SCAMS-R-US

[XenaLives]

Searle and Monsanto money behind climate change deniers and other efforts to brainwash the people and influence politicians and make the law about preservation of capital...


Interesting background on geneticliteracy project.org...

Genetic Literacy Project Mission Statement and Background

The mission of The Genetic Literacy Project (GLP) is to aid the public, media and policymakers in understanding the science and societal implications of human and agricultural genetic and biotechnology research and to promote science literacy. Our goal, through our website and outreach efforts, including the compiling and dissemination of educational materials, organizing public and private conferences and initiating briefings with policy influencers, is to help the public disentangle science from ideology, prevent legislative over-reach, promote cooperation among public, academic and corporate science researchers, and encourage an ethically and scientifically sound development of breakthrough genetic technologies.

What benefits do advances in genetics and biotechnology offer? What are the potential pitfalls in manipulating the animal and human genome? Agricultural and human genetic engineering is reshaping farming, food and medicine, and genetic research is providing new insights into our understanding of evolution and human history. Biotechnology research can improve food security, the environment and public health. Yet, dramatic innovations, when misapplied, can also lead to unintended health and environmental consequences and present ethical and religious challenges. We examine these often-profound issues on a daily basis.

Research into genetics and related sciences is widely embraced. But in practice, “gene”, “genetic engineering”, “biotechnology”, “GMO”, “synthetic biology”, “gene editing” and similar concepts often stir concern and misunderstanding when applied to biomedicine, disease amelioration, evolution, ancestral and race research, and food and farming. That often leads to confusion and even resistance among the public and policy makers. In many cases, special interest groups misrepresent ideology as empirical science to block many biotechnology advances. We respect the uncertainties inherent in science but the GLP is grounded in the conviction that genomic research is an engine of innovation and job creation if applied wisely.
GLP Financial Transparency and Governance Statement

The GLP is part of the Science Literacy Project (SLP), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by grants from independent foundations and charities. The GLP also accepts tax-deductible donations from individuals, but not from corporations. To the SLP’s knowledge, none of the foundations which has donated money to the GLP has financial ties to companies linked to human or agricultural genetics.

The SLP also includes the Epigenetics Literacy Project and the Genetic Expert News Service (GENeS), which was run with no editorial oversight from the GLP from 2012-14; both are on hiatus. The SLP and its various subdivisions have no formal affiliation with and receive no funding from any other institutions or private individuals other than those listed below and in our government filings.

Executive director Jon Entine was a senior fellow (unpaid) at the Institute for Food and Agricultural Literacy and was previously a senior fellow (unpaid) at George Mason University, which provided accounting services to the GLP from 2011-2014. The GLP was an independently operated division of the Statistical Assessment Service, housed at GMU, until 2014 and secured independent 501(c)(3) status in 2015.

GLP has a board (names below) and an editorial advisory board, which helped guide the conception and launch of the project.

2017-2018 Fiscal Year Donations to the Science Literacy Project

John Templeton Foundation: $267,687
Searle Freedom Trust: $75,000
Winkler Family Foundation: $165,000
Center for Food Integrity: $50,000
Phil Harvey, DKT Liberty Project: $65,000
Triad Foundation: $5,000
Individual donations: $7,723.43

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/mission-financials-governorship/


Gee, ya think that those who are defending NutraSweet and Monsanto might have an agenda????

Partners with Monsanto to Spin GMOs and Pesticides
Documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know and from litigation against Monsanto show that Entine and the Genetic Literacy Project are central players in the agrichemical industry’s propaganda campaigns.

