Index
 

"Think of the internet as a weapon on the table. Either you pick it up or your competitor does, but somebody is going to get killed"  

The following articles detail a Monsanto dirty tricks campaign waged against the company's scientific and environmental critics. 

In one instance, Monsanto and its PR proxies ran a covert campaign of character assassination against two University of California, Berkeley scientists after they published research in the science journal Nature demonstrating GM contamination of Mexican maize. The campaign culminated in the journal retracting the research even though a majority of the journal's own peer reviewers did not support such a retraction.

In another instance, Monsanto's poison pen campaign triggered a libel case that reached the High Court in London. The campaign of smears, involving cyberattacks posted on messageboards, listservs and front websites, it emerges, involved the direct participation not only of Monsanto's Washington based PR firm - The Bivings Group - but of Monsanto itself.

THE COVERT BIOTECH WAR
The battle to put a corporate GM padlock on our foodchain is being fought on the net - The Guardian, 19 November 2002

MONSANTO PR FIRM'S ADMISSION
The Bivings Group says e-mail was sent by someone "working for Bivings" or "clients using our services"

NEWSNIGHT
Newsnight on the Bivings campaign - BBC TV's Newsnight, 7 June 2002

CORPORATE PHANTOMS
There's a web of deceit over GM food, says George Monbiot - The Guardian, 29 May 2002

NEW SCIENTIST'S SPECIAL INVESTIGATION
New Scientist on the Bivings campaign - 15 June 2002

THE FAKE PERSUADERS
Corporations are inventing people to rubbish their opponents on the internet, says George Monbiot - The Guardian, 14 May 2002

SCIENTISTS IN A SPIN
How scientists have become embroiled in a PR dirty tricks campaign - letter to The Guardian, 16 May 2002

KERNELS OF TRUTH
Virulent criticisms were anything but academic - The East Bay Express, 29 May 2002

AMAIZING DISGRACE
A dirty tricks campaign leads straight to the door of  Monsanto's PR company - The Ecologist, May 2002

SEEDS OF DISSENT
Anti-GM scientists are facing widespread assualts on their credibility. Andy Rowell investigates who is behind the attacks - Big Issue, 15-21 April 2002 

ALTERING NATURE
Exchange of letters with the editor of the science journal Nature - The Guardian, 15, 20 & 24 May 2002
 

NGIN HOMEPAGE