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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

#141

Post by bryanrasmussen »

colordrops wrote: post #137
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No entity is that perfect. I think people are suggesting not perfection, but a higher standard and thus increased likelihood of it being correct and requiring a higher standard for proving it incorrect or biased. Do you have an organization that, if they publish something even if it runs counter to your own opinions, you assume that it is fair and likely to be correct?

Only those that I have immediate experience with do I trust to have the intention of being unbiased. Even then I would be hesitant to assign a label such as "likely correct" to such a complex topic, unless likely here just means > 50%.

>Only those that I have immediate experience with do I trust to have the intention of being unbiased.

sure, but as you said earlier you have no knowledge of this organization prior to this post. There seems to be two types of people in this post, those who know exactly who Cochrane is and who think knee-jerk accusations of bias are ridiculous and those who don't know who Cochrane is.

I'm betting the people who don't know who Cochrane is are not people who need to have lots of access to high quality health research, in other words not experts in any field where one should be expected to know who Cochrane was.

If a lawyer came out and told you that the latest ACM study on efficiency of parallel computation was part of a conspiracy by Apple how much weight would you place on their opinion?

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#142

Post by 0fcb88 »

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…

> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866614/

This is a Monsanto sponsored papers.

"Funding: This work was supported by Monsanto Company, the original producer and marketer of glyphosate formulations."

"Disclosure statement The sponsors were provided the opportunity to review the manuscript prior to journal submission, but inclusion of their suggestions was left to the discretion of the authors, who retained sole control of the manuscript content and the findings. Statements in this paper are those of the authors and not those of the authors' employer or the sponsors. The authors are employed by Exponent, a scientific research and consulting firm that provides services for private and governmental clients, including on projects concerning glyphosate and other pesticides. In the past five years, Ellen Chang has provided consulting services through Exponent on behalf of Monsanto Company on other issues, and she also has provided consulting services on other pesticides and lymphohematopoietic cancers for other clients."

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#143

Post by aa-jv »

tptacek wrote: post #23
diogenescynic wrote: post #2

Monsanto also pays shills to comment positively about pesticide use and try to brow beat anyone who is has a negative opinion their products. It's crazy how aggressive it is. Basically any thread on Twitter or Reddit the same users will defend Monsanto. You see the same thing about other controversial products, such as BPAs. It seems like some tactic they learned from Big Tobacco and Big Oil to just push as much doub…

I've defended Monsanto repeatedly on HN (there are some extraordinarily popular beliefs about Monsanto that turn out, from what I can tell, to be just completely false, and they used to wind up here a bunch). I'm not carrying any water for them. I'm pro-GMO just in principle, but neutral-to-skeptical about any company of Monsanto's size. I'm sure the company itself is perfectly amoral. I'm just calling actual issues…

You've also stumbled over yourself to avoid any criticism of Monsanto for perfectly valid reasons, so that factors into whether people consider you to be a shill or not. You have set the precedent for how to defend imperialist monopolies, that's for sure. If you're not being paid, you probably should be ..

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#144

Post by epgui »

aa-jv wrote: post #143
tptacek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've defended Monsanto repeatedly on HN (there are some extraordinarily popular beliefs about Monsanto that turn out, from what I can tell, to be just completely false, and they used to wind up here a bunch). I'm not carrying any water for them. I'm pro-GMO just in principle, but neutral-to-skeptical about any company of Monsanto's size. I'm sure the company itself is perfectly amoral. I'm just calling actual issues…

You've also stumbled over yourself to avoid any criticism of Monsanto for perfectly valid reasons, so that factors into whether people consider you to be a shill or not. You have set the precedent for how to defend imperialist monopolies, that's for sure. If you're not being paid, you probably should be ..

If Monsanto's competitors aren't paying you, they should be. /s

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#145

Post by raxxorraxor »

diogenescynic wrote: post #2

Monsanto also pays shills to comment positively about pesticide use and try to brow beat anyone who is has a negative opinion their products. It's crazy how aggressive it is. Basically any thread on Twitter or Reddit the same users will defend Monsanto. You see the same thing about other controversial products, such as BPAs. It seems like some tactic they learned from Big Tobacco and Big Oil to just push as much doub…

It works because it is finely tuned to appeal to the target demographic. Low confidence users swallow anything that is classified as "privileged information" or painted as such.

