Our latest Lobbywatch Review contains striking examples of the corporate capture of lawmakers, regulators, scientific bodies, and science reporting from North America, Europe, the UK, and India.
CORPORATE CAPTURE: NORTH AMERICA
Federal legislators aim to gut state and local health protections, block lawsuits
Even as US juries hit glyphosate maker Bayer with a series of multi-million dollar awards, industry-backed measures are being introduced into Congress that could limit such lawsuits, as well as local use restrictions on glyphosate and other pesticides. Dubbed the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act, the proposed measure would provide sweeping protections for pesticide companies and their products, pre-empting local governments in the US from implementing restrictions on pesticide use and blocking many of the legal claims plaguing Bayer. Lobbying disclosure records show that Bayer and the pesticide industry lobby group CropLife America have made passage of the Act a priority. Bayer and Monsanto, which was acquired by Bayer in 2018, spent more than $1.5 million on campaign donations for members of Congress in the last five years, according to data from Open Secrets, which tracks money in politics.
Emails show industry influence over Health Canada decision to gut regulatory oversight of GM foods
Documents received via Access to Information show that the biotechnology and pesticide industry lobby group CropLife Canada worked with federal government departments in a joint committee, called the “Tiger Team”, to design new regulatory guidance on genetically engineered foods and crops. The new guidance removes government oversight, including government safety assessments, from many new GMOs. “The regulatory departments worked together in constant communication with the biotechnology industry towards a decision that ended government regulation for many of the industry’s own products,” said Lucy Sharratt of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN). “This shift to corporate self-regulation of GMOs is dangerous and now we can clearly see that the process to get there was driven by industry itself. Government oversight over all GMOs should immediately be reinstated, to ensure food safety and transparency.”
Bayer offers “agricultural immersion experience” to registered dieticians
Bayer is sponsoring an “agricultural immersion experience” for registered nutritionist dietitians (RNDs) in the US that includes “the chance to ask and learn” about topics like GMOs, “crop protection [read: pesticides] and sustainability efforts in the industry”. Bayer’s “immersion experience” for the RNDs was in Puerto Rico but apparently is just “part of Bayer’s engagement with nutrition professionals around the world”. RNDs are being targeted because they’re “often on the front line of answering questions on agriculture”. Bayer’s efforts are not the first to raise concerns about corporate capture of the nutrition profession, or about dietitians being used as pawns in the PR war over GMOs and pesticides – concerns that take in the influential Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Professor claiming organic food benefits are a “total con” was Monsanto advisor
A spate of recent articles about how a Harvard professor has declared organic food benefits a myth have failed to note that Robert Paarlberg is a former advisor to Monsanto, has been making similar attacks on organic for many years, and has been accused of “reckless misinformation” in his promotion of GMOs. There was even a campaign to have one of Paarlberg’s books retracted by its academic publisher because of the author’s failure to provide any citations in support of the book’s many startling claims.
CORPORATE CAPTURE: EUROPE
Agro-industrial lobbies blitz prominent right-wing lawmakers
Between January 2020 and July 2023, over 400 meetings took place between industry and key members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who have been at the forefront of efforts to stall environmental reforms since the EU’s Farm to Fork strategy launched in 2020. The analysis by DeSmog shows that Big Ag lobby groups have been in constant contact with a small group of influential European politicians from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in the parliament, involving over two meetings a week on average. Groups granted an audience included the pesticide giants Bayer, BASF, Corteva, Syngenta, and the Big Ag farm lobby COPA-COGECA.
Move to remove EU ban on new GMOs in organic farming
Those who thought the European Commission’s deregulation proposals, which already looked ghostwritten by industry, couldn’t get any worse had reckoned without Jessica Polfjärd MEP (EPP, Swedish), rapporteur on behalf of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee on new genomic techniques (NGTs – new GMOs). In her draft report Polfjärd proposes that the use of plants derived from so-called “Category 1” NGTs (about 94% of all new GMOs) not be excluded from organic farming, contrary to what the European Commission is proposing. Jan Plagge, President of IFOAM Organics Europe, says, “The vast majority of the organic sector has been very clear and loud in our demand to keep organic’s production process free from gene editing technologies. This is an existential topic within our movement… But this draft proposal invalidates the view of an entire movement and economic sector.” Polfjärd also wants to remove the proposed requirement to label new GMO seeds as “NGTs”, which would effectively remove any transparency for growers and breeders. Polfjärd, who is part of the agribusiness-friendly European People’s Party, is also a keen supporter of glyphosate renewal and has said she regards agriculture as “an industry that is already too heavily regulated”.
Grassroots defence of regenerative agriculture against corporate hijack
Bayer made clear this year that they plan to make themselves the leaders of regenerative agriculture in order to turn it into a platform for promoting their products and so “drive our growth”. But Spain's Asociación de Agricultura Regenerativa – longstanding pioneers of regenerative agriculture in Europe – have denounced the hijacking in a letter to the company. They say it is not legitimate for Bayer to claim to lead regenerative agriculture, or to try and shape what it is, and that they are “extremely alarmed” by greenwashing claims such as, “Bayer highlights the role of glyphosate in regenerative agriculture”. They say authentic regenerative agriculture does not include the use of toxic inputs and biocides, such as glyphosate, nor does it use chemical fertilizers or GMOs.
Undue influence of industry over scientific literature used by experts
In a 2023 report, the Scientific Council of the French National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES), which deals with applications for GMO and pesticide authorisations, announced that it had assessed the quality and credibility of the expert opinions it produces. It identified several factors that limit the work of expert opinions: Conflicts of interest, requests for expert opinions to be made in a hurry, impossibility of taking into account the most recent data, and too much weight of industry in the establishment of analysis protocols. Particularly noteworthy is the control – direct or indirect – of industry over the scientific publications that will make up the corpus of articles used by the experts.
