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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

#161

Post by chillacy »

eurasiantiger wrote: post #124
epgui wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+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…

Quoted post unavailable.

In my experience, insinuations of brainwashing are applicable in both directions. We all hold assumptions about the world which lay upon foundational beliefs like a pile of bricks. The ones at the bottom are often invisible or taken for granted.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#162

Post by eurasiantiger »

epgui wrote: post #133
eurasiantiger wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I have spent 12 years considering all aspects of the question (and for what it's worth, I will never be done learning), but thank you for checking. You have a very strange idea of what it's like to study and do science/research.

Am I wrong in saying there are plenty of academics who pursue a career primarily in acquiring grants and funding? What is the ratio of those people to those who are in it for the truth?

Truth often doesn’t pay the bills.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#163

Post by eurasiantiger »

izzygonzalez wrote: post #132
eurasiantiger wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Non sequiturs are not helpful during polarized conversations. I can infer your meaning, but the idea that you're gesturing at seems absurd to me.

It seems absurd to you that Monsanto would try to affect academics and the scientific world view? Did you not read even the headline of the OP article?

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#164

Post by izzygonzalez »

eurasiantiger wrote: post #163
izzygonzalez wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non sequiturs are not helpful during polarized conversations. I can infer your meaning, but the idea that you're gesturing at seems absurd to me.

It seems absurd to you that Monsanto would try to affect academics and the scientific world view? Did you not read even the headline of the OP article?

Oh that's standard fare. Institutional incentives are not always aligned with human needs. Not to reduce the severity of it all. It's really bad.

I'm more incredulous about academically trained domain experts being "brainwashed". Corruption and incompetence are simpler explanations that also make sense.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#165

Post by mike00632 »

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…

Parent coment talks about pesticide use and you pivot to "GMO"... Interesting. Why the deceptive debate tactic?

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#166

Post by mike00632 »

Supermancho wrote: post #116
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the issue here is if Monsanto's products were safe, they wouldn't have to pay people to attach their name to company-written articles claiming they are. If you have to buy your support (looking at Google Public Policy team here hard), you probably are not a good company. In short, if Roundup was safe, it's likely there would be studies proving so from scientists not paid by Monsanto to do so. The fact that they ha…

> So the issue here is if Monsanto's products were safe, they wouldn't have to pay people to attach their name to company-written articles claiming they are. That isn't how scientific evidence has been received by the public and that's blatantly obvious of the last few years . There are plenty of "independent" roundup-is-safe whitepapers, which unsurprisingly, either use large amounts of Monsanto data or Monsanto fac…

Actually no. Monsanto pays for studies to be done on just one of the active ingredients of RoundUp, not on RoundUp itself.

RoundUp has chemicals in it that exist solely to help the active ingredients permeate tissues. Test with only active ingredients and it can appear relatively safe. Test actual RoundUp and it is invariably toxic.

That is why there are countless studies showing RoundUp to be toxic and populations who have been negatively affected all while Monsanto publishes an avalanche of paid studies purposefully conducted on a select active ingredient instead of the product itself.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#167

Post by mike00632 »

gcheong wrote: post #73
pstuart wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pro-GMO in the sense of "woohoo, science!", but a lot of it seems to be about making herbicide/pesticide resistance and encouraging that seems like a bad idea. Case in point, BT GMOs have only trained the insect population for resistance to it: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/08/researchers-identif...

I'm not sure what you're thinking GMO technology should be used for. Pest control is a large part of successful agriculture. BT is used in organic farming as well (mentioned in your linked article) but instead of it being made by the plant itself as a GMO does, it's applied to the plant which means more of it needs to be applied overall. Pesticide resistance is nothing new, GMO or otherwise. That's the nature of natu…

RoundUp-ready crops allows for farmers to spray herbicide directly onto food. That means we are now eating the chemical in much higher than trace amounts. This is new, untested and seemingly bad (if you go by the non-Monsanto-funded studies).

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#168

Post by mike00632 »

tfigment wrote: post #87
photochemsyn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing about the Monsanto cancer case is that they know that the problem is in the Roundup formulation (including surfactants that are required to get the glyphosate across the waxy plant cell wall barrier) yet Monsanto financed studies on purified isolated glyphosate to demonstrate it didn't cause cancer. Sneaky and dishonest, isn't that? Why not just do the study with the Roundup formulation? > Mike DeVito, ac…

If you are not using roundup, you are still using something. "Organic" pesticides do not work better so you will generally be using more and that goes to the same places roundup does.

No. The type of pesticides we are talking about is herbicide which kills plants. RoundUp is sprayed directly onto the food. Alternatives are not because that would kill the crops.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#169

Post by gcheong »

mike00632 wrote: post #167
gcheong wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're thinking GMO technology should be used for. Pest control is a large part of successful agriculture. BT is used in organic farming as well (mentioned in your linked article) but instead of it being made by the plant itself as a GMO does, it's applied to the plant which means more of it needs to be applied overall. Pesticide resistance is nothing new, GMO or otherwise. That's the nature of natu…

RoundUp-ready crops allows for farmers to spray herbicide directly onto food. That means we are now eating the chemical in much higher than trace amounts. This is new, untested and seemingly bad (if you go by the non-Monsanto-funded studies).

My comment was in regards to Bt crops but regardless I think your perception of how much glyphosate actually gets used is rather blown out of proportion - most likely due to all the anti-gmo propaganda that’s out there. It’s certainly not “new” as roundup ready crops have been around for quite some time at this point and we likely would have seen obvious health problems directly attributable to it by now if there are any. Here’s just one counterpoint from someone who actually farms for a living: https://thelifeofafarmer.com/2016/05/22/how-much-roundup-do-...

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#170

Post by fartcannon »

tptacek wrote: post #160
fartcannon wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's yet even more funny is the website in your user info is suckpuppet.org. Heavy irony I guess? I hope?

I've owned that domain since before the word took on its current message board meaning. I just liked puppets made from socks.

The term has been in use since 80's Usenet - has it been that long? Wow. Fair enough that you just like sock puppets. Though I hope you do you see the humour in someone who defends big corporations like Monsanto on forums having an email ending in sockpuppet. It's so on the nose its almost painful. Anyways, enjoy your day.
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