Here a shill. There a shill. Everywhere a shill-shill.

Dr. Kevin Folta and I waiting on IPA refills in Portland, Oregon. January, 2015

Last January 20 at about nine in the evening I got a call from Dr. Kevin Folta.  He would be passing through my area of Portland on his way back to the airport after completing an engagement in Salem.  If I had time, could we meet for an IPA?  He already knew via our email communication that I am most appreciative of a good IPA and could probably steer us in the direction of one of many available in this area.

So, let’s see, did I have time to meet the eminent Dr. Folta in person?  I thought about it for a millisecond – yes of course I had time!  Never mind that my husband and I were leaving for a near month-long trip to SE Asia early the following morning.  I wasn’t passing up this opportunity.  I had known Dr. Folta would be in my neck of the woods as we had discussed possibly meeting.  I was delighted it was actually going to happen.

My utmost respect and fondness for Kevin Folta go back several years.  The backstory is that I used to be an anti-GMO blogger and thought I was helping to save the world from what I perceived at the time to be laboratory-concocted-franken-organisms that were wiggling around in our food and sure to be the reason for the so-called proliferation of modern illness.

My brother had just died of brain cancer and I was in a vulnerable place, grieving, looking for answers, and I wanted to stand for something.  My generalized fear of GMOs, the case for labeling and the 2012 California Prop 37 campaign all converged at just the right time and I jumped into blog activism with both feet.

After several months of being a good soldier for the cause – quoting the likes of Vendana Shiva, Jeffrey Smith and, admittedly, even the Mercola website, after copying and pasting anti-GMO memes and expounding on the evils of this technology and the call for labeling, I came in direct contact with Dr. Folta.  I never expected to make his acquaintance, it just sort of happened.  A blog comment here, an email there turned into spirited communication between the two of us.   And I’m ever so grateful it happened that way.

The thing that Dr. Folta did was engage me on an individual level – meaning he took the time to chat with me over email and appeal to my sense of reason and intellect.  He wondered was I open-minded enough to examine the facts as I went on with my tirades against crop genetic modification.  Was I truly willing to look at what the evidence showed?

In short, yes I was.

He answered very specific questions I had – about Roundup Ready seeds, glyphosate resistance, the Bt trait, anything I asked him.  (Our three-part Q & A is here, here & here).  He challenged my way of thinking in a profound way – like a bug crawling around in my ear.  It was annoying!  I disliked him at first, thought he was way too bold and had a lot of nerve.

I could have ignored what he had to say of course.  I don’t have a background in science and I could have chosen to believe the maverick group of scientists out there who believe there are dangers with GMOs – as opposed to the tens of thousands who steadfastly agree that the evidence shows – the data shows – no more dangers with GMOs than other breeding methods.  I was beginning to experience an internal shift while I pivoted – my mind opening.  What exactly were the sources of data that showed GMOs were harmful?  When I looked beyond the one-click, fear peddling websites, I realized that the sources I was trusting were not credible.

The vast preponderance of molecular biologists and geneticists worldwide, the learned group of experts who work with this branch of science in laboratories every day, know the exact mechanisms whereby genetic modification, or transgenic technology, is realized and much to my surprise, none of it scares them.  Why?  Because they understand the process.  Knowledge takes us out of a fear state.  These scientists, Folta included, are in fact excited and see a future rife with possibilities for advantageous use of the technology.

Even more profound than all of that though was what Dr. Folta taught me about personal beliefs.  And this has changed my life in more ways that just how I feel about GMOs.  He was able to steer me round to recognizing that long held beliefs aren’t facts.  They feel like and inform our decisions very much like facts but they are not facts.

This was a huge realization – absolutely monumental.  As human beings we are inclined to treat our beliefs as facts to the point of refusing to accept any information to the contrary, even if it is true and correct.  Look no further than fundamental religious faith and fanaticism for a perfect example of this phenomenon.

Regarding GMOs, much to my embarrassment I realized I had jumped on a fervent bandwagon, one that was fast becoming elevated to cult status and worst of all, I had no idea what I was talking about.  I was a fear-mongering fanatic and I was flat out wrong.  I did some deep inner reflecting, some serious soul searching and realized I had to change my position.  There was nothing else I could do.  Peruse this blog and you will see the whole story unfold through my posts.  I left all of it as a testament to my journey.

