#and we are a pro skepticism and pro sourced-information and pro scientific research around here | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

forlawfirmsonlymarketing · 4 years

Text

10 Revelations from the U.S. Right to Know Investigations

Please help support the USRTK investigations by making a tax-deductible donation today. Internal Monsanto documents released in August provide a rare inside look at how pesticide and food companies try to discredit public interest groups and journalists who raise concerns about their products. The documents (posted here) show that Monsanto and its new owner, Bayer, were especially worried about U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit research group that began investigating the food industry in 2015. According to Monsanto’s response plan, “USRTK’s plan will impact the entire industry,” and “has the potential to be extremely damaging.” Read about it in The Guardian. Five years ago, we began filing public records requests to try to understand how powerful food and chemical industry interests impact the food we eat and feed our children. We quickly turned up documents that became a front-page New York Times story, and contributed to news coverage around the world about the covert tactics these companies use influence science, policy and public opinion about our food. Here are some of our top findings so far.

1. Monsanto funded “independent” academics to promote and lobby for agrichemical products, and hid these collaborations from the public

U.S. Right to Know has documented numerous examples of how pesticide companies rely heavily on publicly funded academics to assist with their PR and lobbying. A September 2015 front-page New York Times article revealed that Monsanto enlisted academics, and paid them secretly, to oppose GMO labeling laws. WBEZ later reported on one example; how a University of Illinois professor received tens of thousands of dollars from Monsanto to promote and lobby for GMOs, and his university received millions — none of those funds were disclosed to the public. Documents reported in the Boston Globe, Bloomberg and Mother Jones describe how Monsanto assigned, scripted and promoted pro-GMO papers from professors at Harvard, Cornell and other universities, which were published with no mention of Monsanto’s role. At the University of Saskatchewan, Monsanto coached a professor and edited his academic articles, according to documents reported by the CBC. At the request of the pesticide industry’s PR firm, a University of Florida professor produced a video that aimed to discredit a Canadian teenager who criticized GMOs, according to documents reported by Global News. For fact sheets based on documents obtained from our investigation, see our Agrichemical Industry Propaganda Tracker. Many U.S. Right to Know documents are also posted in the USCF Food and Chemical Industry Libraries.

2. The influential nonprofit ILSI is a lobby group for food and pesticide companies

In September 2019, the New York Times reported on the “shadowy industry group” International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) that is shaping food policy around the world. The Times article cites a 2019 study co-authored by Gary Ruskin of USRTK reporting how ILSI operates as a lobby group that promotes the interest of its food and pesticide industry funders. See coverage of our study in the BMJ and The Guardian, and read more about the organization the Times described as “the most powerful food industry group you’ve never heard of” in our ILSI fact sheet. In 2017, Ruskin co-authored a journal article reporting on emails showing food industry leaders discussing how they “have to use external organizations” when dealing with controversies over the health risks of their products. The emails show senior leaders in the food industry advocating for a coordinated approach to influencing scientific evidence, expert opinion and regulators across the world. See Bloomberg coverage, “Emails show how the food industry uses ‘science’ to push soda.” The USRTK investigation also spurred a 2016 story in The Guardian reporting that the leaders of a Joint FAO/WHO panel that cleared glyphosate of cancer concerns also held leadership positions at ILSI, which received large donations from the pesticide industry. 3. Breaking news about the Monsanto Roundup cancer trials and the Dicamba GMO trials U.S. Right to Know frequently breaks news about the Roundup cancer trials via Carey Gillam’s Roundup and Dicamba Trial Tracker, which provides a first look at discovery documents, interviews and news tips about the trials. More than 42,000 people have filed suit against the Monsanto Company (now owned by Bayer) alleging that exposure to Roundup herbicide caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and that Monsanto covered up the risks. As part of the discovery process, Monsanto has turned over millions of pages of its internal records. USRTK is posting many of these documents and court records free of charge on our Monsanto Papers pages. Dozens of farmers around the United States are also now suing the former Monsanto Co. and conglomerate BASF in an effort to hold the companies accountable for millions of acres of crop damage the farmers claim is due to widespread illegal use of the weed killing chemical dicamba. In 2020, we also began posting the Dicamba Papers: Key documents and analysis from the trials.

