Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we now know the extent to which U.S. academics have been quietly supporting the food giant’s propaganda.
Source: The True Inside Story of How a College Professor Sells Out to Monsanto
I believe our academic system in the US is broken.
I have a PhD in Microbiology. I have been in these very research labs where the professors take secret money. The more money the professors take to secretly promote industry and special interests, the more powerful they are in their Departments. The more money, the more powerful the department is in the university structure. The more powerful, the more they can suppress true intellectual dissension.
The industry money in academia is mind numbing. I truly believe that there is no pure science anymore. The amusing thing is that I got my PhD in Microbiology from ….
You guessed it. The institution described above — The University of Illinois.
I speak in other places on this website about research that was done showing that some of the agrochemicals sprayed on plants are converted into more potent human toxins and carcinogens then the original chemicals.
What I don’t say, is that my wife was an undergraduate at The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign doing some of this research. The agrochemicals are absorbed by the plant, and then the plant tissue metabolizes these chemicals into higher level toxins — in the plant itself. You can’t wash it off.
She brought home, and was very proud of the published papers describing her research. And I still have them. Yet they have vanished online. They were not discredited. They were not proven incorrect. They vanished.
During my PhD work, I was absolutely hammered professionally and socially for suggesting that my major professor was misrepresenting the data I, and some of the other researchers, in his lab were producing. He tried to block me from registering for classes, he tried to block me from continuing my teaching assistantship (my only source of income), and worked hard to keep me from continuing with my education. I was told bluntly that I would have to “get out” of the entire program.
Fortunately, a Dean who had become involved in the process of throwing me out became concerned about all the information the Department had withheld from him. So, 99% because of him and 1% by keeping my mouth 100% shut, I was able to continue and complete my degree. But the money and politics of big business in academia will destroy this country if it hasn’t already.
Old stories probably should be treated like old dogs :-)
Bob