Well, fast forward a few years and the public debate rages on.  I have been hated by anti-GMO types ever since.  They think Monsanto pays me (in addition to the additional tens of thousands of scientists, farmers and others worldwide who speak in favor of GMOs – here a shill, there a shill, everywhere a shill-shill).  They think I am evil, a traitor, stupid, duped, naive and should stick to music and humanities (what I studied in college) and get out of the health blog business (which is no business as I am entirely volunteer).  They stop at nothing to discredit and hurl insults at me.

In recent months though, something much more sinister has been going on.  Certain organized factions of this general pool of GMO haters have carried out what amounts to a witch hunt against Dr. Folta – and it just gets uglier and more ridiculous.  (Read details here.)  Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the right-to-know folks have demanded he turn over all his university emails that fall within the agribusiness category since 2012.  They are looking for financial ties to biotech – namely – Monsanto so they can self-righteously scream “see he is paid to say what he says!”  These groups are sure that Folta and his peers are industry lackeys, paid to lie about GMOs, paid to deceive and deliberately withhold the real truth.

Dr. Folta has always claimed to be a public scientist under no organization or business authority.  He has repeatedly insisted that he is independent, only about the science, and has in recent years taken to many out-reach endeavors to spread the message of science and how it can benefit mankind.  He posts regularly in his popular blog called Illumination.  He enjoys showing kids his experiments with light and strawberries and is willing to go out of his way if it means educating even just one person (I am a perfect example of this.)

It has been my observation as I’ve become more acquainted with him over time that he works tirelessly, is as dedicated to his work as is humanly possible, is not particularly fond of big business, is actually for the little guy and mom and pop businesses and most of all, wants people to know what he knows – that this fear of transgenic technology, of GMOs, is unfounded.  The data is just not there to support the fear.

But there are still those that seek to ruin this man because what he teaches is in direct contrast to their beliefs so they will not accept it, much like fundamentalist Christians won’t accept that evolution happened.  Through the FOIA inquiries, both Dr. Folta and the Universtiy of Florida have been subjected to time consuming, tedious examinations of electronic correspondence, not to mention what has been spent in lawyer fees.  Your tax money at work!

So, did the haters find their smoking gun? I’m sure they will say they did, in the form of a 25K grant from Monsanto to the University of Florida for science outreach.  This is not and never was personal income to Dr. Folta.  This grant equates to some travel expenses and speaking engagement fees.  Hardly making him rich and certainly not worth lying for because a scientist lives on his or her reputation! But in light of this so-called ‘find’ – these GMO haters think they’ve turned the tables on Dr. Folta.

Because my blog refers to him a lot I’m getting snarky comments that now we know what a shill he really is and so on.  Well, I hate to burst the bubble of you haters out there but the university gave the Monsanto money to charity.  Yes, you heard me.  Because of the continuing harassment, that was the preferable choice.

Recently I contacted Folta and asked for a statement about where things stood with the Monsanto grant.  Here was his reply, and his frustration is noted.  Emphasis is mine:

The shill gambit is a simple way to discredit those that speak language incompatible with the cult’s beliefs.

The donation came to support a science communication outreach program.   Nothing went to me personally.  My program was the same before, during, and now after the funding period, so their donation had zero effect on the content.  They didn’t control the message.   I would not let that happen.

After the endless distortions, online reputation destruction and threats to my lab and home, the university transferred the donation from the communications program to a campus food pantry.

So no funds from Monsanto, in fact, once the university defunded the program I now have a $11,000 deficit. 

Before the Monsanto support I paid for the program sort of personally.  Speaker fees, honoraria, etc all went into the outreach program.  These were fees from $500-$5000 that could have been personally absorbed, but instead were put into communications outreach. 

The company did nothing wrong.  I did nothing wrong.  I’m teaching science that the cult does not want taught, as it costs them market share and treads on their beliefs.

They’d rather trash the career of a scientist dedicated to public outreach and public science for 30 years, than to actually learn the science.

Also, from his blog, read his Q & A about agribusiness monies here.