Genetic Literacy Project is a key messenger in Monsanto’s PR campaign to “protect the reputation” of Roundup from cancer concerns by attacking the scientists of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). More than 200 articles on GLP’s website defend glyphosate and attempt to discredit the cancer scientists, claiming they are “anti-chemical enviros” who “lied” and “conspired to misrepresent” the health risks of glyphosate.
A June 2017 prize-winning Le Monde investigation into Monsanto’s “effort to destroy the United Nations’ cancer agency by any means possible” describes the Genetic Literacy Project and the American Council on Science and Health as “well-known propaganda websites” and key players in Monsanto’s communication networks.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys suing Monsanto over glyphosate cancer concerns stated in a May 2017 filing that: “Monsanto quietly funnels money to ‘think tanks’ such as the ‘Genetic Literacy Project’ and the ‘American Council on Science and Health,’ organizations intended to shame scientists and highlight information helpful to Monsanto and other chemical producers.”
In 2015, Genetic Literacy Project published a series of pro-GMO papers written by professors that were assigned and promoted by Monsanto, with no disclosure of the corporation’s role. The Boston Globe reported that Monsanto suggested the topic and headline for a Harvard professor’s paper, “then connected the professor with a marketing company to pump it out over the Internet as part of Monsanto’s strategy to win over the public and lawmakers.” In a September 2014 email, Monsanto executive Eric Sachs wrote to a professor with “proposed edits on your brief,” and identified Entine’s Genetic Literacy Project as the “the primary outlet” for publishing the papers and “building a merchandising plan” with the public relations firm CMA (now Look East).
Look East, the PR firm that promoted the Monsanto-assigned professor papers, is directed by Charlie Arnot, who also runs the Center for Food Integrity, a food industry front group that receives funding from Monsanto. Center for Food Integrity gives funding to the Genetic Literacy Project.
In 2014 and 2015, Genetic Literacy Project partnered with Academics Review, a front group started with the help of Monsanto to attack critics of the agrichemical industry, to organize the Biotech Literacy Project boot camps. Paul Thacker described the events in The Progressive: “Industry has also secretly funded a series of conferences to train scientists and journalists to frame the debate over GMOs and the toxicity of glyphosate.”
Entine is involved with several other groups identified as “industry partners” in Monsanto’s 2015 PR plan to defend Roundup, including Academics Review, Center for Food Integrity, Biofortified, the AgBioChatter listserve, Sense About Science USA (now merged with STATS), and the agrichemical industry-funded PR website GMO Answers.
Ties to Syngenta / American Council on Science and Health

Syngenta was funding ACSH when it published Entine’s book defending Syngenta’s pesticide.

Jon Entine has partnered for years with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a corporate front group that Monsanto paid to help spin the WHO/IARC cancer report on glyphosate. Syngenta was also funding ACSH at the time that ACSH published Entine’s 2011 book, “Scared to Death: How Chemophobia Threatens Public Health.” The book defends atrazine, a pesticide manufactured by Syngenta.

In a 2012 article about Entine for Mother Jones, Tom Philpott described the circumstances leading up to the publication of the book. The article is based on internal documents, obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, that described Syngenta’s PR campaign to get third-party allies to defend atrazine, and ACSH’s attempts to raise more money from Syngenta specifically to defend atrazine.

In a 2009 email, ACSH staff asked Syngenta for an additional $100,000, “separate and distinct from general operating support Syngenta has been so generously providing over the years,” to produce a paper and “consumer-friendly booklet” about atrazine. In 2011, ACSH announced Entine’s book as a “companion friendly, abbreviated position paper” written in response to the “growing level of chemophobia — the irrational fear of chemicals — among the American public.”

Entine told Philpott he had “no idea” Syngenta was funding ACSH.

Attacks on Scientists and Journalists
A key theme in Entine’s work is attacking scientists and journalists who report critically about the chemical industry, the oil industry or the health problems associated with their toxic products and practices. Some examples:

In a 2014 New Yorker article based on internal Syngenta documents, Rachel Aviv reported that Syngenta’s public relations team had plotted to destroy the reputation of UC Berkeley Professor Tyrone Hayes in attempt to discredit his research connecting the herbicide atrazine to birth defects in frogs. In a lengthy Forbes article, Entine attacked Aviv’s story as a “botch puff piece” and claimed Hayes is “almost completely discredited.” Entine’s primary source was a “summary analysis” by University of Illinois Professor Emeritus Bruce Chassy, the founder of the Monsanto front group Academics Review.
In 2017, Entine attacked Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes, co-author of Merchants of Doubt, as “a populist Luddite, the intellectual Rottweiler of in-your-face, environmentalism, unduly wary of modern technology.”
In 2016, Entine attacked Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll and journalist Susanne Rust for their series reporting that Exxon knew for years that climate change was real but hid the science to keep revenues flowing.
In a follow-up attack in 2017 (since removed from the Huffington Post website), Entine accused Rust of having a “journalistic history” that raises “ethical and science questions.” He cited as evidence Rust’s award-winning investigative series on BPA that was short-listed for a Pulitzer Prize — but didn’t disclose that the series outed his former employer STATS as a “major player in the public relations effort to discredit concerns about BPA.”
Reporting by Rust and Meg Kissinger in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and by Liza Gross in The Intercept in 2016, describes how Entine’s former employers, STATS and Center for Media and Public Affairs, pioneered their methods of attacking journalists and media while working for Phillip Morris to defend cigarettes in the 1990s.

