Why does President Obama keep Appointing Monsanto Shills to Key Gov. Positions?

[jazzimov]

204. Several things:

First of all - I am in favor of labeling, whether it's from the Surgeon General or not. People deserve to know what they're eating. Many people (like myself) are suspicious of GMO foods and which to avoid them. I do not like extra pus in my milk and avoid rBST dairy, for instance.

Then there is this quote:

Apparently the Original Source of this information comes from a Right-Wing Nut Job

This, in itself, makes the writing suspect - especially in terms of it's goals. And, like any RW rant I have read, it is full of factual errors.

It refers to Roger N, Beachy and claims he was "director of the Monsanto Danforth Center". The Danforth Center which Beachy founded was a non-profit. Although Monsanto was part of the founding alliance, it also included the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, Purdue University, and Washington University in St. Louis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_N._Beachy

It also refers to Michael Taylor, who began his career as a staff attorney for the FDA. He did go back and forth between Monsanto abd the FDA, but he has quite a bit of experience working for the FDA.

Taylor has had a long and distinguished career in public service. He began at the FDA in 1976 as a litigating attorney. He served as the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Policy from 1991 to 1994, overseeing FDA's policy development and rulemaking, including the implementation of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act and issuance of new seafood safety rules.

From 1994 to 1996, he served at the U.S. Department of Agriculture as Administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and Acting Under Secretary for Food Safety. During that time, he spearheaded public health-oriented reform of the FSIS. Since 2000, Taylor has worked in academic and research settings on the challenges facing the nation’s food safety system and ways to address them.

Taylor’s recent research agenda has focused on policy, resource, and institutional issues that affect the success of public health agencies in carrying out their prevention-related missions. He served as chair of the steering committee of the Food Safety Research Consortium, collaboration among six universities and a nonprofit think tank to improve food safety decision making and priority setting.

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/2009/ucm170842.htm

I am reminded of Obama's 2008 campaign promise not to appoint any former lobbyists. The only problem was that once he was elected the only people who were qualified had worked for lobbying firms at one time or another.

I am not at all happy about these people having previous ties with firms such as Monsanto, but their ties are not as egregious as, for instance, Cheney's ties to Halliburton. Although I not not always agree with Obama, I am glad that he is appointing people who are qualified for their positions.

I do not like Monsanto at all, but much of this Monsanto "poutrage" that I have seen is unjustified and obviously a ploy by anti-Obamites to discredit him and the Dems in general.

I do not like a lot of what I see, but we need to put the blame where it belongs.