So on that night in January, Dr. Folta and I downed a few of Oregon’s finest craft beers.  We talked about our families, about how we all might meet again in a social way and wouldn’t that be fun.  We talked about his unceasing commitment to science education.  I thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent together and feel lucky to have met him face to face.  He probably doesn’t even know what a fan of his I really am!

When someone teaches you something profound, you don’t ever forget it.  I can count on one hand those teachers in my life who changed me.  They are so very special to me and I can only hope I have had a similar effect on even one person in my lifetime.

Julee K/Sleuth4Health

Addendum:

Well, I used to teach music to children so here you go – my expertise unleashed!  And of course, Monsanto pays them ALL – with full benefits and a 401k.  (For those who may not be in on the joke, this is satire)

This post was updated at 1:56 PDT on 9/9/2015 and again at 10:32 on 9/10/2015

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Show “The Doctors” Has Hint of Rationality Regarding Glyphosate (Roundup)

Dr. Travis Stork via his twitter account

Earlier this week I was putzing around my house in the afternoon with the TV blaring to keep me company and ABC’s show The Doctors came on.  I’ve always put this show, perhaps mistakenly, in the same category as Dr. Oz, mainly because these types of shows come off, to me anyway, as generally somewhat annoying, dumbed down and clearly targeted to a demographic of which I am not a part (so I’d like to hope, anyway).  I didn’t pay much attention to it until a segment begin to air about glyphosate, the most commonly used herbicide used worldwide (see videos below).

My first thought was, oh, here we go, more Roundup slamming, more Monsanto bashing.  More hysteria.  More fear.  The latest I have heard concerning the ongoing glyphosate saga is that it will cause half our children to have autism by 2025, or something close to that, and other such hyperbole.

Let me be clear, I’m not trying to defend Roundup in this post.  To me, it is a tool farmers and home gardeners use and its benefits outweigh its risks.  That’s it.  I’m not in love with the stuff.  I myself use Roundup, or more often than not, off-brand generic copies of Roundup to spot treat certain pesky weeds in my yard that are difficult to remove any other way, such as when they grow amongst thick, desirable ground covers or are otherwise hard to dig up.  But suffice it to say, I am judicious with my use of Roundup or any other herbicide.

So my sudden focus on the show’s segment about glyphosate was more about the mechanism of how hysteria spreads than the actual topic – if that makes sense (I hope it does.) My interest was piqued – so I watched.

First they mentioned how The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency under the umbrella of the World Health Organization (WHO), recently reported that glyphosate could cause cancer in humans.  It is important to note that never did the report state that it does cause cancer in humans.  See this recent Round Up Risk and Assessment article in the New Yorker for more explanation of the IARC report and its implications.

Unfortunately, to just say something could cause cancer really scares a lot of people who don’t have the science background to understand the mechanism involved, where the data came from, how the conclusion was reached and so forth.

Toxicologist tells it like it is

The first guest was Dr. Donna Farmer, a toxicologist from the Product safety Center at Monsanto.  Her job is to study the safety of Monsanto products.  Specifically, she has studied glyphosate throughout her tenure at the much maligned company.  She calmly informed everyone that she was a mom too and stated that:  “I’ve been a scientist at Monsanto for twenty years and this (glyphosate) has been the molecule that I’ve studied all of those years and I’m absolutely confident of the data behind it”.

She went on to mention a recent German study* (see below for excerpt and commentary) that found NO link between glyphosate and cancer and later adds, “I understand why everyone is concerned.  There is a lot of confusion.  There is a lot of misinformation on the internet but I will tell you, and I mean this very honestly – I am extremely, highly confident in this product, as a mom, and then I can back it up as a scientist.”

Seriously – this woman could be my neighbor.  She isn’t some coy Monsanto lab rat cooking up poison.  I have said many times in this blog that I tend to believe scientists because they are experts in their field, just as I believe my hair stylist, my plumber, my auto mechanic because they too are experts in their field. To be at the doctoral level in any discipline requires years and years upon more years of concentrated study, effort and dogged determination.  It defies logic that after all those years of painstaking work to earn and keep current the highest academic credential, that a scientist would then make stuff up, or hide stuff, or tell bold-faced lies.

Yes, even if this scientist works for Monsanto.  What does one suppose she has done for the past 20 years in her lab?  Research lies and conduct fake experiments?