4. Top CDC officials collaborated with Coca-Cola to shape the obesity debate, and advised Coca-Cola on how to stop WHO from cracking down on added sugars

Documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know led to another front-page New York Times story in 2017 reporting that the newly appointed director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Brenda Fitzgerald, saw Coca-Cola as an ally on obesity issues (Fitzgerald has since resigned). USRTK was also first to report in 2016 that another high-ranking CDC official had cozy ties to Coke, and tried to assist the company in steering the World Health Organization away from its efforts to discourage consumption of added sugars; see reporting by Carey Gillam, research director of U.S. Right to Know. Our work also contributed to a study in the Milbank Quarterly co-authored by Gary Ruskin detailing conversations between the CDC and Coca-Cola executives. Two articles in the BMJ based on USRTK documents, and articles in the Washington Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution, San Diego Union Tribune, Forbes, CNN, Politico and The Intercept provide more details about Coke’s influence at the U.S. public health agency that is supposed to help prevent obesity, type 2 diabetes and other diseases.

5. The U.S. FDA found glyphosate residues in honey, infant cereals, and other common foods, and then stopped testing for the chemical

FDA did not release the information, so USRTK did.

Carey Gillam broke news in the Huffington Post, The Guardian and USRTK about internal government documents obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests showing that the U.S. FDA conducted tests that found the weed-killer glyphosate in an array of commonly consumed foods including granola, crackers, infant cereal and in very high levels in honey. The FDA did not release the information, so USRTK did. The government then suspended its testing program for glyphosate residues in food, Gillam reported. FDA did resume testing and in late 2018 and issued a report that showed very limited testing and reported no worrisome levels of glyphosate. The report did not include any of the information USRTK turned up through FOIAs.

6. Pesticide companies secretly funded an academic group that attacked the organic industry

A group calling itself Academics Review made headlines in 2014 with a report attacking the organic industry as a marketing scam. The group claimed it was run by independent academics, and accepted no corporate contributions; however, documents obtained by USRTK and reported in the Huffington Post revealed the group was set up with the help of Monsanto to be an industry-funded front group that could discredit critics of GMOs and pesticides. Tax records show that Academics Review received most of its funding from the Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI), a trade group funded by the world’s largest pesticide companies.

7. Universities hosted conferences funded by the pesticide industry to train scientists and journalists how to promote GMOs and pesticides

Pesticide-industry funded “boot camps” held at the University of Florida and the University of California, Davis brought together scientists, journalists and industry PR allies to discuss how to “connect emotionally with skeptical parents” in their messaging to promote GMOs and pesticides, according to documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know. Two industry front groups, Genetic Literacy Project and Academics Review, organized the messaging-training events, and claimed the funding came from government, academic and industry sources; however, according to reporting in The Progressive, non-industry sources denied funding the events and the only traceable source of funds was the pesticide industry trade group CBI, which spent more than $300,000 on the two conferences.

8. Coca-Cola secretly tried to influence medical and science journalists

Documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know and reported in the BMJ show how Coca-Cola funded journalism conferences at a U.S. university in an attempt to create favorable press coverage of sugar-sweetened drinks. When challenged about funding of the series of conferences, the academics involved weren’t truthful about industry involvement.

9. Coca Cola saw itself at “war” with the public health community over obesity

Another journal article co-authored by USRTK’s Gary Ruskin in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health revealed how Coca-Cola saw itself at “war” with the “public health community.” The emails also reveal the company’s thoughts on how to deal with issues surrounding obesity and responsibility for this public health crisis; for more see Ruskin’s article in Environmental Health News and more journal articles co-authored by USRTK on our Academic Work page.

