt around aspects of climate change science.

BRUCE CHASSY’S ACADEMICS REVIEW

Kloor has criticized attempts to label GMOs as “cynical” and “irrational” and is known to regularly quote GMO scientists without disclosing their ties to Monsanto. For instance, in 2014 Kloor wrote for Discover about a talk he gave to a class run by Calestous Jouma of Harvard University. During the class, Kloor discussed the slanted journalism of Reutersreporter Carey Gillam. In a separate article, Kloor attacked Bill Nye with a published letter from scientist Kevin Folta. And in articles he wrote for Discover, Science and Nature, Kloor quoted scientist Bruce Chassy attacking the use of Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover ties to industry.

Based on Freedom of Information Act requests, the *Boston Globe* later reported that Calestous Jouma wrote a policy paper at the behest of Monsanto; the New York Times reported that Kevin Folta helped Monsanto lobby on GMO labeling; and *Alternet* reported that Bruce Chassy received Monsanto funding to start the website Academics Review.

Bruce Chassy’s Academics Review front group has sponsored a panel on GMOs where Keith Kloor was an invited speaker, and both Science and Naturehave received formal complaints about bias in his reporting on GMOs. Emails released through FOIA have also found that Kloor has a very friendly relationship with GMO advocates. For instance,Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Projectreferred to Keith Kloor in one email as “a very good friend of mine” and suggested Kloor as a contact to broker a meeting between GMO advocates and a blogger at Discover Magazine.

LINKS AND RESOURCES:

ThinkProgress' Joe Romm: "Meet blogger Keith Kloor"

SourceWatch: Keith Kloor

TruthWiki: Keith Kloor

AlterNet: 3 Journalists Who Are Disturbingly Cozy with the Agrichemical Industry

US Right to Know Network: A Short Report on Journalists Mentioned in our FOIA Requests

Mother Jones: Some GMO Cheerleaders Also Deny Climate Change

Keith Kloor archive: Discover Magazine

Keith Kloor archive: Slate

Food & Water Watch: Crashing the Pro-GMO Party

WhoWhatWho: GMO Makers, Their Puppets in Academia, and the New York Times

Ken Roseboro via Huffington Post: Biotech's Assault On Balanced Journalism

Tim Schwab via Common Dreams: Spinning a Consensus on GMOs

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