The whole everyone-who-doesn’t-hate-Monsanto-is-a-shill mentality belongs, in my opinion in the conspiracy theory hall of fame.  I understand that, yes, there have been a handful of crazy, malevolent scientists out there throughout history and bad things have resulted.  But for the most part I don’t equate science with crazy.  Knowledge tends to set one free from the crazy – unless maybe one is mentally ill or something unfortunate like that, but I saw nothing in Farmer that would make me think she were anything other than a highly intelligent, skilled and productive citizen. Bottom line:  Scientists who work for companies are hired because of the knowledge, skill and expertise they can bring to their job.

So Who is the real expert?

Well, then of course the segment had to feature the opposing side, the side that is telling you your sons and daughters are going to all get autism and any and all disease by such and such a date due to glyphosate.  None other than Jeffrey Smith of the Institute for Responsible technology came on the show.  He popped up on screen and gave his spiel about the evils of glyphosate.

It kills me that he is always introduced as some kind of “expert” when, in fact, he has NO science credential whatsoever.  (In fact, a serious case could be made that he has quite unfairly targeted the biotech industry due to his spiritual beliefs, but that’s another post…)

Anyway, vast amounts of unsuspecting folks, including yours truly back before I knew better, have listened to and been highly influenced by this guy and to be sure, most of the audience and even the other cohosts were buying it….

Until Dr. Travis Stork changed direction in the segment by saying he came from a family of farmers and that they all use herbicides and the subtext appeared to me to be that he was absolutely fine with that.  He talked about balancing the benefit versus the harm, adding that there need to be more definitive studies done.

In short, what I gleaned form his comments was that he wasn’t having any of the hype, even as perhaps his cohosts were.  Because of Dr. Stork’s comments, it was the most even-handed treatment of a controversial topic I have yet to see on daytime television. Good for you Travis! He was the one voice of reason on the show.  He admonished everyone to go read the studies for themselves.  Be informed.

The problem with laypeople looking for ‘studies’ on the internet

The only thing he forgot to mention was where to find a legitimate, respected, repeatable, peer reviewed study.  Unfortunately there is a lot of really bad science out there posing as the real deal.  Studies like the infamous Seralini’s tumorous rats fed GMO corn or so-called MIT senior scientist Stephania Seneff’s study linking glyphosate to increases in incidences of autism and other disease, etc., don’t fool the scientists, only the scientifically ignorant!  (See my post Spotting Bad Science For Dummies – Like Me.)

In the broader scientific community, junk science studies are dismissed as trash instantly because of lack of data, lack of repeatability, major problems with methodology, the fact that these types of studies are often published in journals that accept any ol’ study as long as the fee gets paid – and other glaring reasons.  Only the scientifically gullible, the irrational, the conspiracy theorists, the fear-mongers buy that Seralini, Seneff, or countless other junk study authors are legitimate – and then off they go on the internet or other media – making a big fuss and attracting more folks like themselves.

But during this episode of The Doctors, there was rationality in the form of Donna Farmer and Travis Stork.

Common sense still works

I know we all care about health.  I just wish common sense could prevail.   We don’t have to spend half our income on organic food, or maintain a constant vigilance about every last bite that goes in our mouth for fear we are being harmed in some way.

A basic, albeit old-fashioned understanding of nutrition goes a long way:  Choose a variety of foods from all the groups.  Don’t drink too much soda or eat too many sugary desserts.  Don’t smoke.  Temper your drinking.  Pre-packaged snacks, meals, dishes and desserts are quick and easy but likely full of a lot of undesirable ingredients that could be avoided if you made the food from scratch using fresh ingredients as much as possible. Common sense stuff – all of it.

~Julee K/Sleuth4Health

Here are links to the segment on The Doctors that aired on Monday, 5/19.

Does Popular Herbicide Cause Cancer?

