A US company that was secretly profiling hundreds of food and environmental health advocates in a private web portal has said it has halted the operations in the face of widespread backlash, after its actions were revealed by the Guardian and other reporting partners.
One client of more than 20 years is Syngenta, a Chinese government enterprise-owned company currently being sued by thousands of people in the US and Canada who allege they developed the incurable brain disease Parkinson’s from using Syngenta’s paraquat weed killers.
The profiles – part of an effort that was financed, in part, by US taxpayer dollars – often provided derogatory information about the industry opponents and included home addresses and phone numbers and details about family members, including children.
He said the articles published about the company’s profiling and private web portal were part of a “smear campaign” which was based on “false and misleading misrepresentations” that were “not supported by any facts or evidence”.
The St Louis, Missouri-based company, v-Fluence, said it is shuttering the service, which it called a “stakeholder wiki”, that featured personal details about more than 500 environmental advocates, scientists, politicians and others seen as opponents of pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops.
