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Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

disinformationchronicle.substack.com

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Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#41

Post by user3939382 »

throwaway042722 wrote: post #27

Please, before you comment how evil Monsanto is, read the Cochrane review of glyphosate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866614/ This is produced by the Cochran which "is a British international charitable organisation formed to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health professionals, patients and policy makers. It includes 53 rev…

Wasn’t there a school groundskeeper who won a lawsuit whose decision was based on it being carcinogenic? If memory serves, he had a lawyer vs a huge team of high priced attorneys who, after a long lawsuit, failed to convince the court. I’m not an expert but courts are designed to adjudicate technical issues like this: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bayer-glyphosate-lawsuit-...

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#42

Post by heavyset_go »

nickpeterson wrote: post #10
pmoriarty wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ask the same thing about Facebook and Google employees, and people who work for "defense" contractors.

At least defense contractors can argue they’re helping the “good guys”, people at Facebook know they’re part of the problem but they can’t turn down the money.

It genuinely scares me that so many adults think in terms of "good guys" and "bad guys".

One of the things that drove me nuts about the Qanon family of conspiracy theories, despite them being insane, was the rhetoric their followers used, calling the US government "the good guys". First of all, what conspiracy theory actually suggests that the government is on their side and not out to get them, and second, do Q followers think we're in a superhero movie with good guys and bad guys?

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#43

Post by nickpeterson »

geoffeg wrote: post #31
fartcannon wrote: post #5

Why do people work for companies like this? Have they no compassion for their fellow humans?

I worked at Monsanto for a few years. I won't get into the ethics of the company on this forum, but as a software engineer it was a pretty great place to work. Good engineering culture, lots of very dedicated and smart people and some really fun challenges to work on.

I think you just summarized the problem pretty well.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#44

Post by grapeskin »

shostack wrote: post #16
KennyBlanken wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple years ago there was a reddit account that did nothing but pop up like clockwork whenever Mons.anto was mentioned. It cited these ghostwritten studies, claiming that they were proof Gl..ypho-sate was safe. It was so obvious other commenters would poke fun at them and tell other redditors to go look at their comment history.

I'm a marketer, and when I see that sort of thing I have to question why nobody on their social team is seeing it be called out (for the crap that it is) and at the very least says "this is not performing well).

A large number of people probably just skim the top 5 comments. For them, seeing an astroturfed “actually X is great and here’s why” comment is enough for them. They’re not digging 8 levels deep into a thread until it’s finally shown that the person is decisively a shill.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#45

Post by nickpeterson »

throwaway042722 wrote: post #27

Please, before you comment how evil Monsanto is, read the Cochrane review of glyphosate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866614/ This is produced by the Cochran which "is a British international charitable organisation formed to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health professionals, patients and policy makers. It includes 53 rev…

No post body was provided.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#46

Post by heavyset_go »

shostack wrote: post #16
KennyBlanken wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple years ago there was a reddit account that did nothing but pop up like clockwork whenever Mons.anto was mentioned. It cited these ghostwritten studies, claiming that they were proof Gl..ypho-sate was safe. It was so obvious other commenters would poke fun at them and tell other redditors to go look at their comment history.

I'm a marketer, and when I see that sort of thing I have to question why nobody on their social team is seeing it be called out (for the crap that it is) and at the very least says "this is not performing well).

They've probably subcontracted and outsourced some of their reputation management to shitty providers. You see this all the time with SEO and link building, for example.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#47

Post by nsoonhui »

It's interesting to note that the author, Paul Thacker, is the one who writes about [Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial] (https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635) at BMJ.

[Here](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/53286/214) is a related question on skeptic SE that tries to verify the claim (which has been closed, unfortunately).

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#48

Post by tptacek »

nickpeterson wrote: post #35
tptacek wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an argument ready that people who do not already agree with you about the evils of Monsanto might find persuasive? Your response here is pretty conclusory.

I don’t understand the point you’re making, explain it to me like I’m a complete moron so I don’t misinterpret you.

There's an actual controversy over whether Monsanto's best known products are actually harmful to people, especially on balance vs. their substitutes. Your response for how Monsanto should handle this situation seems to be that they should dispose of the controversy and just concede your side of it. That's only persuasive to people that already agree with your side of the argument. Do you have a better one?

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#49

Post by s5300 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #42
nickpeterson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least defense contractors can argue they’re helping the “good guys”, people at Facebook know they’re part of the problem but they can’t turn down the money.

It genuinely scares me that so many adults think in terms of "good guys" and "bad guys". One of the things that drove me nuts about the Qanon family of conspiracy theories, despite them being insane, was the rhetoric their followers used, calling the US government "the good guys". First of all, what conspiracy theory actually suggests that the government is on their side and not out to get them, and second, do Q foll…

Wait until you learn that we give people who think like this firearms, the license to kill, & qualified immunity.

Very rarely it backfires & we get things like this.

https://youtu.be/4fQcjmt2Q_o

Overwhelmingly, most people think this is fine.

I hate it here.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#50

Post by heavyset_go »

grapeskin wrote: post #44
shostack wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a marketer, and when I see that sort of thing I have to question why nobody on their social team is seeing it be called out (for the crap that it is) and at the very least says "this is not performing well).

A large number of people probably just skim the top 5 comments. For them, seeing an astroturfed “actually X is great and here’s why” comment is enough for them. They’re not digging 8 levels deep into a thread until it’s finally shown that the person is decisively a shill.

It's this. Normal people might quickly read some comments on Reddit and then go on with their lives without digging into them, building a false consensus in their minds. They never really think to challenge what they read, not because they're dumb or anything like that, but because people only have so much time and energy to put towards critically analyzing what they see online.
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