Debating the Safety of Popular Herbicide*

Final Thoughts on the Safety of Popular Herbicide

*Excerpt comparing German study with recent IARC study on glyphosate (emphasis mine):

In the opinion of BfR, the classification of glyphosate as “carcinogenic in Group 2A” (probably

carcinogenic to humans) as published in the 20 March 2015 issue of the “Lancet” journal

comes as a surprise, since other evaluations performed by supranational bodies such as the

WHO-Panel of the Joint Meeting of Pesticide residues (JMPR, 2004), and also by national

regulatory agencies such as the U.S.EPA had concluded the contrary, i.e., that glyphosate

was not carcinogenic. Unfortunately, the database on which the IARC evaluation is based is

not known, since a background monograph that is usually produced by IARC following the

evaluation meetings has not yet been released. Therefore, a comprehensive and scientifi-

cally sound consideration of the data and arguments that led to the IARC- conclusion is sim-

ply not possible at the moment.

  Further Reading:

Medical Doctors Weigh In On Glyphosate Claims

Oh No!  GMOs Are Going To Make Everyone Autistic!

Another One Bites The Dust (Of Reason)

Bill Nye ‘the science guy’

Well, well, well, Mr. Bill Nye appears to be the latest GMOs-Are-Actually-Pretty-Neat-Come-Lately.  Welcome to the fold, Mr. Nye.  I doubt many science types are surprised that you eventually got here, even if it took you awhile.

Apparently a face-to-face encounter with Monsanto scientists was enough for the science guy to stop questioning the safety, utility and reach of GMOs.   Mr Nye, I fear you will be forever accused of having partaken of Monsanto’s kool-aid, as I was after I visited a Monsanto facility in Hawaii a few years back.  One person went so far as to insinuate that Monsanto paid for my whole Hawaii vacation.  If only!

Glad to see rationality and reason prevail here and it’s well about time. My respect for Nye is in tact.

And – is it just wishful thinking, or is Mother Jones’s Tom Philpott disguising a bit of squirm in this article?

What Did Monsanto Show Bill Nye to Make Him Fall “in Love” With GMOs?

Julee K/Sleuth4Health Related post:  Visit to Monsanto’s Piilani Farm on Maui.seems

Another Anti-GMO Scare Tactic Bites the Dust

Activist Post/http://www.activistpost.com/2013/11/journal-retraction-of-seralini-gmo

Even from the outside looking in, if you hang around the dubious controversy over GMOs long enough, you see things come full circle time and again – the most recent iteration being the retraction by the Food and Chemical Toxicology Journal of the now infamous tumorous rat study by Giles Seralini, first published in November, 2012.

This study was released right around the time I was in full swing as an anti-GMO spreader of nonsense.  I was two months into it, fresh from Genetic Roulette and a dozen Ronnie Cummins articles.  Heck I even gave Organic Consumers Association $50.  Oh yes the rats got to me.  Oh yes they did.   How could they not?  The iconic image became the poster child for the anti-GMO movement.

The world was ruled by greedy corporate bastards who were poisoning the people who didn’t know better.  As for the people who did, well they were all under gag orders, and the ones who dared to speak up, Seralini being one, well, they were immediately disgraced by the science community, all in the name of money.

It’s all so easy to believe when one doesn’t know any better.  GMOs are the great scapegoat of the new millenium – at the root of the following:

♦ some or most of the common diseases of our modern day society [1].

♦ the great paying off, worldwide, of every government agency employee, every plant university researcher in the crop and plant science field, every journalist or blogger who considers science before regurgitating unsubstantiated claims that scare the wits out of the unsuspecting.  (Apparently Monsanto, DuPont and other major biotech companies really must control the universe because otherwise, how could they keep these tens of millions of folks on payroll and see to it they only publish/write about/vote or lobby for what is approved by said corporations?)

♦ the great silencing and intimidation of the ‘real’ plant scientists, the ones who publish singular papers in pay-to-publish journals, papers showing the horrific dangers of GMOs, papers with no follow-ups and often little or no data, papers that the tens of thousands of ‘shill’ scientists all around the world discredit.

♦ a massive corporate conspiracy to put a former or current biotech industry luminary in key government and agency positions everywhere in the world

P U H – L E E E Z !

As I wrote the above bullet points, I realized that if I didn’t know them to be true, they’d be ideal fodder for an article in an outlandish tabloid, appearing under an article that pictures a boy sheepishly grinning at his teacher – headline:  “An Alien Ate My Homework.”

I am on this tirade today because when I saw those unfortunate rats one year ago, I was deeply affected by the image [2].  It is one of those anti-GMO memes that etches itself in the minds of people and informs all thoughts afterwards.  Even if the study goes completely up in flames, which it looks like it is in the process of doing, the damage has already been done.

