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Sunday's letters: Public's right to data on GMOs

 
Published Sept. 18, 2015

Scientists worry about the spiral of silence | Sept. 13, Perspective

Public has right to accurate data

We agree with University of Florida vice president Jack Payne that land grant universities play an important role in communicating science. The problem comes when science is boiled down to talking points drafted by public relations firms for the benefit of corporations that give large sums of money to the university.

A recent New York Times story, based in part on emails obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests filed by U.S. Right to Know, revealed a previously undisclosed $25,000 Monsanto grant to UF professor Kevin Folta. (UF later donated the money to a food pantry.) But the grant is just a small part of the story.

The emails show that Monsanto and its PR firm assigned papers to Folta, wrote draft text for him, organized lobby trips and set up reporter meetings — all while presenting him as an "independent" expert.

Folta repeatedly denied having ties to Monsanto or having accepted funds from Monsanto.

The documents posted by the New York Times further reveal that the University of Florida is a major beneficiary of funds from the agrichemical industry. The university's 2013 "Honor Roll of Donors" includes Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF and Pioneer Hi-Bred (total donations exceeding $12 million).

Do these donations have anything to do with Payne's vigorous defense of Folta, and their eagerness to promote genetically modified organisms?

Early evidence from our FOIA requests suggests that the supposed scientific "consensus" about GMOs is a fiction created by industry and advanced by scientists who are financed by them. The public has a right to know what's going on and a right to accurate information — including the truth about the lack of scientific agreement about the benefits and risks of GMOs — from the taxpayer-funded academics who are entrusted to communicate with us about science.

Stacy Malkan, U.S. Right to Know, Oakland, Calif.

Private meetings taint zoning vote Sept. 15, letter

Council heeds residents

This letter criticized the decision of the Tampa City Council in rejecting the Grand Central project. The council members should be praised and applauded for listening to the concerns of their constituents and supporting their legitimate request. That is what a public hearing is about.

The members of the council are pledged to serve the voters' interests. There is no "tainting" in meeting with the people you represent to hear their concerns and point of view.

We are all in favor of economic growth and prosperity, but not at the expense of property owners and communities. The city staff do their best to study the statutes and regulations to make recommendations, but they do not gauge the implications of their decisions on the owners and community. Elected council members are in a better position to be sensitive to the concerns of the people they represent.

Ismail Kazem, Tampa

Schools' plight reviewed | Sept. 16

Record of indifference

It appears that the Times reporters did the job that the School Board members should have done years ago. That is, to spend a lot of personal time at those schools gathering firsthand information. I'm not saying that the board members don't visit schools, but in my 37 years of teaching, their handful of visits were always announced. This, of course, gave the schools time to prepare and put on a good front. On our worst days we teachers would jokingly say that the board members should substitute in one of the challenging classrooms for a week to see how it really is.

It is hard to take a board member seriously who says this is all "sensationalism" when I can honestly count on one hand the number of times she visited the south Pinellas County school where I taught for all those years.

Change will only come when enough people feel the full brunt of the problem. Presently, the teachers are the only ones who must live every single school day with the duties of confronting these problems.

Alan Mowry, St. Pete Beach

Trapped in Syria | Sept. 16

Lessons of history

Reading about the refugee crisis gripping Europe, I couldn't help but be reminded of an earlier situation affecting the same area in 1956. The abortive Hungarian Revolution against the Soviet Union forced more than 200,000 to flee to safety. Most of those displaced by the fighting found refuge in neighboring countries where memories were still fresh among the millions who were forced from their homes by the fighting in World War II.

The United States took in some 80,000 Hungarians. Most of them passed through Camp Kilmer, N.J., where my father — who had years before immigrated to the United States himself — was one of the American soldiers assigned to help process them. They stayed in the barracks and ate Army food until they could be relocated to sponsoring families and organizations. Most were away from Camp Kilmer and starting to build new lives within only a few months.

Some years later, the CIA revealed it had selected and interviewed more than 3,000 Hungarians and collected invaluable intelligence on the Soviets. It was not only useful from a military perspective, but effective in documenting the brutality that marked the Soviet presence in Hungary. The CIA also crunched the numbers and found that 83 percent of all the refugees were under age 40, had an average of 10 years of education, and were "engaged primarily in nonagricultural enterprises."

Now, however, some are worried that 10,000 Syrian refugees already being screened for entry into the United States will cost taxpayers too much, pose a security threat and be a burden. I think that our national experience and common sense suggest otherwise. By all indications, the Syrians are also looking for work in stable places that will let them contribute to society. Aren't we all?

Roger Crescentini Sr., Tampa