Thompson, Jayne

===

wife of the gov

atz syngenta
  =<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-xpm-2011-05-28-ct-biz-0529-spinmeister-20110528-story.html">https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-xpm-2011-05-28-ct-biz-0529-spinmeister-20110528-story.html</a>PR executive sets off firestorm with proposal to discredit Madison County court systemAmeet Sachdev, Tribune reporterIt's a public relations nightmare when the publicist becomes part of the story. That's the situation Jayne Thompson finds herself in.
The former Illinois first lady started her own Chicago-based public relations firm in 2002. Part of her practice involves managing communications for clients involved in legal disputes. Her clients have included Chicago's largest law firms, such as Winston & Strawn, where her husband, former Gov. James Thompson, was chief executive for 13 years and currently is senior chairman.Another client is Syngenta Crop Protection Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of a Swiss company that manufactures the popular but controversial weedkiller atrazine. Thompson's firm was hired to help Syngenta handle public relations related to a 2004 lawsuit filed in Illinois by water systems looking to force the company to pay for removing atrazine from drinking water because of public health concerns.Public relations strategies usually remain behind the curtain, but every once in a while the curtain is raised, exposing controversial tactics to shift public opinion. In the Syngenta case, a 13-page confidential memo Thompson wrote detailing a public relations strategy to augment the company's legal defense has come out in the course of pretrial evidence gathering known as discovery.As part of her proposal, Thompson recommended planting stories critical of the Madison County courts, where the suit was filed. A rural community across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Madison County became infamous about 10 years ago for its high volume of class-action lawsuits and high jury awards. One theme Thompson suggested for a story: "Now, Madison County is going after the family farmers," according to court documents.
Thompson said in an interview that the goal of the public relations campaign is to effectively communicate the history and safety of atrazine and its economic importance to the agricultural industry. The filing of a lawsuit with the potential to be a class action would bring increased attention to Syngenta and atrazine, and it's important to organize facts about such a scientific product, she said.
But Thompson said Syngenta never approved a negative media campaign against the Madison County judiciary. She said she doesn't know why Syngenta declined the option.
Nevertheless, her memo has backfired on her and her client.
Last month, Madison County Circuit Judge William Mudge ordered the memo be disclosed to plaintiffs, after finding that Thompson's proposal "has nothing to do with trial strategy … but much to do with fostering a negative public perception of our judicial system."
The lead plaintiff's attorney has taken advantage of the court victory by engaging in his own public relations effort against Syngenta. Stephen Tillery, of St. Louis, promptly issued a news release after Mudge ordered the company to turn over Thompson's memo, criticizing Syngenta for resorting to a "campaign of intimidation." Tillery also provided a copy of Thompson's memo to the Tribune.
Thompson said Tillery has created a diversion. "I shouldn't be a part of the story," she said. "It's supposed to be a contest for the truth, and that's what we're trying to facilitate."
Public relations in the course of litigation has become more common in high-stakes lawsuits. But the Syngenta case shows legal publicity is more than a press conference on the courthouse steps.
"It's within every litigant's right to ensure that public perception reflects reality before you go into a court case," said James Haggerty, a New York-based consultant who's an expert on media strategies in high-profile lawsuits. "Both sides are trying to bend public perception to meet their own ends."
But for Syngenta, its public relations campaign has become a sideshow that could have consequences in the suit, according to legal experts.
"When you irk a judge in a somewhat personal way, that's never a good thing," said Leonard Gail, an experienced Chicago trial attorney who is not involved in the case. "There's a second issue that's more substantive. There is going to be a legal dispute as to whether this material, the PR-related efforts, in fact gets introduced into evidence at trial, including but not limited to punitive damages."
Syngenta, through its attorneys, declined to comment because the suit is pending.
Spread on cornfields, atrazine has long been approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But it is one of the most commonly detected contaminants in drinking water, and recent studies have suggested that the weedkiller may be more dangerous to humans than once thought.
The 2004 suit against Syngenta, which makes most of the atrazine sold, wants to hold the company responsible for cleaning the state's drinking water. The plaintiff, the Holiday Shores Sanitary District in Madison County, seeks to certify the suit as a class action, which would drive up Syngenta's costs dramatically.
Syngenta has maintained the suit is baseless and that atrazine has undergone extensive testing to prove its safety. But in 2009 the EPA began a new review of atrazine to study its potential health risks.
In the summer of 2005, Syngenta called Thompson looking to engage a public relations firm experienced with litigation, she said. The court venue was somewhat new to the company, she said. Syngenta's U.S. operations are based in Greensboro, N.C.