If Seralini’s study has any validity to it, this is what I would like to see happen.  Do it again.  Repeat the study but do it right this time.  Make it beyond reproach by your science brethren.   Instead of whining and screaming ‘foul’ to your lawyers, get some real data and show the world.

Isn’t it pretty telling that this is not his course of action, that he is indeed whining and screaming foul?  See Séralini Threatens Lawsuit In Wake Of Retraction Of Infamous GMO Cancer Rat Study.

As an outsider looking in, one thing I have observed over and over again is that good, credible, cutting edge science draws a crowd.  Who wouldn’t want to be a part of a study with such monumental implications? Seralini should have molecular geneticists, crop scientists and plant biologists from far and wide breaking down his door to get in on this.

We’ll see.

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Addendum:  I am not so naive as to think this ‘study’ will go away.  Troops will rally around their fallen comrade and preach ever so much more fervently.  The conspiracy theory, the Monsanto white-washing of science, blah blah blah – all will explode among activists but this nugget of truth will still shine like a beacon.

Julee K/Sleuth4Health

email:  sleuth4health@gmail.com

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[1] See Samsel, Seneff et al, also heavily criticized by mainstream science

[2] I feel I must be fair, fess up, and say that even when I first saw the Seralini study and its disturbing images, I was one part skeptical, albeit a small part.  Obviously I must have been skeptical all along when I was anti-GMO or I never could have changed my biotechnology tune so abruptly as I did last April.  I do remember thinking, well if GM corn is doing this to rats, why aren’t we all walking around with bulbous growths sticking out of our necks?  That was one of MANY issues I had with the movement.  See my last post, Interview with Green State TV.

Shill Schmill

photo credit: pluperfecter.blogspot.com

You can’t have a blog without the appearance of trolls [1].  Even if they don’t comment on your blog directly, you see them tearing you down when you comment elsewhere.  I have experienced this enough times now to realize it is unavoidable.   Speak your mind and someone’s going to speak theirs and it won’t be pretty.  I’m not referring to people who simply have differing opinions than my own.  I am referring to people who are just plain mean.

So I’m going to allow myself a short rant in this post.

I don’t care how many times I am accused, I am still not a biotech industry shill.  Not for Monsanto.  Not for DuPont.  Not for any of them.  No, I have no background in science and I am quite forthcoming about that.  That doesn’t mean I’m stupid or incapable of writing about GMOs.  My opinion of GMOs comes from my head-on collision with reason, critical thinking and science, period.

The top spokesperson for the anti-GMO movement is a levitating ballroom dancer.  What credentials does Jeffrey Smith have that I don’t have?  I have cited mainstream science multiple times in my blog.  Jeffrey Smith, though a well-meaning person I’m sure, has cited fringe, highly questionable and certifiably psuedo-science.

What I do have, even with my music and humanities background, is an open mind, an inquisitive mind and a discerning mind.  Eventually, I’m going to identify horse puckey when it’s there.  No disrespect intended, but the anti-GMO movement is buried in it and I don’t have tall enough boots.

Most people reading this already agree with me, but I am regularly slammed, if not here, elsewhere in the cyberworld, with this accusation of being a shill, underqualified to talk about GMOs or of limited intelligence.  And it’s just TIRING.

Is it somehow inconceivable that I could be an individual not trammeled by prevailing winds?

When I was in third grade my teacher wrote that I was an independent thinker in the comment section of my report card.

Thanks Mrs. Smith.  You were an encouraging teacher.

Julee K @ Sleuth4Health

email:  sleuth4health@gmail.com

This article was updated on July 22 at 10:00 PST.

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[1] Here is a link to a great post that describes the different kinds of trolls:  Six Special Breeds of Trolls

Visit to Monsanto Piilani Farm on Maui

Part One of Three/Biotech in Hawaii

Some of my readers may already know that I recently spent nine glorious days on the beautiful island of Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. In addition to the scuba diving, snorkeling and general ocean frolicking that my husband and I engaged in, we also lucked into a private tour of the Monsanto Piilani farm and plant breeding facility in Kihei which is on the Southwestern side of the island.  Coincidentally, the place turned out to be literally up the street from our condo.