10. Dozens of academics and other industry allies coordinate their messaging with agrichemical companies and their PR operatives

Documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know reveal never-before-reported facts about the front groups, academics, and other third party allies the pesticide and food companies rely on to promote their public relations and lobbying agendas. USRTK provides detailed fact sheets about more than two dozen leading third party allies who appear to be independent, but work closely with companies and their PR firms on coordinated pro-industry messages. See our fact sheet, Tracking the Agrichemical Industry Propaganda Network. Help us keep the USRTK investigations cooking! You can now contribute to our investigations through Patreon and PayPal. Please sign up for our newsletter to get regular updates about our findings and join us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for more discussion about our food system.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/10-revelations-from-the-u-s-right-to-know-investigations/

#facebook #monsanto #roundup #dailydoseoflaw

0 notes

yes-dal456 · 7 years

Text

Science Pinpoints Why People Fall For Fake News -- And What We Can Do About It

“Fake news” — the kind of stories without even a kernel of truth, often made up by nefarious agents or cynical profiteers, appeared to play a major role in the 2016 presidential campaign.

There are no signs that these fictionalized articles, spread mostly on the internet via social media, are going away anytime soon. In fact, they’re a prominent feature of what some have dubbed the “post-truth era” ― a time when the general public (or even a certain leader of the free world) can’t seem to agree on basic facts, let alone reach consensus on tackling a problem.

Unsurprisingly, scientists have a major stake in making sure that facts ― obectively derived from the scientific method, reasoning, or other principles of enlightenment ― don’t lose their relevance to the public. Not only does their livelihood depend on experimentation and scientific discovery, but many of today’s disputed facts have widespread implications for health and safety.

Three new research papers tackle this problem, showing how to reach people with anti-scientific views, or how to help people sort fake news from real facts. Here’s what we can learn from each of them.

1. People have ulterior motives for holding anti-science or anti-fact beliefs.

Underlying motives ― what psychology professor Matthew Hornsey of the University of Queensland called “attitude roots” ― may not be apparent or obvious, even to the people who have them.

In a theoretical paper presented on Saturday, Hornsey hypothesized that people who want to challenge unscientific beliefs ― say public health communicators or political leaders ― should try focusing on attitude roots when repeated explanations of the facts don’t work.

“Rather than focusing on what people are saying, it might be better to focus on what their motivations are for what they’re saying,” Hornsey said. “Then you work backwards from there, constructing arguments that work with their underlying motivations, not against them.”

So how are you supposed to gauge a person’s underlying motivations for unscientific belief? First, ask why they believe this. Secondly, never assume that the other person is unreasonable or unprincipled. That’s a common mistake, and usually results in hurt feelings and even more entrenched beliefs. The onus to reach out, Hornsey said, is on people who accept the existence of an objective reality.

“You have to provide a path for people to change their minds without feeling humiliated or defeated,” he said.

Hornsey’s idea is untested, but provides an intriguing way forward for science communicators who find that simply talking about the evidence isn’t making a dent on an intended audience.

2. Education can protect against scientific misinformation.

Researchers from Cambridge, Yale and George Mason universities recently demonstrated that people can be “inoculated” against scientific misinformation if they are first educated about strategies and tactics that partisan groups use to distort the truth. The results show that learning more about the ways that groups spread falsehoods results in participants being able to distinguish between accurate information about climate change and misinformation. This effect held for people across the political spectrum, according to the study.

Scientists recruited a nationally representative sample of more than 2,000 people online and divided them into six groups: a control group, a second group that received the accurate message that “97 percent of scientists agree on man-made climate change,” a third group that received the false statement that “there is no convincing scientific evidence of human-caused global warming,” and a fourth group that received both messages.

The fifth and sixth groups received the accurate message, followed by a “vaccine” message either explaining how some partisan groups can mislead the public, or specific details about the Oregon Petition, which falsely claimed it had signatures of more than 31,000 experts agreeing there is “no convincing scientific evidence” that human activity causes climate change. Then they received the false statement on climate change.

The scientists found that the fifth and sixth groups, which had received the “vaccine” against misinformation, saw their belief in the scientific consensus around climate change grow. Group 5, which received only a general message about how misinformation can spread, grew in acceptance of climate change consensus by 6.5 percent. Group 6, which was educated specifically about the fraudulent Oregon petition, saw acceptance of scientific consensus grow 13 percent.