Thompson's firm is familiar with Madison County, having worked with Philip Morris USA after it was hit with a $10 billion verdict in a class-action suit there brought by smokers alleging deception in the sale of "light" cigarettes. (The Illinois Supreme Court later reversed the judgment.)
In October, Thompson provided a 13-page proposal to Syngenta outlining how the firm could support the company. By that time, Madison County had gained a reputation within business circles and certain segments of the legal community for being uncommonly friendly to injured parties seeking damages from big business. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business and pro-reform legal groups dubbed Madison County a "judicial hellhole."
Thompson played up the commonly held fears of being a corporate defendant in Madison County. She led off her pitch with the headline: "Syngenta's Turn in the Madison County Barrel."
She also warned Syngenta about Tillery, a gregarious class-action lawyer who some say is as adept at influencing the court of public opinion as any publicity agent.
"You can expect that he has been preparing his publicity assault for months," she wrote. "It will be a questionable and unremitting smear of atrazine and the people who make and use it, as well as Syngenta itself and its foreign owners."
Tillery, after seeing a copy of Thompson's memo, said he was outraged but not surprised at the personal attack.
"That seems to be the rule of the day in complex litigation," he said. "Attack the plaintiffs, attack the plaintiffs' lawyer, instead of dealing with the merits of the case."
Business proposals often contain the type of aggressive language Thompson uses because someone is trying to win an account. But publicists have to tread cautiously when doing work connected to a lawsuit because their written communications may be subject to disclosure in court, Haggerty said.
In addition to assisting Syngenta with courtroom-related activities, Thompson proposed a campaign to build public support for the company among Illinois farmers and other constituencies.
She wrote: "While Syngenta is not particularly well known outside its business-to-business marketplace in Illinois, the product's link to our farming families and businesses make it potentially a much more sympathetic defendant than the great majority of out-of-state, not to say foreign, firms hauled into Madison County's courts."
Thompson said in an interview that at the time the suit was filed, atrazine started becoming the subject of more media reports.
"They were concerned that the coincidence of these two circumstances greatly increased media attention to the product," she said.
Among her ideas, Thompson proposed establishing a "Healthy Corn Coalition" among farmers and others atrazine supporters, and asking economists to estimate the financial costs of an atrazine ban. She also suggested recruiting supporters among policy and legal advocacy groups, such as the Illinois Civil Justice League, the Chicago-based Heartland Institute and the Madison County Record, a legal journal owned by the Institute of Legal Reform, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Thompson's recommendation to push a negative media campaign against the Madison County courts was contained in the third part of her proposal. She wrote that the placements would help balance negative articles about the company and atrazine. The effort did not have to involve Syngenta directly, she stressed. "We are not suggesting that the company author any or all of these themes," she wrote, using italics in the memo.
In explaining the strategy, Thompson said that stories critical of Madison County had a "great deal of currency at the time the proposal was written." She requested a monthly fee of $30,000, according to her proposal.
The memo came to light after Tillery subpoenaed documents from Don Coursey, a University of Chicago professor Syngenta had hired as a litigation consultant. Communications between consulting experts and attorneys are considered private and don't have to be disclosed to the opposing party.
The company said at first that it had hired Coursey as a consultant in 2006 and would not produce any records after that date, Tillery said. He disputed the timing.
Further discovery discerned that Coursey wasn't retained as a litigation consultant until Jan. 9, 2009, according to court documents. The company hired him in early 2006, based on a recommendation from Thompson's firm, to study atrazine's financial benefits, but many of the documents related to that work are not protected by the consulting-expert privilege, the judge determined. Mudge also found that Thompson's memo was not protected under the same privilege.
"They were hiding about 900 documents from disclosure," Tillery said.
Coursey, an economist at the Harris School of Public Policy, has previously worked with Thompson's partner Chris Robling on small consulting projects, according to his deposition.
Coursey's study, released in February 2007, estimated Illinois corn growers could suffer annual losses of $161 million to $577 million if atrazine were banned. Tillery questions much of the paper Coursey wrote, alleging that Thompson's firm had a big hand in drafting the study. Thompson denies the charge, saying her firm's role was limited.
"We reviewed the paper and made some editorial changes, just in terms of smoothing what was an academic paper into something that was usable in a little more general way," Thompson said. "But that's all. The content was all his."
Coursey said in an email that he stands by the paper and declined further comment.
"Coursey was part of the media campaign they bought from Jayne Thompson," Tillery said. "We knew Thompson was involved in Syngenta public relations, but we didn't know the depth or scope of it until now."
