The duplicate op-eds were first discovered on Twitter, not by the Gainsville Sun. The Sun should be applauded for taking down the op-eds, though.
https://twitter.com/DeficitHacks/status/398166017290956800
https://twitter.com/DeficitHacks/status/398167355424899072
While I applaud your bringing prominence to this report, this topic is hardly new. One old, yet very complete source is "Taking the Risk out of Democracy" by Alex Carey. These silly things aka think tanks, have been around for a very long time. Their product(s) has remained rather consistent with time also. The only real issue to contemplate is why does the MSM continue to give air time/ column space to these shills while University research takes a back seat?
The month for prostate cancer is November (or Movember). It's also useful for fundraising via sponsorship, google it. It does have it's own problems though, like being less about the cancer and more about the moustaches most of the time. I dunno about lung cancer.
First, how is a report commissioned by a group that's very purpose is to promote GMO labeling considered independent? In fact, a truely independent analysis, published by an organization commissioned by the state (Washington Academy of Sciences), determined that prices would in fact rise. And how can you cite studies on the effects of Bt if the companies don't allow testing on their products (a false claim by the way)?
Also, just because the No campaign was financed corporately doesn't mean it doesn't have grass root support. Plenty of physicians, scientists, and farmers threw their weight behind the No campaign because they fully believed that the initiative was poorly written and would be bad for Washingtonians. They supported the campaign through editorials and by lending their names to the coalitions, but did not need to spend the money because corporate support was there behind them.
What the author, and she is not alone, doesn't seem to understand, is that no amount of raw advertising is going to convince voters to vote for something they don't believe in. If Washington voters truly believed that putting labels on products with produced with genetic engineering would benefit them, they would have voted that way, regardless of the "corporate" money being spent to influence them. As it stands, only about 30% of voters mailed in ballots this year. Over half of them said No on I-522. This means that around 85% of voters in Washington either didn't care or actively opposed labeling.
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