pointed out
that,
"Whilst [the Washington Legal Foundation] don't have any exact info
about who's funding them (to the tune of $4m in 2000!), the 'Links
to
other organisations' and 'WLF Clients' includes many of our old
friends".
Among the "old friends" that Marcus noted were Elizabeth ("I've been
called a paid liar for industry so many times I've lost count") Whelan's
American Council on Science and Health, the Cato Institute [adjunct
scholar, "the Junkman", Steven Milloy, whose 'junkscience' campaign
was
launched with the help of Big Tobacco - see item 4 below] and the
American Enterprise Institute.
Whelan, Elizabeth
Author of "Panic in the Pantry" and "Toxic Terror", and President
and founder of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) which
has published articles promoting GM food and denigrating organic food.
PR Watch describe ACSH an "industry front group that produces PR ammunition
for the food processing and chemical industries." ACSH's corporate funders
have included Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, the National Agricultural Chemicals
Association, Pfizer, and NutraSweet Company. http://www.cspinet.org/integrity/corp_funding.html
Whelan says: "I've been called a paid liar for industry so many times I've
lost count."
Wilson, T Michael
Former deputy head of the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) and
now Chief Executive of Horticulture Research International.
In a 1999 press article, Prof Wilson called upon organic farmers to
"bury the hatchet" and accept GM crops in the light of positive evidence
of their benefits. Prof Wilson indicated the compelling nature of the evidence
by citing "an independent U.S. survey, carried out by Cornell University"
which "showed that the use of GM crops in Northern America cut farmers’
bills for pest and disease control chemicals by $465 million. It also reduced
tillage and other energy costs and encouraged more wildlife."
Sadly, investigation showed the report (which is not peer reviewed)
* Was not authored by a Cornell researcher but by the chair of industry
body ISAAA, who has never been a Cornell researcher
* Does not mention wildlife or biodiversity
* Does claim economic benefits and pesticide reduction from GM crops
but these figures turn out not to be based on independent data but on producer
estimates! Genuinely independent research suggests that the opposite is
true: GM yields are down from non-GM yields, and chemical usage is up.
https://members.tripod.com/~ngin/false.htm
https://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm
https://members.tripod.com/~ngin/watchingdrpusztai.htm
World Bank
The World Bank (the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development)
and International Monetary Fund were established at the end of World War
II under agreements reached (by the victors) at the United Nations. The
institutional blueprints closely resembled plans proposed by US government
task forces. The World Bank provides loans and gives banks incentives for
investing in developing countries. The ostensible purposes of the World
Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) were to reconstruct after the
war, and to prevent the return of the trade barriers, unstable exchange
rates, and inflation which had contributed to the war. The actual effects
have been to force open the world's local economies to multinational corporations,
including GM companies. This effect has been strengthened by the recent
appointment of two former World Bank officials, Mark Malloch Brown and
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr to the UN World Development Programme (UNDP). Brown
and Fukuda-Parr wasted no time in turning around the traditional UN focus
away from poor farmers’ rights and environmental sustainability and
towards the adoption of GM crops in the developing world.
See also: Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko; Malloch Brown, Mark
Yerxa Rufus
Financial Times (London) August 20, 2002, Tuesday London
A canny early move from Supachai Panitchpakdi, who takes over next month
as director-general of the World Trade Organisation. The former Thai
deputy premier has irked both Brussels and Washington lately by wading
into their transatlantic steel trade dispute and threatening the WTO's
traditional
consensus by posing as a champion of developing countries.
So Supachai has selected two trade veterans to be his US and European
deputies. Britain's Rod Abbott has 30 years' experience as a European Union
trade
negotiator. Witty and with an ear for well-turned phrases, he knows
the mind of Pascal Lamy, cerebral EU trade commissioner. That'll prove
invaluable for
Supachai as he pushes ahead with the Doha trade round and the inevitable
haggling over reducing Brussels' farm subsidies. The US deputy, meanwhile,
Rufus Yerxa, has Geneva experience as the US ambassador to Gatt, the
WTO's predecessor, where he had a reputation for charming opponents. Yerxa
has
been international counsel to Monsanto, the bio-technology group. Just
the man Supachai will need should the US ever bleat to the WTO about
EUrestrictions on genetically modified food.
CSPI
>> 2a. from http://www.prwatch.org: Guest Choice & "The Food Police"
Make
> Strange Bedfellows
>
> Lobbyist Rick Berman runs the DC-based Guest Choice Network, a mean
and
> nasty PR operation serving the tobacco, booze and food industries.
(See
> PR Watch Volume 8 #1 for the inside scoop on Berman & Co.)
> http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2001Q1/berman1.html
>
> His favorite target is often Michael Jacobson's "food police" at
the
> Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) [see, for example,
> Guest Choice's, er... hilarious: 'Top changes CSPI would make if
they
> ran the Girl Scout cookie drive'
> http://www.nannyculture.com/index_parody.cfm?PARODY_ID=8].
>
> But now, after years of sitting on the sidelines in the genetically
> engineered food debate, Jacobson has received biotech funding from
the
> Rockefeller Foundation, and CSPI is praising the alleged benefits
and
> safety of GE food.
>
> As a result, Berman's Guest Choice Network is praising CSPI, especially
> after CSPI's Gregory Jaffe told the New York Times that the benefits
of
> GE food, "without any evidence of harm to humans or the environment
-
> partly explain why engineered crops are spreading so rapidly."
>
> Oh really, Gregory? We suspect that the failure of the US FDA to
require
> mandatory safety testing or labeling -- and the failure of the snoozing
> food police at CSPI to demand they do so -- are the more obvious
reasons
> why GE foods have stealthily grabbed market share in the US.
>
> Politics is known for strange bedfellows, and Mike Jacobson and Rick
> Berman are today's odd couple. Source: 6/17/01 CSPI letter to NYT,
and
> Guest Choice Network
> ---
> 2b. Guest Choice & The Food Police: Strange Bedfellows Continued
>
> The tobacco, booze and food industry lobbyists at Rick Berman's Guest
> Choice Network usually castigate Michael Jacobson's Center for Science
> in the Public Interest (CSPI) as the dreaded "food police" when it
comes
> to fat and sugar in the diet. But they are loving CSPI's promotion
of
> genetically engineered food. CSPI, Monsanto's former lawyer Mike
Taylor
> (now at Resources for the Future) and Monsanto's former cow growth
> hormone lobbyist Carol Tucker Foreman (now back at Consumer Federation
> of America), are all getting substantial grants from the Rockefeller
> Foundation, a huge supporter of the alleged benefits of genetically
> engineered crops.
> ---
> 2c. "The Food Police?" CSPI Got Big Bucks to Flack for GE Foods
>
> Last year Michael Jacobson's Center for Science in the Public Interest
> (CSPI, also known as "the food police") received $200,000 from the
> pro-biotechnology Rockefeller Foundation to be a moderate voice in
the
> raging debate over genetically engineered (GE) foods. CSPI has since
> made many statements very favorable to GE foods and recently called
for
> government action against companies marketing non-GE foods. Ironically,
> CSPI's Integrity in Science Project criticizes and reveals the special
> interest funding and agendas of other nonprofit organizations.
> Apparently the food police don't see accepting a $200,000 grant to
flack
> for GE food as a "competing interest" to their own objectivity and
> scientific integrity