1.THE CORE OF BIOTECH PR
2.Black-washing the Genetically Modified Food Debate
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1.THE CORE OF BIOTECH PR
Topics: race/ethnic issues/public relations/biotechnology
THE WEEKLY SPIN, April 6, 2005
sponsored by the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy, http://www.prwatch.org
Source: Freezerbox, March 14, 2005
http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.asp?id=337

U.S. agribusiness giant Monsanto recently announced it was raising its earnings expectations. "Monsanto's genetically engineered seed sales are booming - a 20 per cent increase last quarter - and the company expects the growth to continue as it expands outside the U.S.," AP reported.

One reason may be Monsanto's extensive use of PR.
GM Watch's Jonathan Matthews looks at the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a U.S.-based civil rights group with ties to Monsanto that has become an outspoken advocate of GE foods. Matthews reports on CORE's claims that the global environmental movement's opposition to biotech is "lethal eco-imperialism" and "devastates families and communities and kills millions every year." At CORE's annual Martin Luther King, Jr. dinner this year, Karl Rove was honored with a "Public Service Award." Monsanto's CEO Hugh Grant chaired
the dinner with Option One Mortgage's president and CEO Bob Dubrish.
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2.Black-washing the Genetically Modified Food Debate
SpinWatch exposes Congress of Racial Equality as front group with ties to Monsanto
By Barb Jacobs
Utne.com, April 7, 2005 Issue
http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2005_193/news/11614-1.html

The biotech industry is scrambling to win international support for genetically modified (GM) food, and it's willing to go to extremes to get it. One such tack is recruiting people of color to tout GM as the cure-all for Third World agriculture.

The biotechnology industry maintains that there is strong support for genetically modified (GM) food throughout the world.

The media watchdog group SpinWatch begs to differ, accusing the GM industry of paying groups of South African, Indian, and black American Baptists to [counter]protest anti-GM protests. "[F]rom US administration platforms to UN headquarters, from Capitol Hill to the European Parliament, we've been treated to a veritable minstrelsy of lobbying," writes Jonathan Matthews.

He explains that the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) -- which bills itself as "bringing justice to the Third World" -- is in fact a biotech industry front group with ties to the agribusiness giant Monsanto. He reports that CORE has been desperate to improve the reputation of genetically-engineered products around the world and has high jacked human rights rhetoric by claiming that "the hunger and suffering of millions of the world's poor ... are denied the benefits of genetically engineered food." The United States is there for back up, as evidenced by President Bush's 2003 threat to sue the European Union for not opening its markets to American GM products.

In reality, there is broad international support for GM regulation. Lim Li Ching, senior fellow at the Oakland Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, says 116 countries around the world have signed the Cartagena Protocol, an agreement that allows countries the right to control the import of genetically modified organisms into their countries -- an accord the United States has not signed. Ching has criticized the USDA, the FDA, and the EPA for proposing food safety guidelines that would loosen restrictions on the containment of experimental GM material in food, possibly affecting the food supplies of countries importing
the modified food. Ching says there should be "careful scrutiny of US proposals that may find their way into global negotiations or unilaterally affect importing countries."

Go there - The Uncle Tom Award
http://spinwatch.server101.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=344

Go there too - Contamination by Experimental Genetically Engineered Crops Should Not be "Found Acceptable"
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/?q=node/view/162

Related Links:

GM Watch
http://www.gmwatch.org/
Inequity in International Agricultural Trade
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/?q=node/view/159

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