I’m not gonna lie, there was definitely a time when I would not have set foot on a Monsanto property, let alone toured it.  More than likely I would have stormed the parking lot waving some kind of skull and crossbones sign.

Or I might have once imagined wild-haired scientists wearing Monsanto embroidered lab coats inside such a facility – monitoring test tubes and petri dishes, bra-ha-ha-ing as they discovered yet more ways to take over the world’s food supply and poison us – all the while raking in billions.

I was quite relieved to find that what is actually going on at the roughly 300-acre plot of gently sloping, rocky land with a stunning ocean view is neither malevolent, mysterious nor dangerous.

Let me tell you about it!

David Stoltzfus & Carol Reimann

After parking our rental car and signing in at the front office, my husband, Kent, and I were warmly greeted by Carol Reimann, community affairs manager, and David Stoltzfus, Maui site leader.  I felt welcome and at ease as Carol and David led us into a conference room for the first segment of our tour.

Being the only two visitors in attendance, the room felt much too big as we sat down to watch a PowerPoint presentation covering general Monsanto history and operations followed by more Hawaii-specific topics.

Here is a little Monsanto history:

In 2000, the original Monsanto chemical company, you know, infamous for their role in the use of DDT, Agent Orange, PCBs, entered into a merger and changed its name to Pharmacia, which is now a subsidiary of Pfizer. (Click here for information about Monsanto’s relationship to other companies.) Soon after, a new Monsanto Company was born with interests focused solely on agriculture.  It is the new Monsanto that is in operation today.

As for Monsanto’s operations in Hawaii, they started when the once thriving sugar industry collapsed in the mid 1990s.  The land either reverted to the state or was held privately and leased to the ‘Big Six’ biotech companies:  Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, Pioneer (DuPont), BASF and Bayer.  Hawaii is a superior location for plant breeding research due to its being in the US and having a year round growing season.  Three to four growing cycles occur in a single year thereby greatly reducing the time needed to get new seeds to worldwide markets. Though only Monsanto operates on Maui, it and the other five have similar research facilities on other islands as well.

Had I been able to get to Kauai, I would have responded to another offer I received to tour a BASF facility!

After the slide show, the four of us packed into the front and back seats of a pick up that could have been any farm truck in rural America.  Mud on the sideboards.  Dust on the dash.  David wore jeans and a golf shirt and sort of looked like a scientist-turned-farmer.  Carol looked chic in an above-knee knit skirt and stiletto pumps.

As we lumbered uphill to our first stop, the discussion centered around Monsanto’s complicated history and how the company’s public image is so tarnished. Carol admitted that when Monsanto broke free from the chemical side of their operations, they should have changed their company name because doing that alone would have likely reduced a large amount of the flack they are still getting about the original Monsanto’s much maligned chemical past.

I then asked the following: “What if Monsanto and the whole biotech industry had done a massive education project when GE foods were first introduced so that people could have learned the benefits early on, thus avoiding learning about GMOs after the fact and being so angry.  Do you think that would have helped?” Carol and David indicated that perhaps that would also have helped.

David holding a corn seed bag. Front and back show stacked traits engineered into seed.

Carefully coded baby corn plants

The farm tour commenced and we stopped at several locations on the property, beginning with the greenhouse (left).

Plants here are labeled with a barcode for whatever trait has been engineered into the seed.  Constant, strict dlligence in the handling of these barcodes must be maintained.

Young plants in marked rows.

Next we proceeded to where young plants had been recently placed in rows, still marked individually with barcodes but now part of rows or sections indicated by colored flags.  These flags mark what traits are being tested in larger areas.  For example, a blue flag might indicate that a row is to be sprayed with a certain pesticide to confirm if plants are indeed resistant to that pesticide.

Same barcode and test process, bigger plants

Seed room. Machines such as this help to keep them all correctly coded and sorted.

We moved on to the seed room (below).  This was a curious room containing rows and rows of small sacks with corn seeds in them.  To me, they looked like small bags of popcorn.  Of course, each and every bag must receive a barcode sticker that represents DNA traits.  The machine in the picture does its part to ensure that human error in sorting and coding the seeds will not be a factor.

