Monsanto and the USDA | Eliminate scientist critics

Cartoon woodblock etching of the Lancashire Witch
Trials.

 Moderator’s Note: Over the past six years, we have been tracking
and analyzing why the official risk science on GMOs is experiencing a
legitimation crisis. We have noted how many risk scientists have sold their
expertise to the highest corporate bidder and are finally becoming incapable of
obscuring the truth by cherry-picking the evidence in order to serve their
corporate masters. Some of the reasons for the legitimation crisis facing
pro-GMO scientists include:

1.     
Their inability
to refute the well-established fact of gene flow and increasing occurrence
of introgession events threatening the genomic integrity of center of origin
land race varieties and their wild relatives;
2.      A tendency to
ignore, flippantly dismiss, or purposefully misinterpret growing evidence of
environmental and public health harms associated with the use of transgenic
crop technologies and the toxic biocides tied to their deployment;
3.     Their complicity in promoting blatant corporate
disregard and in some places governmental (USA, Brazil, Argentina) disrespect
that allows for continued attacks on the viability and survival of traditional
farming systems, traditional environmental knowledge, agroecology, and
smallholder communities;
4.     A willingness to downplay the advent of super-bug and
super-weed resistance to the chemical cocktails and the built-in ‘defenses’ of
transgenic technologies;
5.     A colonialist gaze that ignores the displacement of
indigenous farmers and their knowledge systems through land grabs, bio-piracy, and
the imposition of an immoral patenting regime;
6.    Their complicity in a shift to anti-democratic
investor-state treaties like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that impose a
country club-styled regime of privatized neo-regulation that undermines our environmental,
labor, and other laws.

All these and many more harmful and disparate social, cultural, and ecological
impacts are part of the litany of problems being uncovered by social and
natural scientific evidence after decades of failure by advocates of commercial
agricultural biotechnologies. The pro-GMO scientists are flabbergasted.

I now must add a seventh
reason to the list above and it is a bit different from the pattern associated
with this legitimation crisis. An explosive report by the respected and
Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Jon Rappoport, reveals how the USDA is
basically coercing “in-house scientific dissenters who won’t go along with the
fakery” to continue misleading the public about the safety of GMOs and their
nefarious chemical cocktails

So, #7 should read: The use
of threats, harassment, punishment, and termination of in-house scientists who
dissent from the official governmental and corporate line that GMOs are proven
safe for human health and the environment.

I present Mr. Rappoport’s
take on the matter, which draws significantly from our colleagues at PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility).
PEER has been documenting many of these abuses and threats against dissident
scientists.

Government
witch hunt to eliminate Monsanto critics

US DEPT. OF
AGRICULTURE SCIENTISTS UNDER THE GUN; EXPLOSIVE DETAILS

Jon
Rappoport | May 20, 2015

“Anybody can fake scientific
results. But to be believed, you want a prestigious organization behind you
with a billion-dollar budget and access to compliant reporters. You want to
manipulate technical language. You want to keep saying how much you care about
people. And then you also want to get down and dirty when you have to, and
threaten and coerce your in-house scientific dissenters who won’t go along with
the fakery. Cut their pay, demote them, fire them, ruin their careers and
lives. This is all standard procedure in the major leagues of science. I’ve
watched it happen.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)

Wonder how a federal agency
as large as the USDA can keep claiming pesticides like Roundup are safe?

Wonder how the truth can be
kept from leaking out?

Wonder how this agency,
tasked with protecting the public from unsafe food, can turn fake science into “real
science” like clockwork?

Wonder how, in Hawaii,
Monsanto and Dow can defend their toxic, open-air, pesticide experiments as “approved
by the USDA?”

Government scientists who
believe in exposing the truth are being targeted.

Ten scientists at the US
Dept. of Agriculture are on such a target list, because their research findings
would harm big-corporate agriculture. (See Common
Dreams, 5/5/15, “Suppressing Science for Monsanto?”)

PEER (Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility), a non-profit group, knows who these scientists
are, but they aren’t talking. Not yet. They’re trying to gain protection for the
researchers.

Here is a March 26 release
from PEER, “USDA
Urged to Shield Its Scientists From Harassment”:

“Scientists within the U.S.
Department of Agriculture are subjected to management pressure and retaliation
for research threatening agribusiness interests...”

“PEER has received reports
concerning USDA scientists ordered to retract studies, water down findings,
remove their name from authorship and endure long indefinite delays in
approving publication of papers that may be controversial. Moreover, [USDA]
scientists who are targeted by [big-Ag] industry complaints find themselves
subjected to disruptive investigations, disapprovals of formerly routine
requests, disciplinary actions over petty matters and intimidation from [USDA]
supervisors focused on pleasing ‘stakeholders’.”

Source:
agentgenius.com

The “stakeholders,” of
course, would include huge biotech companies. Like Monsanto.

In a separate PEER petition
to the USDA, we find this statement:

“The USDA Scientific
Integrity Policy actively enables [USDA] agency managers to suppress and alter
scientific work products for their policy implications, regardless of their
technical merit. It also appears clear that agribusiness interests, such as
Monsanto Corporation, have access to top [USDA] agency managers and are invited
to lodge complaints and concerns about the published work of [USDA] agency
scientists. Significantly, the [USDA] Policy lacks any mechanism to effectively
challenge this political manipulation of science.”

The PEER petition goes on to
describe what truth-telling USDA scientists face:

“USDA scientists have been
subjected to Directives not to publish data on certain topics of particular
sensitivity to [big-Agriculture] industry;

“Orders to rewrite
scientific articles already accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal
to remove sections which could provoke [big-Ag] industry objections;

“Summons to meet with [USDA]
Secretary Vilsack in an effort to induce retraction of a paper that drew the
ire of [big-Ag] industry representatives;

“Orders to retract a paper
after it had been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The
paper could only be published if the USDA scientist removed his authorship thus
leaving only the names of authors unassociated with USDA;

“Demotion from supervisory
status and a reprimand after the scientist provided testimony before Congress
that did not reflect [USDA] agency preferences;

“Disruptive and lengthy
internal investigations to search out any irregularity that could be used for
management leverage against the targeted scientist;

“Suspensions without pay and
other disciplinary actions for petty matters, such as minor irregularities in
travel paperwork;

“Inordinate, sometimes
indefinite, delays in approving submission for publication of scientific papers
that may be controversial;

“Restrictions on topics that
USDA scientists may address in conference presentations;

“Threats by USDA managers to
damage the careers of [USDA] scientists whose work triggers [big-Ag] industry
complaints.”

“USDA scientists working on
topics with direct relevance to [big-Ag] industry interests are under constant
pressure not to do anything to upset these important ‘stakeholders.’ Rather
than shield staff scientists from [big-Ag] industry influence, USDA managers
amplify it.”

This is a witch hunt.

The notion of believing
anything the USDA says or publishes is absurd.

Claims of the inherent safety
and value of GMO food? Claims about the safety of pesticides? The assertion
that corporations like Monsanto and Dow aren’t favored USDA clients?

Smoke blowing in the wind.

Claims that the USDA is
serving the public interest?

A fairy tale.

Jon Rappoport

The author of three
explosive collections,   THE MATRIX
REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE
MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE
THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the
29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private
clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power.
Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for
30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS
Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and
magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on
global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the
world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com and OutsideTheRealityMachine.
   

Contact Jon at: qjrpress@gmail.com.