How Monsanto manipulates journalists and academics

[Judi Lynn]

Carey Gillam

Monsanto’s own emails and documents reveal a disinformation campaign to hide its weedkiller’s possible links to cancer

Sun 2 Jun 2019 00.00 EDT Last modified on Sun 2 Jun 2019 00.28 EDT

But these once-confidential Monsanto documents demonstrate that the deception has gone much deeper. In addition to the manipulation of science and of regulators, the company’s most insidious deceit may be its strategic manipulation of the media, according to the records.

We recently learned that a young woman falsely posing as a freelance BBC reporter at one of the Roundup cancer trials was in fact a “reputation management” consultant for FTI Consulting, whose clients include Monsanto. The woman spent time with journalists who were covering the Hardeman v Monsanto trial in San Francisco, pretending to do reporting while also suggesting to the real reporters certain storylines or points that favored Monsanto.

Over the past year, evidence of Monsanto’s deceptive efforts to defend the safety of its top-selling Roundup herbicide have been laid bare for all to see. Through three civil trials, the public release of internal corporate communications has revealed conduct that all three juries have found so unethical as to warrant punishing punitive damage awards.

Much attention has been paid to Monsanto conversations in which company scientists casually discuss ghostwriting scientific papers and suppressing science that conflicts with corporate assertions of Roundup’s safety. There has also been public outrage over internal records illustrating cozy relationships with friendly regulators which border on – and possibly cross into – collusion.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/02/monsanto-manipulates-journalists-academics