The U.S. Right to Know nonprofit has issued
a report, Seedy Business: What Big Food Is
Hiding with Its Slick PR Campaign on GMOs
(usrtk.org/seedybusiness.pdf). It outlines
the food industry’s campaign to manipulate
the media, public opinion and politics with
disreputable tactics, company-sponsored
science and public relations spin.
Since 2012, the agrichemical and food
industries have mounted a complex, multifaceted public relations, advertising,
lobbying and political campaign in the U.S. spending more than $100 million
per year to defend genetically engineered food and crops and the pesticides
that accompany them, the authors report. The purpose is to deceive the public,
deflect efforts to win the right to know what’s in our food via labeling that’s now
required in 64 countries and ultimately, to extend their profit stream at any cost
to the public for as long as possible.
Highlights include a history of the industry’s tactics to conceal information,
ensure lack of government policy and testing for genetically modified organisms
(GMOs), attack credible scientists and journalists and support untrustworthy
advocates and political machinations.
