Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The lobby firm that works both sides of the room

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, May 9, 2016

The lobby firm that works both sides of the room

Click here to access article from Corporate Europe Observatory.

The article uncovers the deep infiltration of major biotech industries that produce glyphosate into scientific efforts to research the effects of glyphosate. This article focuses on the role of lobby organizations that work both sides, but it also contains links to other articles showing that many people involved in science research projects investigating the effects of glyphosate are being funded by the biotech industry. For example, one spokesperson, Christoph Then, from a science agency, Testbiotech, has charged the biotech industry with gross interference in their research and that of others.

Testbiotech analysis shows the biotech industry has seriously impacted the results of the research project. As a Testbiotech report published today also shows, the biotech industry has not only systematically influenced the GRACE research project, but four other similar EU research projects. All of the coordinators of these projects are part of a close network of institutions that are funded by industry.

Even specialised consultancy groups such as PERSEUS and GENIUS which have biotech industries as their clients, are directly involved in the GRACE research project. For example, the Belgian company PERSEUS that just recently approached the German government on behalf of a US biotech company about allowing the cultivation of oilseed rape derived from new methods of genetic engineering, is organising communication services for GRACE.

“The documented networks existing between EU research projects and industry cannot simply be regarded as coincidental. Just a handful of experts all organised in the same networks are dominating publicly funded risk research on genetically engineered plants”, Christoph Then concludes for Testbiotech.