The Murky Funding Trail to Entine and the Genetic Literacy Project
Entine’s funding history is complex and opaque, but tax documents and his own disclosures reveal a pattern of funding from anonymous sources and right-wing foundations that push deregulation and climate science denial, as well as undisclosed funding from the biotechnology industry.

Inaccurate, ever-changing “transparency” note
The “financial transparency” note on the Genetic Literacy Project website is inaccurate, changes often and at times contradicts itself. For 2017 and 2018, the Genetic Literacy Project claimed it received funding from a handful of foundations including the Templeton and Searle foundations, which are two of the leading funders of climate science denial efforts. GLP also notes funding from the Center for Food Integrity, a food-industry front group that receives money from Monsanto and also partners with Monsanto and Genetic Literacy Project to promote agrichemical industry PR.

In September 2016, the “disclosure” note said GLP received no funding from corporations, but noted a $27,500 “pass through” from “Academics Review Charitable Association,” which appears not to exist. That group is apparently AcademicsReview.org, a front group funded by the agrichemical industry. The “pass through” was for the Biotech Literacy Project Boot Camp, an event funded by the agrichemical industry.

In March 2016, GLP made no financial disclosures and Entine tried to distance GLP from his former employer STATS, claiming that STATS provided accounting services only to GLP from 2011-2014 and that the groups weren’t involved with each other’s activities. But in 2012, GLP said it was “developed as a cross disciplinary program with STATS.”

Center for Media and Public Affairs/George Mason University
For the fiscal year 2014/2015, according to tax records, Entine received $173,100 for his work as “director” at Center for Media and Public Affairs, a group based at George Mason University and founded by GMU Professor Robert Lichter. CMPA was paid by Phillip Morris in the 1990s to deflect concerns about tobacco, according to documents in the UCSF Tobacco Industry Library.

CMPA does not disclose its funders but has received funding from George Mason University Foundation, the leading recipient of donations affiliated with Charles Koch and Koch Industries. GMUF also received $5.3 million from Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund between 2011-13, according to the Guardian. These funds channel money from anonymous donors including corporations to campaigns and academics who push industry interests, as Greenpeace demonstrated in an undercover investigation.

STATS Payments and Loans
CMPA’s sister group, also founded by Lichter and based at GMU, was Statistical Assessment Services (STATS), a nonprofit group that played a key role in chemical industry PR efforts to defend toxic products, according to reporting in The Intercept, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Atlantic and Consumer Reports.

According to IRS forms:

STATS paid Entine $140,600 in 2012/2013 and $152,500 in 2013/2014 as a “research consultant”
STATS listed Entine as Director in 2014/2015 and his compensation as $173,100. The Center for Media and Public Affairs also listed Entine as Director that year with compensation in the same amount. Tax records for both groups also listed President Trevor Butterworth for $95,512 and Director Tracey Brown with no compensation. Tracey Brown is the director of Sense About Science, a group that also spins science to defend chemical industry interests; Butterworth became founding director of Sense About Science USA in 2014/2015 and merged STATS into that group).
Science Literacy Project took over the tax ID of STATS in 2015/2016 and listed Entine as Executive Director with compensation of $188,800. Science Literacy Project paid Entine $177,504 in 2016/2017
ESG MediaMetrics, Entine’s PR firm, reported $176,420 in income in 2018
CMPA has also loaned money to STATS, which “due to inadequate funding” has “not been reimbursed.” George Mason University Foundation, which does not disclose its funding, gave CMPA grants in those years. Tax records show:

CMPA loaned STATS $203,611 in 2012/2013 and $163,914 loan in 2013/2014
George Mason University Foundation granted $220,900 in 2012/2013 and $75,670 in 2013/2014 to CMPA.
Biotechnology industry funding to train scientists and journalists
In 2014 and 2015, the Council for Biotechnology Information, which is funded by BASF, Bayer, DowDuPont and Monsanto Company, spent over $300,000 on two events organized by Genetic Literacy Project and the front group Academics Review to “train scientists and journalists to frame the debate over GMOs and the toxicity of glyphosate,” according to tax records and rep0rting in The Progressive. The events, called the Biotech Literacy Project boot camps, were held at the University of Florida in 2014 and UC Davis in 2015. The agendas describe the events as “communication skills training” for scientists and journalists to help reframe the food safety and GMO debate, and promised to provide scientists with the “tools and support resources necessary to effectively engage the media and appear as experts in legislative and local government hearings, and other policy making and related outreach opportunities.”