There are some key topics where this won't work and where PR must lay low. At least for a while. But some sites are a very fruitful ground for that. It will be eaten up by some that too argue for it without having used more than 5 minutes looking into the topic itself.

I believe we also have seen this for nuclear power a lot lately.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#146

Post by tresqotheq »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #136
tresqotheq wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You can certainly find those people in the crowd. I'd be wary of ever claiming that you couldn't find "literally anyone" who believes something. The problem is that "antivax" means just about anything these days, from people who think vaccines cause autism to people who don't agree with vaccine mandates for Covid. Funnily enough, Merriam-Webster infamously updated the definition recently to include people who oppose…

[flagged]

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#147

Post by aa-jv »

epgui wrote: post #144
aa-jv wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've also stumbled over yourself to avoid any criticism of Monsanto for perfectly valid reasons, so that factors into whether people consider you to be a shill or not. You have set the precedent for how to defend imperialist monopolies, that's for sure. If you're not being paid, you probably should be ..

If Monsanto's competitors aren't paying you, they should be. /s

Monsanto doesn't have any competitors. It just buys them.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#148

Post by raxxorraxor »

epgui wrote: post #80
tptacek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've defended Monsanto repeatedly on HN (there are some extraordinarily popular beliefs about Monsanto that turn out, from what I can tell, to be just completely false, and they used to wind up here a bunch). I'm not carrying any water for them. I'm pro-GMO just in principle, but neutral-to-skeptical about any company of Monsanto's size. I'm sure the company itself is perfectly amoral. I'm just calling actual issues…

+1 I’m a biochemist and while I’m not interested in sticking my neck out to defend any company, a lot of the criticism directed at Monsanto is unfair, uninformed and/or unintelligent. This is particularly true of criticism levied against glyphosate (one of the least-bad herbicides I know of) and GMOs (which people are usually just super confused about). Disclaimer: zero conflict of interest, I make all my money build…

If you run "ad campaigns" like Monsanto I don't think you can really call it unfair at this point. Why demand fairness here?

If you are a biochemist you may have been either a victim or a participant in their campaigns. You should be angry at them if they damage scientific integrity apart from that because it will reflect on anyone working in that field.

Here is the multi billion dollar company trying to influence reporting but this comment from a random redditor is wrong and a bit unfair? I don't get the incentive to even mention that.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#149

Post by throw0101a »

tresqotheq wrote: post #135
tptacek wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's that strategy working out for the antivax movement?

[flagged]

> "Antivax" is just a derogatory name to people who are demanding safer vaccines.

Safer than what? How are current vaccines not safe?

> I don't think literally anyone from the so-called anti-vax crowd are opposed to the general idea of vaccines.

A 2016 article entitled "Exploring the Reasons Behind Parental Refusal of Vaccines":

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4869767/

Have we forgotten the 'vaccine autism' drama? From 2017, "Vaccination as a cause of autism—myths and controversies":

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5789217/

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#150

Post by coldtea »

tptacek wrote: post #23
diogenescynic wrote: post #2

Monsanto also pays shills to comment positively about pesticide use and try to brow beat anyone who is has a negative opinion their products. It's crazy how aggressive it is. Basically any thread on Twitter or Reddit the same users will defend Monsanto. You see the same thing about other controversial products, such as BPAs. It seems like some tactic they learned from Big Tobacco and Big Oil to just push as much doub…

I've defended Monsanto repeatedly on HN (there are some extraordinarily popular beliefs about Monsanto that turn out, from what I can tell, to be just completely false, and they used to wind up here a bunch). I'm not carrying any water for them. I'm pro-GMO just in principle, but neutral-to-skeptical about any company of Monsanto's size. I'm sure the company itself is perfectly amoral. I'm just calling actual issues…

>I'm pro-GMO just in principle

One doesn't have to be a shill though - they can genuinely believe and spread what they read from shills and their "expert" "independent" arguments.

Wouldn't innocently reading and accepting as genuine science Monsanto's astroturfing and Monsanto-ghost-written "scientific" papers, "independent" experts defense, etc. play quite a role in making many people pro-GMO "in principle"?

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