For decades, the leading academic and science journals respected this system. Mainstream media did so, too, understanding that information shared in peer-reviewed publications, even extraordinary claims, could be trusted. They were well-vetted and reproducible, reflecting scientific consensus.
Today, the reality is that anyone can publish just about anything and call it science.
Peer-review is no longer the gold standard preventing the spread of misinformation. Large numbers of low-quality journals now contaminate scientific literature, filled with papers making extraordinary claims with poor evidence or none at all. Mainstream media is now quick to broadcast dubious claims, compounding the growing problem of intentional disinformation undermining trust in science and government authorities. This is particularly true when it comes to food and agriculture.
Special interest groups have used these tactics to generate public fear for political gain and economic benefit. No single group has had more influence promoting such distortions than the network known as the Collegium Ramazzini, led by Boston College professor Philip Landrigan, and its “institute,” led by Fiorella Belpoggi.
The collegium has a network of dozens of academics who serve as consultants and expert witnesses to the multibillion-dollar mass tort industry, organic and natural product marketers, and mislabeled “green” NGOs, who use GMOs and pesticides as villains for profit. Belpoggi’s institute collaborates with these fellow Ramazzini researchers, litigators, and NGOs, in partnership with organizations like the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), to produce frequently misleading, often discredited, health-risk claims.
Three prime examples highlighting these abuses are GMO and pesticide claims made by Gilles-Eric Seralini, a French researcher, IARC’s Monograph 112, and the Russian-led Factor GMO “global glyphosate study.”
The claims in these cases were enabled and perpetuated by the Ramazzini network. All failed when held to peer-review standards. Nevertheless, all were widely publicized by news sources with little scrutiny for methodology flaws, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and intentionally misleading conclusions. New claims, such as recent Ramazzini-led “research” claiming herbicides used with GE crops are linked to childhood cancers and that parents should choose organic foods to avoid unknown GMO health risks, must be viewed through the lens of these past distortions.
Combined, these attacks on GMOs and pesticides have cost tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded regulatory responses and billions of dollars in economic losses to farmers and agribusiness. Worse, they have prevented the advances of modern agriculture from reaching places with growing food insecurity and where malnutrition is on the rise. The only winners have been the organic marketing and class action litigation interests, whose profits rise on Ramazzini-led claims, and political interests looking to undermine trust in democratic societies with functioning government regulatory systems.
The Seralini Affair
Gilles-Eric Seralini co-founded the anti-GMO NGO CRIIGEN with funding from Greenpeace and the EU organic industry. Greenpeace has opposed GE crops from the beginning while organic marketers profited from consumer fears about GMOs and pesticides. Seralini’s research claimed that GE feed and glyphosate harmed animals and would cause cancer in people. Splashy press releases and coordinated media hype generated public fear. But when examined by reputable experts, his work was found to be faulty and the claims were dismissed by regulators around the world. Properly conducted peer-reviewed science supported the safety of glyphosate and GM crops. Incorrect statistics, inappropriate experimental duration, and failure to report similar results in the control groups are among the many reasons the paper was retracted after publication. Coupled with his media manipulation, this affair was rightfully labelled a “failure of peer-review.”
IARC-gate
One of the more successful strategies employed in any fear campaign is to emphasize hazard instead of risk. Risk is the likelihood of a hazard causing harm. Health and safety agencies evaluate the risk of exposure to compounds while the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) evaluates only hazard.
In 2015, with the help of Ramazzini fellow Christoper Portier, the IARC Monograph program listed glyphosate and other herbicides as carcinogenic. To put that into context, having made more than 1,000 hazard evaluations, IARC has only found one agent not to be carcinogenic. The IARC herbicide conclusion was in direct opposition to that of European and other government regulators. In fact, the World Health Organization – with whom IARC affiliates – disagreed with the Monograph findings.
The IARC glyphosate declaration opened the door for U.S. tort lawyers to launch class action lawsuits resulting in multibillion-dollar court decisions. In unequivocal conflicts of interest, key members of the IARC panel – Portier among them – became paid experts in the ensuing Monsanto/Roundup trials. Portier later acknowledged under oath that he’d been a paid consultant to these litigators while influencing the IARC report.
Factor GMO Dezinformatsiya
In late 2014 a Russian-led global study on GMOs and glyphosate was announced, noting it would be co-chaired by Ramazzini Institute director Fiorella Belpoggi. For several years, this study’s promised findings were used to delay regulatory approvals and commercialization of GE crops and glyphosate. Called “Factor GMO,” the study promised to be the largest, most comprehensive, and transparent assessment ever conducted.
The only problem, there was no study. A 2018 report by veteran U.S. science journalist Dan Vergano exposed Factor GMO as a Kremlin disinformation campaign designed like other “active measures” to undermine trust in Western governments and disrupt agricultural trade to the benefit of Russian oligarchs.
March on: “The Global Glyphosate Study”
Despite the unmasking of this Ramazzini-chaired Russian charade, Belpoggi and her network didn’t flinch. Indeed, they doubled down, without any accounting for their prior complicity in political disinformation. Following discovery that the first global glyphosate and GMO study was a fraud, it reappeared as the Ramazzini crowd-funded Global Glyphosate Study. The same transparency claims and promised extraordinary results would prove Seralini and IARC health risk claims, contradicting global scientific consensus and thousands of peer-reviewed papers.
Ramazzini’s crowd-funding turned out to be nearly $1 million from tort law firms and organic marketing industry interests. Ramazzini claimed to have raised the funds from tens of thousands of grassroots supporters, but tax filings and public reports showed collegium president Landrigan helped coordinate the study and facilitated payments exceeding Ramazzini’s reported “crowd funded” income.
As with earlier campaigns, the tactics were the same. Ramazzini issued “pre-published” non-peer reviewed findings claiming GMO crops and glyphosate were tied to childhood cancers. This was timed to influence a European regulatory glyphosate reauthorization announcement. There was no peer review, no disclosure of conflicts, no time to assess quality or question motives. And like prior schemes, they delivered results; hundreds of headlines and social media attacks with dire warnings to avoid GMOs and herbicides like glyphosate.
Fool me once shame on you
When will we learn? Time and again, Ramazzini and its network of litigation consultants and paid expert witnesses produce (or promise to produce) explosive new evidence of harms from GMOs, pesticides, and other targets of tort law firms. Announcements are typically timed to have maximum political influence and minimal opportunity for scientific scrutiny. It is clear they will continue to produce ‘research’ that goes against decades of sound peer-reviewed science and global regulatory conclusions.
The rise of pseudo-science and accompanying media hype are a serious threat to science and the public’s understanding of important public health issues. As seen during the pandemic, the manufacture of doubt and fear has serious implications for public health, economic well-being, and political stability.
Carl Sagan was an exceptional science communicator. He said:
We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet few understand science and technology.
He was also credited with: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (ECREE). Special interest groups repeatedly make extraordinary claims about the ‘harms’ of pesticides and GMOs, with no evidence at all.