David paused the tour to see if I had more questions or if there was something else I wanted to see on the property.  As I often do in situations like this, I blanked, so I asked him what questions other people asked and what they wanted to see.  He told me it depends.  Farmers want to see the farm equipment.  Kids want to see the robotics.

Robotics!  Yes, by all means, I wanted to see the robotics.

Filled seed tray that may only contain as few as ten seeds that carry a desired DNA trait.

The final stop was a fitting grand finale.  In this room, I met the off-loader and learned about the significant relationship between this robotic machine and its cohort back at the Monsanto Headquarters in St. Louis, the chipper.

The bags of seeds sorted in the seed room are sent off to St. Louis coded with the trait in question.  Once in St. Louis, they are put into a tray like what you see above.  The chipper then chips a tiny fragment of seed to be used for DNA testing, also done by machine.  Meanwhile, the entire filled tray gets sent back to Maui.  By the time the tray arrives, the DNA will have been analyzed on all the chips, sent electronically back to the off-loader in Maui and it will be known exactly which seeds contain the desired traits.

Rack of seed trays

It is then that the robotic off-loader (below) stealthily hovers over the seed tray and in one fell swoop, extracts the wanted seeds. The seeds that don’t “pass muster” are discarded while those that do are then replanted in the greenhouse and the cycle starts anew.

The all-knowing robotic off-loader

Overall, my take on the Piilani plant breeding operation was that it was extremely thorough, testing seeds and plants over and over and over again, and at every stage of development.  It was efficient though not overly high tech, and in the end, miraculously capable of breeding corn seeds that are used all over the world.

I’d like to thank Carol and David again, and also Renee Kester, who, from the island of Kauai, reached out to me and played a major role in getting this all set up.

I enjoyed a pleasant, informative afternoon at Monsanto’s Piilani Farm!

~Julee K @ Sleuth 4 Health

email:  sleuth4health@gmail.com

This post was updated at 7:25, PST

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I plan to write a follow-up article to this one very soon.  Once I have gathered the additional information I need, the article will focus more on the controversies of having biotech on the beautifully unique and isolated Hawaiian islands.

Given the growing hullabaloo over biotech in Hawaii, I will offer my opinion in advance that there are far worse threats to this paradise than plant breeding research.

My Biotech Weekend

Brunching with Janice (right)

Leaving soon for Maui but had to do one last post…

Awhile back I received an email from Janice Person, the Monsanto social media gal whom many of you know.  She was coming to Portland in late June and wanted to know if we could meet up for lunch.  She admitted that it might be surprising for me to receive such an email from a Monsanto employee but would I consider meeting her?  She also said that she would totally understand if I was not comfortable.

At the time I received her email, I was coming around about GMOs, realizing that they were not dangerous like all the activist literature had said they were, but my feelings about Big Ag, Monsanto and the like, those views were more complicated to sort through.  Nonetheless I agreed to meet with her.

This weekend it happened.  We were scheduled to meet Saturday night shortly after her flight arrived.  I was ready to sit down and have a beer with a Monsanto employee.  Woo hoo!  As luck would have it, her flight was delayed until the wee small hours, so we didn’t meet until Sunday brunch.  No, I didn’t order a beer but I did right by Portland and ordered coffee and Janice and I sat down to lunch and got acquainted.  She is as nice as they come.

Full disclosure:  Monsanto bought my lunch via Janice, which I appreciate.  That doesn’t, however, make me a Monsanto shill.  I would need a heck of a lot more than lunch to be a shill!

She is the first person I have actually met face to face since I started on my new journey of following science.  I realize now that a community has begun to form around this endeavor.  Janice informed me of a very irreverent facebook group that’s sole purpose is to poke fun at anti-GMO activists and so I went there, joined, and was welcomed – um, rather irreverently, but welcomed nonetheless.

To add to the fun and as fate would have it, on Monday I taped an interview via Skype with Rick at Green State TV, or GSTV, an internet media outlet focused on agriculture and the environment sponsored by another major biotech company, Syngenta.  When the video becomes available, I will post it.

If you would have asked me in, say, January, if I’d be eating brunch with a Monsanto employee on Sunday and doing an interview with a Syngenta employee on Monday I would have said you were out of your mind!

~Julee K