Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumRevealed: how Monsanto's 'intelligence center' targeted journalists and activists
Source: The Guardian
Revealed: how Monsanto's 'intelligence center' targeted journalists and activists
Internal documents show how the company worked to discredit critics and investigated singer Neil Young
Sam Levin in San Francisco
@SamTLevin Email
Thu 8 Aug 2019 06.30 BST Last modified on Thu 8 Aug 2019 15.15 BST
Monsanto operated a fusion center to monitor and discredit journalists and activists, and targeted a reporter who wrote a critical book on the company, documents reveal. The agrochemical corporation also investigated the singer Neil Young and wrote an internal memo on his social media activity and music.
The records reviewed by the Guardian show Monsanto adopted a multi-pronged strategy to target Carey Gillam, a Reuters journalist who investigated the companys weedkiller and its links to cancer. Monsanto, now owned by the German pharmaceutical corporation Bayer, also monitored a not-for-profit food research organization through its intelligence fusion center, a term that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies use for operations focused on surveillance and terrorism.
The documents, mostly from 2015 to 2017, were disclosed as part of an ongoing court battle on the health hazards of the companys Roundup weedkiller. They show:
● Monsanto planned a series of actions to attack a book authored by Gillam prior to its release, including writing talking points for third parties to criticize the book and directing industry and farmer customers on how to post negative reviews.
● Monsanto paid Google to promote search results for Monsanto Glyphosate Carey Gillam that criticized her work. Monsanto PR staff also internally discussed placing sustained pressure on Reuters, saying they continue to push back on [Gillams] editors very strongly every chance we get, and that they were hoping she gets reassigned.
● Monsanto fusion center officials wrote a lengthy report about singer Neil Youngs anti-Monsanto advocacy, monitoring his impact on social media, and at one point considering legal action. The fusion center also monitored US Right to Know (USRTK), a not-for-profit, producing weekly reports on the organizations online activity.
● Monsanto officials were repeatedly worried about the release of documents on their financial relationships with scientists that could support the allegations they were covering up unflattering research.
The internal communications add fuel to the ongoing claims in court that Monsanto has bullied critics and scientists and worked to conceal the dangers of glyphosate, the worlds most widely used herbicide. In the last year, two US juries have ruled that Monsanto was liable for plaintiffs non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), a blood cancer, and ordered the corporation to pay significant sums to cancer patients. Bayer has continued to assert that glyphosate is safe.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/07/monsanto-fusion-center-journalists-roundup-neil-young
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