CORPORATE CAPTURE: UK
Royal Society’s industry-friendly policy briefing on GM crop regulation
According to a new report from the UK’s Royal Society, the regulatory regime for GMO crops that the UK inherited from the EU is too costly for applicants and a more supportive (i.e. industry-friendly) approach could help the UK lead the world on food security. One of the policy brief’s two principal authors is Jonathan Jones of the Sainsbury Laboratory, the UK’s leading GMO plant research institute. Jones was a founder of Mendel Biotechnology Inc., which has collaborated with both Monsanto and Bayer. He also has commercial interests in two other companies – GenXtraits and Norfolk Plant Sciences. The acknowledgements section of the new report reads like a Who’s Who of GMO promoters, including well-known industry figures.
Royal Society’s policy briefing used to lobby MPs
The Royal Society’s new report was given a Parliamentary launch at a meeting attended by UK science minister George Freeman. The launch was hosted by the industry-backed parliamentary lobby for GMO crop cultivation in the UK, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture, which George Freeman used to chair. The Parliamentary Group is run by Daniel Pearsall of Front Foot Communications, which is paid by the GMO industry lobby the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC) and the pesticide industry lobby group CropLife UK, among others. Pearsall, who was previously the spokesperson for the GMO crop industry body SCIMAC, was among those whose input is acknowledged in the Royal Society report.
Leading UK regulator began lobbying for GMO deregulation nearly a decade ago
It has emerged that the chair of ACRE, the UK’s allegedly independent scientific advisory body on the release of GMO crops in England, was lobbying for the deregulation of all GMOs as far back as 2014. That’s when Jim Dunwell likened the current EU regulations governing GM crops to the red flags that had to go in front of cars a century ago. “It’s time to remove the red flags... There’s too much regulation,” Dunwell was quoted as saying. Needless to say, Dunwell has multiple biotech industry connections. In fact, the whole of the ACRE regulatory committee is riven with conflicts of interest.
Conflicts of interest issue at heart of UK science reporting
A row over an ultra-processed foods panel of experts with significant ties to the food industry has highlighted once again the conflicts of interest issue at the heart of UK science reporting – not least because the Science Media Centre (SMC), which hosted the panel’s press conference, turns out to have been funded by companies that make ultra-processed foods. An article in the BMJ pointedly asks, “The Science Media Centre influences UK press newsgathering so should it be taking funding from industry and showcasing scientists with such links?” There have, in fact, been concerns from the very start about industry bias at the SMC, as well as about the SMC’s chief executive, Fiona Fox, who is part of the anti-environmentalist pro-corporate LM network, and whose own journalism has been called “shoddy” and “an affront to the truth”. For more on the SMC, see USRTK’s excellent fact sheet.
CORPORATE CAPTURE: INDIA
Corporate capture of India’s agri sector continues with Bayer-ICAR deal
Bayer has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) “to develop resource-efficient, climate-resilient solutions for crops, varieties, crop protection, weed and mechanisation”, reports Colin Todhunter. The ICAR, an apex public sector institution, is responsible for coordinating agricultural education and research in India. In a statement, the Peoples’ Commission on Public Sector and Services (PCPSS), which includes eminent academics, jurists, trade unionists and social activists, expressed concern that Bayer will exploit the ICAR’s vast infrastructure to pursue its own commercial plans within India. Indian farmers’ organisations are calling for cancellation of the deal.
Concerned public scientists gagged on GMO crops
The corporatisation of Indian agriculture is being supported by the state and its research arm, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), which is now helping to develop 13 different GMO crops, including rice and wheat. To make sure that ICAR scientists do not step out of line and oppose the pursuit of GMO crops, Modi’s government threatened last year to take action against ICAR officials who spoke out against GMO mustard, which has been approved for environmental release but awaits a final verdict by the Supreme Court before commercial planting can begin. That order effectively deprives journalists of critical scientific sources while reporting on the debate raging in the country over GMO crops. Such gag orders have been deployed to silence concerned public scientists in other countries too, including the UK.
COVID ORIGINS
Whistleblower says CIA offered six analysts significant monetary incentives to change their position on COVID-19’s origin
Staff on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have heard testimony from a whistleblower alleging that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) offered six analysts significant monetary incentives to change their position on COVID-19’s origin. The whistleblower, who presents as a highly credible senior-level CIA officer, alleges that of the seven members assigned to the CIA team tasked with analysing COVID-19 origins, six concluded that the virus likely originated from a lab in Wuhan, China. The CIA then, however, allegedly offered them financial incentives to change their conclusion in favour of a zoonotic origin.
The US quietly terminates a controversial $125m wildlife virus hunting programme amid safety fears
A flagship project for the controversial practice of hunting viruses among wildlife in South East Asia, Africa, and Latin America to prevent human outbreaks and pandemics is being quietly dropped by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) after criticism over the safety of such research. For more than a decade the US government has been funding international projects engaged in identifying exotic wildlife viruses that might someday infect humans. Although critics have raised concerns over the potentially catastrophic risks of such virus hunting activities, hundreds of millions of dollars in unabated funding have symbolised a commitment to the effort. The shuttering of the project, as described in a new congressional budget document and during interviews with scientists and federal policy makers, marks an abrupt retreat by the US government from wildlife virus hunting, an activity that has also been funded by the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health. The turnabout follows early warnings raised by sceptics — including officials in the Biden White House — that the $125m (£99m; €115m) “DEEP VZN” programme could inadvertently ignite a pandemic.
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