Even though the suit is 7 years old, it is far from being resolved. It's unclear whether the battle over public relations will influence what happens in the courtroom.
asachdev@tribune.com<div>
</div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 27px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAkQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFSgAMAZ6BAgJEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; line-height: 1.57;"><a href="http://www.atrazinefacts.com/atrazine-litigation/illinois/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.atrazinefacts.com/atrazine-litigation/illinois/&ved=2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFjAGegQICRAB" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-size: 20px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%; line-height: 1.3;"><a href="http://www.atrazinefacts.com/atrazine-litigation/illinois/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.atrazinefacts.com/atrazine-litigation/illinois/&ved=2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFjAGegQICRAB" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><div class="ellip" style="overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.atrazinefacts.com/atrazine-litigation/illinois/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.atrazinefacts.com/atrazine-litigation/illinois/&ved=2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFjAGegQICRAB" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Illinois Atrazine Litigation : atrazinefacts.com</a></div></h3>
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padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 1.57;">Jul 2, 2004 - Holiday Shores Sanitary District sued Syngenta, Growmark, a farm retail ... Syngenta and Growmark case in the Third Judicial Circuit of Illinois, Madison County is Cause number .... 07/26/2005: Motion for substitution of judge.</div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 27px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAEQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFSgAMAd6BAgBEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; line-height: 1.57;"><a href="https://www.croplife.com/crop-inputs/herbicides/syngenta-defends-atrazine/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.croplife.com/crop-inputs/herbicides/syngenta-defends-atrazine/&ved=2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFjAHegQIARAB" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); 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The Holiday Shores Sanitary District in Madison County, IL, filed a class ... While Madison County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Stack is allowing the ...</div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 27px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAgQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFSgAMAh6BAgIEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; line-height: 1.57;"><a href="https://www.law360.com/articles/240579/judge-releases-pr-papers-in-syngenta-herbicide-suit" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.law360.com/articles/240579/judge-releases-pr-papers-in-syngenta-herbicide-suit&ved=2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFjAIegQICBAB" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-size: 20px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%; line-height: 1.3;"><a href="https://www.law360.com/articles/240579/judge-releases-pr-papers-in-syngenta-herbicide-suit" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.law360.com/articles/240579/judge-releases-pr-papers-in-syngenta-herbicide-suit&ved=2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFjAIegQICBAB" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><div class="ellip" style="overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.law360.com/articles/240579/judge-releases-pr-papers-in-syngenta-herbicide-suit" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.law360.com/articles/240579/judge-releases-pr-papers-in-syngenta-herbicide-suit&ved=2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFjAIegQICBAB" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Judge Releases PR Papers In Syngenta Herbicide Suit - Law360</a></div></h3>
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Mudge of Madison County ordered the ... at the expense of the Madison County judicial system," Judge Mudge said.</div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 28px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAcQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFSgAMAl6BAgHEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; font-size: small; line-height: 1.57;"><a href="https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Water-safety-arguments-on-tap-12685482.php" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Water-safety-arguments-on-tap-12685482.php&ved=2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFjAJegQIBxAB" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-size: 20px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%; line-height: 1.3;"><a href="https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Water-safety-arguments-on-tap-12685482.php" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Water-safety-arguments-on-tap-12685482.php&ved=2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFjAJegQIBxAB" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><div class="ellip" style="overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Water-safety-arguments-on-tap-12685482.php" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/Water-safety-arguments-on-tap-12685482.php&ved=2ahUKEwie-6W5hKLkAhVImK0KHbFoAD4QFjAJegQIBxAB" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Water-safety arguments on tap - Alton Telegraph</a></div></h3>
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==