Faculty at the first first boot camp included representatives from the agrichemical industry, food industry front groups and trade groups, and pro-GMO academics including University of Florida Professor Kevin Folta, and University of Illinois Professor Emeritus Bruce Chassy, both of whom have accepted undisclosed funding from Monsanto and promote the GMOs and pesticides that Monsanto sales rely upon. Washington Post food columnist Tamar Haspel, who also accepts money from agribusiness interests, was the journalist on faculty.

Climate science denier funders
Major financial supporters of Entine’s former employer STATS and his current group Genetic Literacy Project include right-wing foundations – primarily Scaife Foundation, Searle Freedom Trust and Templeton Foundation – that are leading funders of climate science denial, according to a 2013 Drexel University study. See USRTK investigation: Climate Science Denial Network Funds Toxic Chemical Propaganda.

Chemical Industry Defense Guy
For many years, Entine has been a prominent defender of chemical industry interests, following the industry playbook: he defends the chemicals as safe; argues against regulation; and attacks science, scientists journalists and others raising concerns.

Defending Neonicotinoids
Growing scientific evidence suggests that neonicotinoids, the most widely used class of pesticides, are a key factor in bee die-offs. The European Union has restricted neonics due to concerns about impact on bees.

Entine:

Argues that neonics are not key driver of bee deaths (American Enterprise Institute).
Attacked a Harvard professor’s study on bee Colony Collapse Disorder (American Enterprise Institute).
Claimed neonics may actually help bee health (American Enterprise Institute and Forbes).
Accused European politicians of trying to kill bees by restricting neonics (Forbes).
Defending Phthalates
In August of 2012, Entine defended vinyl plastic backpacks that were found to be exposing children to phthalates.

Entine wrote: “Few chemicals on the market today have undergone as much scientific scrutiny as phthalate esters” (Forbes). He didn’t mention that a significant body of scientific evidence compiled over two decades links phthalate exposures to abnormal reproductive development in baby boys.
Entine criticized an NBC reporter for “shoddy journalism” for raising questions about the safety of phthalates (Forbes).
Entine’s communications firm, ESG MediaMetrics, had the Vinyl Institute as a client. However, Entine did not disclose that in his Forbes articles on phthalates.
Defending Fracking
Entine defends hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), the pumping of high-pressure chemical-laced water into the ground to crack shale and extract natural gas. As in his many other messaging campaigns, Entine blasts science and scientists who raise concerns, framing them as “activists,” while making sweeping and indefensible statements about “scrupulous” science conducted over many years that defend its safety.

For example, Entine claimed: “From a scientific perspective, no reason exists to even suspect unknown health or environmental issues will turn up” from fracking (New York Post).

Entine also:

Accused New York Times reporters of misleading children about the potential environmental dangers of fracking (Forbes).
Attacked two Cornell University scientists for their study suggesting that fracking operations leak methane (Forbes).
Attacked the Park Foundation, claiming that it has “almost single-handedly derailed shale-gas development in methane-rich New York State, and put its imprint on public opinion and policy decisions around the country.” (Philanthropy Roundtable)
Defending BPA
Entine writes in defense of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), despite a large body of scientific evidence raising concerns about its endocrine disrupting potential and other health problems associated with it. Canada declared the chemical to be toxic in 2010, and the EU banned BPA in baby bottles in 2011.

Entine:

Attacked “a small but determined group of university researchers, activist NGOs and journalists” raising concerns about BPA (Forbes).
Tells women who can’t get pregnant not to blame it on plastics (Forbes).
Challenged scientists linking BPA to heart disease (Forbes).
Defending Nuclear Power
Entine:

Criticized Harvard Professor Naomi Oreskes for pointing out the economic and environmental risks of nuclear power (Huffington Post).
Claims that nuclear power plants are environmentally benign and that “Nothing as bad as Chernobyl is likely to occur in the West” (Jon Entine).
Argued that Germany is “taking a gamble” by transitioning away from nuclear power (Ethical Corporation)

https://usrtk.org/tag/winkler-family-foundation/