A couple of years ago, I met David Zaruk at a Society for Risk Analysis meeting, where we were both presenting. I was aware of David’s blogging and investigative journalism, but meeting him gave me a greater appreciation for the breadth and depth of his work. For those of you who do not know David, he is present in cyberspace as the Risk-Monger who blogs about risk and science communications issues. His blog has featured cutting-edge exposés about the distortions in risk communications perpetuated by the advocacy of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Previously, I have recorded my objections to the intellectual arrogance of some such organizations that purport to speak on behalf of the public interest, when often they act in cahoots with the lawsuit industry in the manufacturing of tort and environmental litigation.
David’s writing on the lobbying and control of NGOs by plaintiffs’ lawyers from the United States should be required reading for everyone who wants to understand how litigation sausage is made. His series,“SlimeGate” details the interplay among NGO lobbying, lawsuit industry maneuvering, and carcinogen determinations at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The IARC, a branch of the World Health Organization, is headquartered in Lyon, France. The IARC convenes “working groups” to review the scientific studies of the carcinogencity of various substances and processes. The IARC working groups produce “monographs” of their reviews, and the IARC publishes these monographs, in print and on-line. The United States is in the top tier of participating countries for funding the IARC.
Understandably, the IARC has been concerned that the members of its working groups should be viewed as disinterested scientists. Unfortunately, this concern has been translated into an asymmetrical standard that excludes anyone with a hint of manufacturing connection, but keeps the door open for those scientists with deep lawsuit industry connections. Speaking on behalf of the plaintiffs’ bar, Michael Papantonio, a plaintiffs’ lawyer who founded Mass Torts Made Perfect, noted that “We [the lawsuit industry] operate just like any other industry.”[2]
David Zaruk has shown how this asymmetry has been exploited mercilessly by the lawsuit industry and its agents in connection with the IARC’s review of glyphosate.[3] The resulting IARC classification of glyphosate has led to a litigation firestorm and an all-out assault on agricultural sustainability and productivity.[4]
Be sure to read the Slimegate blog posts, and pass them along to your MP and MLA if you still believe in such things.
I’m convinced that the widespread anti-Monsanto social media campaign of the past few years was battlespace prep by tort lawyers intent on grooming the jury pool.
If only people were capable of logical, rational thought and were also able to discern truth from lies. Oh well, we used to be capable of such a fantastic feat, not so much anymore.
Well thanks a lot for linking to the risk-monger site. That was a rabbit hole that I spent two hours exploring! I had to come up for fresh air otherwise would have spent even more time in it. /sarc
Fascinating reading and the references provided in it are truly revealing. What is so clear is the socialist playbook applied in so many fields whether it be science, environment, social justice (whatever the hell that is), education, health care, unions, etc. It all follows the principles outlined in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals (i.e. rules for shit disturbers). I’ll have to dive back into it.
A highly recommended read.
This story appears to give credence to the old joke about 100,000,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea being A GOOD START !!!!!
With the way the crooked, greedy shysters are acting now, that is a SLOW START!
A few of the American firms make you want to wish you could reach through the screen and throttle the S.O.B. Even though Monsanto was cleared, they are still pushing to get plaintiffs to be their client and sue for using Roundup.
Highly recommended reading.
No question the whole NGO and worse the E NGO racquet is big control business. Pay us too destroy you, then pay us again. The entire AG industry has been far to passive about this insidious cancer from the Non GMO labeled salt blocks too all the other Organic gibberish spewed forth each and everyday. They should have figured it after the oil industry’s pillorying for decades. I am still waiting for the next cry of banning
“Dihydrogen Monoxide” see how well that works out.
Complete watermelons. Green on the outside, red on the inside.
As the Eagles sing in “Get Over It”
The more I think about it, Ol’ Billy was right.
We should kill all the lawyers, and kill them tonight.
Not sure who ruins more things, lawyers or progressives. Progressive lawyers, however, are a terrifying thought. Add politician to that and you got real trouble.
Yup, and as if this wasn’t bad enough, Ontario’s (Canada’s?) farm organizations have all snuggled up to the green slime.
Here’s the CFFO’s homepage: https://www.christianfarmers.org/
You won’t find much support for Monsanto there…could have been designed and edited by Greenpeace.
Hysteria pimping is a large and effective industry where, unlike any productive industry, the lazy and corrupt media direct absolutely zero skepticism.
there has been for years a campaign to demonize Monsanto, even when I was working in plastics in the 1980T’s, and then more recently to farmers who were told that Monsanto was unfair because their crops did not produce seeds. had many discussions about that
This is the difference between rule of law and rule of lawyers.
All good law codes are clear, simple, and impossible for an adult to misunderstand. No literate adult competent to stand trial at all ought to need a lawyer to represent him. The legal profession should have been made obsolete by universal literacy.
Instead, the lawyers took over the legislatures of the civilized world and discarded the clear, simple law codes of antiquity in favour of incomprehensible messes that meant whatever the highest bidder for legal services wanted it to mean.
(Some compare it to computer code—no doubt the sort the spaghetti code outsourced to hacks in India that any competent programmer would be ashamed to upload.)
Meanwhile, those who cannot afford millions of dollars to pay white-shoe lawyers to make their problems go away (and whose communities are not willing to riot on their behalf) are routinely sent to prison for crimes they did not commit, robbed of the fruits of a lifetime’s labour, or both.
The term NGO means the organization is not directly controlled by the Government…. But in Canada it is Government Money that is used to fund the NGO’s agenda.. Inter-Agency funding grants and other methods
Once Government money is Granted (provided) to a NGO there is not an accounting…. In cases like religious organizations (UCC) the funds to NGO’s are a pass-through
JMHO
“The term NGO means the organization is not directly controlled by the Government…. But in Canada it is Government Money that is used to fund the NGO…”
n’jee-oh: old Sarcee word meaning “fat tick”.
Climate industrial complex.
Tort litigation complex.
Yet the only thing they ever complain about is “Bible thumpers”…. Guess they don’t like competition.
If the facts are on your side, pound the facts.
If the law is on your side, pound the law.
If you got neither, pound the table.