In contrast, Group 3, which received only the false statement, saw belief in scientific consensus fall 9 percent. Those in Group 4, who heard the accurate statement followed by the false statement, saw belief in the scientific consensus around climate change almost completely neutralized.

“We found that inoculation messages were equally effective in shifting the opinions of Republicans, independents and Democrats in a direction consistent with the conclusions of climate science,” lead author Sander van der Linden, director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, said in a statement about the experiment.

3. Fake news isn’t as popular or as influential as it may seem.

Researchers from New York University and Stanford found in a recent survey of more than 1,200 people, weighted for national representation, that only 15 percent of respondents had seen fake news articles (verified fake news that had been debunked on either Snopes.com or Politifact.com) during the 2016 election, and only 8 percent of survey respondents said they believed those stories.

The researchers also made up a series of “placebo” fake news headlines to see if survey respondents would say they had seen and believed them, even though the stories had been created for the purposes of the survey and were not circulated online. These placebo headlines included, “Clinton Foundation staff were found guilty of diverting funds to buy alcohol for expensive parties in the Caribbean,” and “Leaked documents reveal that the Trump campaign planned a scheme to offer to drive Democratic voters to the polls but then take them to the wrong place.”

About 14 percent of survey respondents said they recognized these placebo fake stories, and 8 percent said they had believed them ― indicating that a small minority of the population is simply willing to buy into any story that fits their worldview.

This may seem bleak. But previous research shows that most Americans get their news from social media, that fake news was shared more widely than real news on Facebook, and that fake news has overwhelming pro-Trump slant. Taken altogether, some pundits have suggested President Donald Trump owes a debt of gratitude to the proliferation and believability of fake news among his voters.

The new survey results, in contrast, suggest that news from social media, and especially fake news from social media, was not a dominant source of information during the 2016 election. The researchers calculated that the average voting-age American saw and remembered 0.92 pro-Trump fake story and 0.23 pro-Clinton fake story.

“In summary, our data suggest that social media were not the most important source of election news, and even the most widely circulated fake news stories were seen by only a small fraction of Americans,” the researchers wrote. “For fake news to have changed the outcome of the election, a single fake news story would need to have convinced about 0.7 percent of Clinton voters and non-voters who saw it to shift their votes to Trump, a persuasion rate equivalent to seeing 36 television campaign ads.”

While there’s still a lot to learn about the role of “fake news” and “alternative facts” on American public discourse, it’s important to keep one thing in mind: Fake news can have real, life-or-death consequences, especially when it comes to acceptance of evidence-based health and science recommendations.

“Attitudes towards scientific discovery used to lie largely outside politics, but now attitudes towards science have become wrapped up in the same culture wars that used to be reserved for things like abortion and gun control,” Hornsey said. “This is a frightening development — anti-vaccination movements cost lives. Climate change skepticism will cost lives.”

This reporting is brought to you by HuffPost’s health and science platform, The Scope. Like us on Facebook and Twitter and tell us your story: [email protected].

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from http://ift.tt/2kuoqAa from Blogger http://ift.tt/2j6ti2t

#http://www.topwaytohappy.tk/2017/01/science-pinpoints-why-people-fall-for.html

0 notes

imreviewblog · 7 years

Text

Science Pinpoints Why People Fall For Fake News -- And What We Can Do About It

“Fake news” — the kind of stories without even a kernel of truth, often made up by nefarious agents or cynical profiteers, appeared to play a major role in the 2016 presidential campaign.

1. People have ulterior motives for holding anti-science or anti-fact beliefs.

Underlying motives ― what psychology professor Matthew Hornsey of the University of Queensland called “attitude roots” ― may not be apparent or obvious, even to the people who have them.

“You have to provide a path for people to change their minds without feeling humiliated or defeated,” he said.

Hornsey’s idea is untested, but provides an intriguing way forward for science communicators who find that simply talking about the evidence isn’t making a dent on an intended audience.

2. Education can protect against scientific misinformation.

3. Fake news isn’t as popular or as influential as it may seem.

This reporting is brought to you by HuffPost’s health and science platform, The Scope. Like us on Facebook and Twitter and tell us your story: [email protected].

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2k4YK0G

#Healthy Living - The Huffington Post

0 notes