CMA pr
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not to be confused with caldwell okla shop</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://cmastrategies.com/team/sharoncaldwell/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.cmaconsult.com/">http://www.cmaconsult.com/</a></font></div><div>
</div><div>ameren pfizer do not mention monsanto</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">folta update</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span style="line-height: 32px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Turns out that Monsanto executive solicited pro-GMO articles from university researchers, and passed the “research” off as independent science which the biotech giant then used to prop up its image and further its agenda.</span></font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We know this, thanks to thousands of pages of emails obtained by <a href="http://usrtk.org/gmo/our-investigation-of-big-food-and-its-front-groups/" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">U.S. Right to Know</a> (USRTK) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). And because a host of news outlets—including the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/food-industry-enlisted-academics-in-gmo-lobbying-war-emails-show.html?r=0" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">New York Times</a>, the <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/01/harvard-professor-failed-disclose-monsanto-connection-paper-touting-gmos/lLJipJQmI5WKS6RAgQbnrN/story.html" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">Boston Globe</a>,<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-02/how-monsanto-mobilized-academics-to-pen-articles-supporting-gmos" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">Bloomberg</a>, the <a href="http://www.thestarphoenix.com/technology/group+questions+prof+monsanto+link/11411497/story.html" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">StarPhoenix</a> and others — are now running with the story.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For anyone who has paid attention, this latest scandal should come as no surprise. As Steven Druker writes in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Genes-Twisted-Truth-Systematically/dp/0985616911" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;"><em>Altered Genes, Twisted Truth</em></a>, "For more than 30 years, hundreds (if not thousands) of biotech advocates within scientific institutions, government bureaus, and corporate offices throughout the world have systematically compromised science and contorted the facts to foster the growth of genetic engineering, and get the foods it produces, onto our dinner plates.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will Druker’s book (published this year), and this new wave of bad press be enough to finally expose Monsanto’s “science” for what it i is — nothing more than an expensive, sustained and highly orchestrated public relations campaign?</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The story behind the story</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">USRTK, a nonprofit funded almost entirely by the <a href="http://www.organicconsumers.org/" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">Organic Consumers Association</a>, launched an investigation into “the collusion between Big Food, its front groups, and university faculty and staff to deliver industry PR to the public.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As part of its ongoing investigation, the group filed FOIA requests to obtain the emails and documents from 43 public university faculty and staff. The requested documents included records from scientists, economists, law professors, extension specialists and communicators — all of whom, as the group points out, were conducting work in public institutions, all funded by taxpayers.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On its <a href="http://usrtk.org/gmo/our-investigation-of-big-food-and-its-front-groups" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">website</a>, the group says, "We believe the public deserves to know more about the flow of money and level of coordination between public university scientists and other academics, and the agrichemical and food companies whose interests they promote."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And now we do. And we know exactly how the latest plan to deceive, involving a paid PR firm posing as an independent third party, was hatched.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2015/09/monsanto-professors-gmo-PR" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">Mother Jones</a>, in an August 2013 email to nine prominent academics, Monsanto's strategic engagement lead Eric Sachs broached a plan: that the group would pen "short policy briefs on important topics in the agricultural biotechnology arena," chosen "because of their influence on public policy, GM crop regulation, and consumer acceptance."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sachs assured the professors that the project would be handled discreetly. "I understand and appreciate that you need me to be completely transparent and I am keenly aware that your independence and reputations must be protected," he wrote. Two outside entities — an industry-funded group called the American Council on Science and Health and a PR outfit called CMA — would "manage the process of producing the policy briefs," "coordinate website posting and promotion," and "merchandize" the briefs by helping turn them into "op-eds, blog postings, speaking engagements, events, webinars, etc." This third-party management is "an important element," the Monsanto exec added, "because Monsanto wants the authors to communicate freely without involvement by Monsanto."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The explanation outlined by Mother Jones followed an articles by mainstream news outlets, including Bloomberg and the New York Times. Here’s a partial roundup of the coverage generated so far by USRTK’s investigation.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New York Times: ‘helped produce important payoffs’</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a September 5 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/food-industry-enlisted-academics-in-gmo-lobbying-war-emails-show.html?r=0" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">article</a>, New York Times reporter Eric Lipton credited USRTK with obtaining “thousands of pages” of emails, many of which the Times then requested on its own.