Forbes Fired Pro-Monsanto Writer for Publishing Article Ghostwritten by Monsanto

Pro-Monsanto advocate Henry Miller was fired from his position at Forbes last year after it was discovered that his articles were actually ghostwritten by Monsanto.

According to the New York Times, “Henry I. Miller, an academic and a vocal proponent of genetically modified crops, asked Monsanto to draft an article for him that largely mirrored one that appeared under his name on Forbes’s website in 2015. Mr. Miller could not be reached for comment.”

Monsanto even influences academic research. The same NYT article states that “A similar issue appeared in academic research. An academic involved in writing research funded by Monsanto, John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee, appeared to express discomfort with the process, writing in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, ‘I can’t be part of deceptive authorship on a presentation or publication.” He also said of the way the company was trying to present the authorship: “We call that ghost writing and it is unethical.'”

“All contributors to Forbes.com sign a contract requiring them to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and only publish content that is their own original writing,” Mia Carbonell, a Forbes spokeswoman, said in a statement in the same NYT article. “When it came to our attention that Mr. Miller violated these terms, we removed his blog from Forbes.com and ended our relationship with him.”

Pro-Monsanto advocates claim that those who question the ethics of the agri-chemical giant are proponents of “pseudoscience.”

Of course, there are those who, when criticizing Monsanto, resort to baseless, unsubstantiated claims, but let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater and dismiss all the factual evidence against Monsanto, such as the research conducted by the World Health Organization, as well as the company’s history of producing chemical weapons such as white phosphorous that was used by the U.S. against Iraq and Afghanistan and by Israel against Gaza and South Lebanon.

Shouldn’t the term “pseudoscience” also be applied to companies like Monsanto who unethically manipulate academic research as well as media reporting via ghostwriting?

While Monsanto claims that Miller’s article was an op-ed (Miller was also one of the main voices used in the No on 37 campaign in California) and not a scientific journal, making their ghostwriting ethically sound, that doesn’t answer Mr. Acquavella’s discomfort at Monsanto’s unethical tactics in influencing academic research.

Miller was also claiming to be a Stanford University professor or staff member during the No on 37 campaign, which caused one of the ads to be pulled due to his fraudulent credentials. The Los Angeles Times reported on this story:

The second No on 37 spot that began airing Tuesday featured an academic, identified on screen as “Dr. Henry I. Miller M.D., Stanford University, founding dir. FDA Office of Technology.” He is standing in an ornately vaulted campus walkway…

Lawyers for the Proposition 37 campaign complained to Stanford’s general counsel, noting that the Stanford ID on the screen appeared to violate the university’s policy against use of the Stanford name by consultants.

What’s more, Miller is not a Stanford professor but, rather, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank housed on the Stanford campus, the letter said.

Stanford agreed. The university, spokeswoman Lisa Lapin said, “doesn’t take any positions on candidates or ballot measures, and we do not allow political filming on campus.” The filmmakers also are removing “the campus from the background of the video,” she said.

The ad was taken down and is being edited to identify Miller as a “fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.”

Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who has a big pro-Monsanto streak, made an episode of Cosmos where he decried the corporate-government-research collusive relationship, using the example of how lead was removed from gasoline (unleaded). The government’s main science expert, according to the episode, worked for a research institution funded by the oil and lead industries, most likely through intermediaries such as the Rockefeller Foundation if I remember correctly. An intrepid independent scientist thought there was something wrong about the increased lead levels in the ocean and air, and since lead is hazardous to human health, he found that the source came from the leaded gasoline. He was mocked in the same way that people who question Monsanto’s perverse use of crony capitalism are mocked today.

The tragic irony is that with all the intimidation tactics, ad hominem derogatory personal attacks, and the litany of other logical fallacies used by pro-Monsanto advocates to silence their opposition, what they accuse their opposition of is what they themselves are guilty of: making up facts to suit their agenda.