Secret Payments to “Independent” Allies

Court documents include a “Supportive Third Party Stakeholders Database” of 130 people and organizations the company could count on to publicly support atrazine, often for a price.  Documents show people on the list were coached, their statements in support of atrazine were edited by the company and payments to them were not publicly disclosed. In some cases, Syngenta or its PR team wrote the Op-Ed pieces and then scanned its stakeholder database for a signer.

In an Oct. 17, 2009, memo to Syngenta’s Ford, Jayne Thompson warned that some of the language in four Op-Eds penned by the White House Writers Group is suggestive of their source, which “should be avoided at all costs.”

Hiding the source of Op-Eds on atrazine (p. 12)

==

<h3 class="summary fn org">Northwestern University School of Law</h3>

==

<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/print/11506">http://www.prwatch.org/print/11506</a>

Syngenta’s attorney on the case, Kurt Reeg, declined to comment for this story.

A videotaped deposition  of University of Chicago Professor Don Coursey, played in court, demonstrated Syngenta’s use of seemingly independent experts to make its case, typically without disclosing payments to them. Their work downplays the risks of pesticides, herbicides and other agricultural agents to human health, and warns of grave economic consequences if farmers ceased using the chemicals.

Syngenta had hired Coursey through PR agency Jayne Thompson & Associates to write about the economic losses that would be created by an atrazine ban. He estimated that an atrazine ban would eliminate 21,000 to 48,000 jobs and create an economic loss for U.S. corn production of $2.3 to $5 billion.

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/05/11506/syngenta-hired-guns-attack-new-documentary

==

<h1 class="print-title">Syngenta Hired Guns Attack New Documentary</h1>

<div class="meta">by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/users/35278/prw-staff" title="View user profile.">PRW Staff</a> [1] — May 11, 2012 - 1:37pm</div>

<ul>

<li class="vocabulary-2">Topics: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/environment/agriculture">Agriculture</a> [2], <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/corporations">Corporations</a> [3], <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/public-relations">Public Relations</a> [4]</li>

</ul>

</div>

<ul>

<li class="vocabulary-9">Projects: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/projects/atrazine-exposed">Atrazine Exposed</a> [5]</li>

</ul>

</div>

<div class="content clearfix"><a class="da2a_button" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prwatch.org%2Fnews%2F2012%2F05%2F11506%2Fsyngenta-hired-guns-attack-new-documentary&linkname=Syngenta%20Hired%20Guns%20Attack%20New%20Documentary" id="da2a_1"><img brain="false" src="http://www.prwatch.org/sites/all/modules/addtoany/images/share_16_16.png" alt="Share/Save" height="16" width="16" /> Share this</a> [6]

For Immediate Release:

May 11, 2012

Contact: Paul Towers, Pesticide Action Network, 916-216-1082

<h2 style=" text-align: left;">Syngenta Hired Guns Attack New Documentary</h2>

<h3 style=" text-align: left;">PR firm and paid spokespeople mount aggressive response to new film "Last Call at the Oasis"</h3>

San Francisco, CA -- As a new film highlights water contamination throughout the U.S. Midwest from Syngenta's flagship herbicide atrazine, the world's largest pesticide company has mounted a PR counter-attack downplaying the human and environmental health risks of a chemical linked to birth defects, low birth weight and certain cancers. Atrazine was banned in the EU in 2003, leaving the U.S. market as one of Syngenta's most profitable and vigorously guarded markets.

