Monsanto’s smear merchant, the Genetic Literacy Project, is now Bayer’s bully
By Jonathan Matthews,
GMWatch
| 08. 31. 2022
Recently the Genetic Literacy Project has been heavily targeting critics of the herbicide Roundup, now owned by Bayer, with a barrage of articles, podcasts, and tweets, in which the controversial University of Florida scientist Kevin Folta has been much to the fore.
It all started when the Guardian published a piece by the award-winning journalist Carey Gillam on a CDC study showing the prevalence in urine samples in the US of Roundup’s controversial active ingredient glyphosate, which has been linked to cancer.
Kevin Folta led the charge for the GLP with a piece that labelled the Guardian article the latest example of “yellow journalism” (i.e. lurid, sensationalist reporting), not to mention “deceptive journalism”, by “scientifically illiterate journalists”. Folta then gave over a further three paragraphs to attacking Gillam personally and outlining his version of her “ethically questionable history”. This somehow failed to mention that, among other things, she won a Society of Environmental Journalists’ book award or that her former colleagues at Reuters say she is “an exceptional journalist” who produces “impeccably reported” stories.
“Slimeball tactics”
The GLP, which has...
Related Articles
Several recent Biopolitical Times posts (1, 2, 3, 4) have called attention to the alarmingly rapid commercialization of “designer baby” technologies: polygenic embryo screening (especially its use to purportedly screen for traits like intelligence), in vitro gametogenesis (lab-made eggs and sperm), and heritable genome editing (also termed embryo editing or reproductive gene editing). Those three, together with artificial wombs, have been dubbed the “Gattaca stack” by Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency company...
By Lucy Tu, The Guardian | 11.05.2025
Beth Schafer lay in a hospital bed, bracing for the birth of her son. The first contractions rippled through her body before she felt remotely ready. She knew, with a mother’s pit-of-the-stomach intuition, that her baby was not ready either...
By Emily Glazer, Katherine Long, Amy Dockser Marcus, The Wall Street Journal | 11.08.2025
For months, a small company in San Francisco has been pursuing a secretive project: the birth of a genetically engineered baby.
Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup—called...
By Robyn Vinter, The Guardian | 11.09.2025
A man going by the name “Rod Kissme” claims to have “very strong sperm”. It may seem like an eccentric boast for a Facebook profile page, but then this is no mundane corner of the internet. The group where Rod...
