Nature Biotechnology, which by the name obviously supports agricultural science, has come late to the party defending scientists against the icy chill of bullying tactics by the US Right To Know organization, which is itself funded by organic food corporations and has a director that is the well-known political operative and former Clinton lawyer, Lisa Graves, behind the PR group that runs the SourceWatch advocacy site.
But it's never too late to take the correct stance.
The fact is, funding makes no difference. Washington Post is "corporate funded", as is Mother Jones, which has been the most reliable enabler for organic food lobbyists to keep their audience on message against science. Their writers all claim a "wall" between their content and the money, just like American Council on Science and Health (which Mother Jones repeatedly insists does not) has a wall between content and donors.
On Professor Kevin Folta, the biggest victim of the USRTK corporate-funded vendetta against science:
The tragedy is the harassment that he and his family have experienced in recent weeks will cause many potential researcher/communicators to duck back under the parapet.
Which is exactly the goal. US Right To Know and SourceWatch have created the kind of effect that they likely promised organic corporations (US Right To Know was the brainchild of organic corporation trade reps but Lisa Graves at SourceWatch does not disclose where her hundreds of thousands of dollars in dark money donations come from so it is difficult to know) they would create.