Syngenta's lobbying and often-covert PR efforts have been continuously scrutinized in the press since it was revealed that the company held more than 50 closed-door meetings with EPA officials during atrazine's previous review in 2003. Looking at the same data, EPA subsequently approved atrazine for continued use while E.U. regulators banned it as a ubiquitous water contaminant and suspected endocrine disruptor. Syngenta has since paid economists to claim that atrazine creates jobs, conducted a covert PR campaign against a court hearing a case against the company, sued environmental health NGOs (including Pesticide Action Network) working on atrazine, and repeatedly attempted to suppress science and intimidate scientists whose work shows the harms of atrazine.

In response to last week's release of the film "Last Call at the Oasis," Syngenta's PR firm Jayne Thompson and Associates has launched a new website, "Saving the Oasis." The project uses paid spokespersons posing as independent experts and attempts to greenwash atrazine as environmentally beneficial, downplay human health risks and discredit one of the scientists from the film. According to the <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-28/business/ct-biz-0529-spinmeister-20110528_1_syngenta-crop-protection-atrazine-public-relations" target="_blank">Chicago Tribune</a> [7], Jayne Thompson, the former Illinois first lady, attempted to place stories critical of Illinois courts where the company is being sued by public water utilities and characterize litigation against the company as anti-farmer.

<table border="2" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><thead><tr><td colspan="3" style=" text-align: center;">Spokespersons paid by Syngenta to advocate for atrazine:</td></tr><tr style=" height: 30px;"><td valign="top">Name</td><td valign="top">Affiliations</td><td valign="top">Links to Syngenta</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr style=" background-color: #eeeeee;"><td valign="top">Richard Fawcett</td><td valign="top">Fawcett Consulting Firm</td><td valign="top">Received an undisclosed sum from Syngenta between 1995-2011 to promote atrazine in studies and speaking engagements</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Alex Avery</td><td valign="top">Hudson Institute, Center for Global Food Issues</td><td valign="top">CGFI has received at least $68,550 from Syngenta and has coordinated research for the company</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: #eeeeee;"><td valign="top">Jayne Thompson</td><td valign="top">Jayne Thompson & Associates, former First Lady of Illinois</td><td valign="top">Helped coordinate Syngenta's "first strike" mentality and managing "third party" spokespeople, especially around court cases</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Elizabeth Whelan</td><td valign="top">American Council on Science and Health</td><td valign="top">Sought $100,000 from Syngenta to produce materials about atrazine and publicly attacked New York Times coverage of the chemical</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: #eeeeee;"><td valign="top">Don Coursey</td><td valign="top">University of Chicago</td><td valign="top">Received $35,000 for one report he authored for Syngenta and has spoken at several Syngenta-sponsored briefings in DC</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">Steven Milloy</td><td valign="top"><a href="http://JunkScience.com/">JunkScience.com</a> [8], Fox News commentator</td><td valign="top">An unknown number of checks for $25,000 each from Syngenta for talking points and has publicly attacked independent scientists researching health effects atrazine</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: #eeeeee;"><td valign="top">Jon Entine</td><td valign="top">Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), American Enterprise Institute, ESG MediaMetrics</td><td valign="top">Released a book on "Chemophobia" shortly after New York Times piece on atrazine, received $100,000 from Syngenta-funded ACSH for the book</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" style=" text-align: center;">Sources: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/projects/atrazine-exposed" target="blank">PR Watch/Center for Media and Democracy</a> [5], <a href="http://100r.org/2012/02/coming-clean-water-companies-call-industry-to-account/" target="blank">Clare Howard/100 Reporters</a> [9] and <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/02/atrazine-syngengta-tyrone-hayes-jon-entine" target="_blank">Tom Philpott/Mother Jones</a> [10]</td></tr></tbody></table>

As EPA continues its current re-evaluation of atrazine's safety, results released last week from water sampling across four Midwestern states -- Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota -- indicate that the endocrine disrupting pesticide <a href="http://www.panna.org/current-campaigns/atrazine" target="_blank">atrazine</a> [11] is still being found in drinking water. The results, on average, demonstrate that levels frequently found in drinking water are five times the levels associated with adverse health effects, including low birth-weight in babies.

