{"id":186379,"date":"2014-02-09T20:54:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-10T01:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/02\/09\/just-a-reminder-big-ag-is-evil-not-just-monsanto-and-it-is-us-policy-to-subsidize-them-through-international-agreements\/"},"modified":"2014-02-09T20:54:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T01:54:00","slug":"just-a-reminder-big-ag-is-evil-not-just-monsanto-and-it-is-us-policy-to-subsidize-them-through-international-agreements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/02\/09\/just-a-reminder-big-ag-is-evil-not-just-monsanto-and-it-is-us-policy-to-subsidize-them-through-international-agreements\/","title":{"rendered":"Just a Reminder: Big Ag is Evil, Not Just Monsanto, and it is US Policy to Subsidize them Through International Agreements"},"content":{"rendered":"

You really need to read this account of a systematic program of harassment and libel against Tyrone Hayes for his research showing that Syngenta’s herbicide atrazine was dangerous<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In 2001, seven years after joining the biology faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, Tyrone Hayes stopped talking about his research with people he didn\u2019t trust. He instructed the students in his lab, where he was raising three thousand frogs, to hang up the phone if they heard a click, a signal that a third party might be on the line. Other scientists seemed to remember events differently, he noticed, so he started carrying an audio recorder to meetings. \u201cThe secret to a happy, successful life of paranoia,\u201d he liked to say, \u201cis to keep careful track of your persecutors.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span>Three years earlier, Syngenta, one of the largest agribusinesses in the world, had asked Hayes to conduct experiments on the herbicide atrazine, which is applied to more than half the corn in the United States. Hayes was thirty-one, and he had already published twenty papers on the endocrinology of amphibians. David Wake, a professor in Hayes\u2019s department, said that Hayes \u201cmay have had the greatest potential of anyone in the field.\u201d But, when Hayes discovered that atrazine might impede the sexual development of frogs, his dealings with Syngenta became strained, and, in November, 2000, he ended his relationship with the company.<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>[Former student Roger] Liu and several other former students said that they had remained skeptical of Hayes\u2019s accusations until last summer, when an article appeared in Environmental Health News (in partnership with 100Reporters)* that drew on Syngenta\u2019s internal records. Hundreds of Syngenta\u2019s memos, notes, and e-mails have been unsealed following the settlement, in 2012, of two class-action suits brought by twenty-three Midwestern cities and towns that accused Syngenta of \u201cconcealing atrazine\u2019s true dangerous nature\u201d and contaminating their drinking water. Stephen Tillery, the lawyer who argued the cases, said, \u201cTyrone\u2019s work gave us the scientific basis for the lawsuit.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span>Hayes has devoted the past fifteen years to studying atrazine, and during that time scientists around the world have expanded on his findings, suggesting that the herbicide is associated with birth defects in humans as well as in animals. The company documents show that, while Hayes was studying atrazine, Syngenta was studying him, as he had long suspected. Syngenta\u2019s public-relations team had drafted a list of four goals. The first was \u201cdiscredit Hayes.\u201d In a spiral-bound notebook, Syngenta\u2019s communications manager, Sherry Ford, who referred to Hayes by his initials, wrote that the company could \u201cprevent citing of TH data by revealing him as noncredible.\u201d He was a frequent topic of conversation at company meetings. Syngenta looked for ways to \u201cexploit Hayes\u2019 faults\/problems.\u201d \u201cIf TH involved in scandal, enviros will drop him,\u201d Ford wrote. She observed that Hayes \u201cgrew up in world (S.C.) that wouldn\u2019t accept him,\u201d \u201cneeds adulation,\u201d \u201cdoesn\u2019t sleep,\u201d was \u201cscarred for life.\u201d She wrote, \u201cWhat\u2019s motivating Hayes?\u2014basic question.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>In January, 2001, Syngenta employees and members of the EcoRisk panel travelled to Berkeley to discuss Hayes\u2019s new findings. Syngenta asked to meet with him privately, but Hayes insisted on the presence of his students, a few colleagues, and his wife. He had previously had an amiable relationship with the panel\u2014he had enjoyed taking long runs with the scientist who supervised it\u2014and he began the meeting, in a large room at Berkeley\u2019s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, as if he were hosting an academic conference. He wore a new suit and brought in catered meals.<\/span>

<\/span>After lunch, Syngenta introduced a guest speaker, a statistical consultant, who listed numerous errors in Hayes\u2019s report and concluded that the results were not statistically significant. Hayes\u2019s wife, Katherine Kim, said that the consultant seemed to be trying to \u201cmake Tyrone look as foolish as possible.\u201d Wake, the biology professor, said that the men on the EcoRisk panel looked increasingly uncomfortable. \u201cThey were experienced enough to know that the issues the statistical consultant was raising were routine and ridiculous,\u201d he said. \u201cA couple of glitches were presented as if they were the end of the world. I\u2019ve been a scientist in academic settings for forty years, and I\u2019ve never experienced anything like that. They were after Tyrone.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>Michelle Boone, a professor of aquatic ecology at Miami University, who served on the E.P.A.\u2019s scientific advisory panel, said, \u201cWe all follow the Tyrone Hayes drama, and some people will say, \u2018He should just do the science.\u2019 But the science doesn\u2019t speak for itself. Industry has unlimited resources and bully power. Tyrone is the only one calling them out on what they\u2019re doing.\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Supreme Court has said that corporations are people in the Citizens United<\/i> case.<\/p>\n

Why isn’t Syngenta being criminally prosecuted for stalking?<\/p>\n

H\/t The Washington Monthly<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You really need to read this account of a systematic program of harassment and libel against Tyrone Hayes for his research showing that Syngenta’s herbicide atrazine was dangerous: In 2001, seven years after joining the biology faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, Tyrone Hayes stopped talking about his research with people he didn\u2019t trust. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[991,1029,1005,1052,1079,990],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academe","category-agriculture","category-business","category-crimes","category-environment","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}