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After reviewing the documents, and describing some of the email exchanges between Monsanto’s PR firm and academics who were solicited to write articles, Lipton concluded that Monsanto’s strategy was effective:</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The efforts have helped produce important payoffs, including the approval by federal regulators of new genetically modified seeds after academic experts intervened with the United States Department of Agriculture on the industry’s behalf, the emails show.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lipton singled out, among others, Kevin Folta, chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida. Monsanto recruited Folta, Lipton wrote, ”to help with ‘biotechnology outreach’ and to travel around the country to defend genetically modified foods.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Folta, who according to the Times became “part of an inner circle of industry consultants, lobbyists and executives who devised strategy on how to block state efforts to mandate G.M.O. labeling and, most recently, on how to get Congress to pass legislation that would pre-empt any state from taking such a step, received a $25,0000 grant from Monsanto to fund his travel and “outreach.” According to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-02/how-monsanto-mobilized-academics-to-pen-articles-supporting-gmos" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">Bloomberg</a>, the University of Florida donated the $25,000 to charity — after the Times story ran.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the grant, and the incriminating emails revealed by the Times, Folta has long denied any “<a href="http://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/No-formal-connection-to-Monsanto.png" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">formal connection</a>” to Monsanto. (USRTK provides a <a href="http://usrtk.org/gmo/our-investigation-of-big-food-and-its-front-groups" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">list</a>of Folta’s many denials).</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Times also singled out Bruce M. Chassy, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, who in 2011 received a grant for an undisclosed amount to support “biotechnology outreach and education activities." Emails obtained by the Times reveal that Chassy and a Monsanto executive talked about efforts to persuade the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to “abandon its proposal to tighten the regulation of pesticides used on insect-resistant seeds."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bloomberg: ‘How Monsanto mobilized academics’</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The headline on an <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-02/how-monsanto-mobilized-academics-to-pen-articles-supporting-gmos" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">article</a> posted October 2 by Bloomberg said it all: ‘How Monsanto Mobilized Academics to Pen Articles Supporting GMOs.’</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bloomberg reported that the “undisclosed recruitment of scientists from Harvard University, Cornell University and three other schools to write about the benefits of plant biotechnology is drawing fire from opponents.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Bloomberg piece focused on how the Genetic Literacy Project, a clearly pro-GMO nonprofit that says its mission is “to disentangle science from ideology,” published articles by the scientists on its website, without disclosing that the articles had been solicited by Monsanto and its PR firm.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite its headline, however, the Bloomberg report bends over backwards to present Monsanto and the scientists’ arguments that their articles weren’t influenced by Monsanto’s PR firm, CMA Consulting, even going so far as to infer that there exists a scientific consensus that GMOs are safe with this statement: “The challenge for the pro-GMO lobby is the yawning gulf between scientific consensus and public perception.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The existence of a scientific <a href="http://http//www.enveurope.com/content/pdf/s12302-014-0034-1.pdfon%20safety" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">consensus</a> on the safety of GMOs is widely disputed by international scientists.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Boston Globe: ‘Harvard Professor failed to disclose’</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Taking the local angle approach, a reporter for the Boston Globe focused on a Harvard professor caught up in the scandal.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reporter Laura Krantz <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/01/harvard-professor-failed-disclose-monsanto-connection-paper-touting-gmos/lLJipJQmI5WKS6RAgQbnrN/story.html" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">wrote</a>, "A Harvard Kennedy School professor wrote a widely disseminated policy paper last year in support of genetically modified organisms at the behest of seed giant Monsanto, without disclosing his connection, e-mails show."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Calestous Jumanot is author of an article titled “<a href="http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/12/09/global-risks-of-rejecting-agricultural-biotechnology/" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">Global Risks of Rejecting Agricultural Biotechnology</a>,” published on the Genetic Literacy website. According to the Globe, in an email to Jumanot, Monsanto’s Eric Sachs, head of regulatory policy and scientific affairs suggested a topic, a summary and a headline. Jumanot chose a different headline, but the gist of the article conformed to the PR firm’s agenda.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the Globe, the Times and others outlined, the Jumanot was one of nine professors who received emails from Sachs.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/food/monsanto-scandal-biotech-giant-solicited-academics-fight-their-pro-gmo-war">http://www.alternet.org/food/monsanto-scandal-biotech-giant-solicited-academics-fight-their-pro-gmo-war</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div>