"These water monitoring results should raise concerns for policymakers, they confirm that atrazine continues to contaminate Midwest drinking water at meaningful levels," said Emily Marquez, PhD, endocrinologist and staff scientist for Pesticide Action Network. "Endocrine disrupting chemicals like atrazine are hormonally active at vanishingly small amounts."

Resources:

<ul>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 10px;">A summary on the science and health of atrazine is available <a href="http://www.panna.org/sites/default/files/Atrazine_HealthEffectsRelease.pdf" target="_blank" style="">here</a> [12].</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 10px;">A summary of results from water sampling is available <a href="http://www.panna.org/sites/default/files/Atrazine_WaterTestingResults_0.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> [13].</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 10px;">A summary of pesticide residues commonly found in water is available <a href="http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/food.jsp?food=WR" target="_blank">here</a> [14].</li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 10px;">Find a copy of the report "The Syngenta Corporation & Atrazine: The Cost to the Land, People & Democracy" by Land Stewardship Project and Pesticide Action Network <a href="http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pdf/AtrazineReportJan2010.pdf" target="_blank" style="">here</a> [15].</li>

</ul>

<hr />

Available for Interviews:

Sandra Zellmer, JD, Alumni Professor of Environmental Law, University of Nebraska - Lincoln and legal expert on atrazine: szellmer2@unl.edu.

Dr. Paul Winchester, MD, Director of Neonatology at St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers in Indianapolis, and researcher on birth defects linked to atrazine exposure: 317-865-5000.

Bobbi King, Project Policy Program Organizer at the Land Stewardship Project: bking@landstewardshipproject.org or 612-722-6377. Can also connect reporters with Midwest farmers opposed to Syngenta's atrazine.

</div>

<div class="print-footer">Center for Media and Democracy • 520 University Avenue, Suite 260 • Madison, Wisconsin 53703

Phone: 608-260-9713 • Fax: 608-260-9714</div>

<div class="print-source_url">Source URL: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/05/11506/syngenta-hired-guns-attack-new-documentary">http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/05/11506/syngenta-hired-guns-attack-new-documentary</a></div>

Links:

[1] http://www.prwatch.org/users/35278/prw-staff

[2] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/environment/agriculture

[3] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/corporations

[4] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/public-relations

[5] http://www.prwatch.org/projects/atrazine-exposed

[6] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prwatch.org%2Fnews%2F2012%2F05%2F11506%2Fsyngenta-hired-guns-attack-new-documentary&linkname=Syngenta%20Hired%20Guns%20Attack%20New%20Documentary

[7] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-28/business/ct-biz-0529-spinmeister-20110528_1_syngenta-crop-protection-atrazine-public-relations

[8] http://JunkScience.com/

[9] http://100r.org/2012/02/coming-clean-water-companies-call-industry-to-account/

[10] http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/02/atrazine-syngengta-tyrone-hayes-jon-entine

[11] http://www.panna.org/current-campaigns/atrazine

[12] http://www.panna.org/sites/default/files/Atrazine_HealthEffectsRelease.pdf

[13] http://www.panna.org/sites/default/files/Atrazine_WaterTestingResults_0.pdf

[14] http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/food.jsp?food=WR

[15] http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pdf/AtrazineReportJan2010.pdf

==

==

The recipients of this email were Syngenta CP's director of communications, Sherry Ford, and three other Syngenta employees.

Also included on the email delivery chain were two public relations consultants: Josh Gilder, of White House Writers Group (WHWG), and Chris Robling, of Jayne Thompson and Associates (JTA), an Illinois public relations firm, hired as part of the company's PR strategy to deal with litigation in Illinois, among other things. WHWG had been part of Syngenta's PR team for about six months, coming on board after the New York Times story and NRDC report came out. (The litigation has opened a window on some of communications among the Syngenta PR team.)...

<h2>A "First-Strike" PR Team</h2>

Around the time of the New York Times investigation of atrazine levels and growing health concerns, according to e-mails discovered in the Holiday Shores suit, Syngenta CP had put out a request for proposals for a new PR effort.

According to the solicitation, Syngenta was seeking firms experienced with a "first strike" mentality and with managing "third party" spokespeople to carry Syngenta's message when it did not want those messages to be seen as coming from the corporation. It <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/images/1/10/Syn_2009_PR_Request_for_Proposal.pdf" target="_blank">also listed</a> (PDF) its top two primary audiences as "media" and "potential jurors." (The Holiday Shores case was pending in Illinois; the Jayne Thompson firm had been hired a few years earlier and would continue to be part of Syngenta's PR operation along with the new PR team being solicited.)

WHWG responded with a $498,000 base proposal that included funding for the "grassroots mobilization" firm DDC Advocacy, which has been described as a big player in the "astroturf" world of making corporate initiatives look like they are the result of wide and deep grassroots support.

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EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. –  Now in its eighth year of litigation, a lawsuit playing out in small, rural Madison County Circuit Court in Southern Illinois could set a costly, possibly game-changing, precedent for chemical manufacturers: agrichemical giants whose products spread beyond their initial targets could be responsible for the price of cleanup.

Some 22 water providers in Illinois are suing Syngenta Crop Protection Inc., a subsidiary of Swiss-based Syngenta AG. They are demanding that the cost of removing atrazine from drinking water, estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars, be shifted from the water providers and the public to Syngenta.

As the lawsuit unfolds, it is also parting the curtain on aggressive tactics the agrichemical industry has used to seemingly harass and intimidate scientists, and to manipulate information available to the public.

Syngenta AG had global annual sales of $11.6 billion in 2010, and maintains that agricultural chemicals are not dangerous if applied within government-approved safety guidelines.

Its weed killer atrazine is one of the most popular herbicides in the United States, with 76 million pounds applied each year. But the herbicide’s tendency to drift off targeted sites led to a ban by Germany in 1991, and following a 2004 vote, by the 27 member countries of the European Union.

Syngenta’s attorney on the case, Kurt Reeg, declined to comment for this story.

A videotaped deposition  of University of Chicago Professor Don Coursey, played in court, demonstrated Syngenta’s use of seemingly independent experts to make its case, typically without disclosing payments to them. Their work downplays the risks of pesticides, herbicides and other agricultural agents to human health, and warns of grave economic consequences if farmers ceased using the chemicals.

Syngenta had hired Coursey through PR agency Jayne Thompson & Associates to write about the economic losses that would be created by an atrazine ban. He estimated that an atrazine ban would eliminate 21,000 to 48,000 jobs and create an economic loss for U.S. corn production of $2.3 to $5 billion.

Over the course of questioning, however, Stephen Tillery, the lawyer who is representing the water companies, raised doubts about the validity of those assumptions and the integrity of the analysis.

Coursey admitted his reports were based on an atrazine ban, something not sought in Tillery’s lawsuit. He also admitted he had not read the legal complaint and was ordered by Syngenta and the PR agency to analyze the cost of an atrazine ban.

For his expert opinion, Coursey was able to supplement his university salary handsomely. In his deposition, Coursey said that Syngenta’s PR firm paid him $500 an hour and gave him $50 an hour for a research assistant over three to four years. His reports relied on data supplied by Syngenta, he said, adding that he had an office at the public relations firm. He submitted his work to both Jayne Thompson and Syngenta for editing.

Coursey said the PR agency also paid him $500 an hour to meet with newspaper editors and radio talk show hosts, and to make a presentation to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Just the same, Syngenta initially refused to honor a subpoena for Coursey to testify in the trial or turn over documents, and relented only after judicial intervention.

Coursey did not respond to requests for an interview.

In a memo released in April as part of the discovery process, the PR firm proposed planting stories with newspapers critical of the Madison County courts and suggesting the lawsuit could be characterized as an attack on family farmers. The memo suggested castigating the Madison County judicial system as a “judicial hellhole” and the source of “jackpot justice.”

As the hearing continued, Tillery told the judge that realtors in some areas served by the plaintiffs had been informed property values would decline if this lawsuit proceeds...http://100r.org/2012/02/coming-clean-water-companies-call-industry-to-account/

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